Businesses can benefit from social media marketing services and an active social media presence. With over half the world’s population on at least one social media platform, starting a business account on relevant social media platforms can boost your visibility, expand your network, engage with users looking for your products and services and provide customers with after-sales support.
But in an age of cancel and call-out culture, one public relations (PR) crisis may be enough to impact your brand negatively. And given the fast-paced nature of the digital world, bad reviews, harmful spam reviews, or any feedback about your business on social media can travel fast. That’s why a social media review response and crisis management strategy is essential for any business.
But having around-the-clock monitoring for social media comments and reviews can be difficult for any small business. So, here’s what you need to know about having a social media review response strategy, how it can minimize reputational damage and how your business can benefit from a social media strategy for emergencies with a social media review response service from Rize Reviews.
What Is Social Media Emergency Response?
A social media emergency response is typically a part of a crisis communication plan. Social media in emergency management should mitigate the damage that a PR event, false news spread on social media, or adverse public reaction to the brand can have on the brand’s reputation. To avoid lasting damage that can incite boycotts or loss of loyal customers, having an effective response strategy can minimize the effects of a damaging crisis.
Not everything negative said on social media can be considered a crisis that results in significant financial loss. But with a social media review response plan, you can develop brand messaging for social media in emergency management and mitigate the effects of negative feedback affecting your business.
Benefits of Social Media Emergency Response
Having a review response plan ahead of time can mitigate the effects a crisis can have on your brand image. Some of the benefits of having a social media strategy for emergencies ahead of time include:
Faster Response Time
Rather than waiting for higher-ups to decide what to do, your social media professionals already have a playbook of what to do. Planning ahead of time can be a valuable tool to have later on.
In 2013, Southwest Airlines nosedived into LaGuardia Airport. Immediately after the incident, the brand’s social media accounts addressed the issue by providing live updates. Their swift response made them one of the first to report and take control of both the story and social insights. This crisis communications plan resulted in positive feedback for their initiative and responsiveness.
Proactive Steps To Prevent a Repeat Incident
If the issue was due to your brand’s service or someone affiliated with your business, you could address it by recognizing a lapse that your business model has and can improve on by acting on it.
For example, in 2019, singer SZA used Twitter to call out a Sephora employee who accused her of stealing, which snowballed into racial profiling claims. Sephora apologized for the event, eventually closing all its stores in the U.S. for an hour to attend diversity and inclusivity workshops.
Separate Yourself From Your Competitor’s Actions
Even if a competitor caused the crisis for themselves, there’s a chance that your brand could get lumped in if you’re also guilty of the same actions.
Take, for example, fast fashion’s unsustainable practices. When topics of fashion and sustainability become viral on social media, users can name-drop brands that are also guilty of fast fashion, even if they weren’t the cause of the discussion in the first place.
Avoid Being Avoidant
If it takes time for your brand to address the issue, it can come across as your business trying to bury the story or ignore the problem until it goes away.
Fyre Festival was one of the best examples of brands avoiding the issue and ignoring feedback until it was too late. Although the event and the ensuing social media storm is a model example of a social media crisis, documentaries from Hulu and Netflix show that they needed a social media emergency review response way before the festival. Their failure to address concerns on social media gave many the impression that they were avoiding the issues.
Preventing Social Media Crises
There’s no telling how a crisis can arise. It could be through a misunderstood post, the claims of another person, or an unexpected incident that now affects your image brand. Still, preventative measures, social listening tools and a social media strategy for emergencies can reduce the risk of stirring a social media crisis that will warrant crisis communications. Here are some ways to prevent it:
- Establish a social media policy. This policy list should be essentially the bible of your social media professionals. It should include processes like handling certain complaints, comments and queries, the appropriate channels for approving social media posts and guidelines on matters like copyright usage.
- Tighten security on social media accounts. Enable two-step authentication and other security measures to avoid hacks or losing account control. If possible, ensure that your social media professionals only access these accounts from company devices. Doing this can prevent them from accidentally publishing personal posts using the brand’s account.
- Be careful with what you post. Moment marketing is popular on social media – that is, taking something that’s currently viral and then referencing it on your social media. However, be careful if it’s a controversial or sensitive topic, as your brand can come across as tone-deaf and making light of a serious issue. For instance, don’t be like Kenneth Cole when they hijacked #Cairo (in light of the violent uprising in Egypt) to advertise their new collection. Look into the social insights, a viral trend, or hashtag before jumping in with your brand.
When Does a Business Need a Crisis Communications Plan?
No brand is immune to a social media crisis. You might be following social media best practices, but social media marketing services can only go so far when a crisis hits. It’s easy for an unexpected event or something completely out of your control to tarnish your brand reputation.
Because of the unexpectedness of a crisis, the best time to develop a social media strategy for emergencies is when it hasn’t happened yet. While you can’t predict what kind of crisis it will be, having a plan can speed up your business’ response plan to any emergency that arises. The faster your social media response, the faster your brand can take control of the crisis.
How Rize Reviews Can Help You Build Your Social Media Response Strategy
You may already have a social media team, but around-the-clock monitoring for reviews and comments can be an uphill task for a small business’ social media team. With Rize Review’s social listening tools and review monitoring software, we can help you develop a crisis communications plan, monitor your socials and recommend ways to respond using social media best practices.
Rize is your reputation management company that can help you mitigate the effects of negative reviews and feedback for your brand online. With our team, we can help minimize any social media crisis by monitoring for reviews. So rather than your social media professionals monitoring your platforms constantly, we can provide updates every time someone posts a negative review or comment about your brand.
From there, we can help mitigate the effects of a negative brand image with our social media marketing services, such as responding to reviews the right way. We can recommend social media best practices on how to address negative comments and reviews, mitigate their effects on your brand image and even put a positive spin on them to improve your customers’ experience.
Protect Your Brand From a Social Media Crisis With Rize Reviews
In many cases, you can’t predict when a social media crisis will hit your brand, which can ruin your reputation and make you lose loyal customers. However, by being prepared with the right brand messaging and a process in place, you can immediately take hold of your brand and control a crisis as quickly as possible with social media in emergency management.
Rize Reviews is your partner for managing your brand reputation online. Get in touch with our team today to learn more about what we can do for you before and during an unexpected crisis that threatens your reputation.
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