Deciding What To Do
In responding to an issue, you must strike a balance between implementing a strategy quickly and slowing down long enough to engage in a coolheaded analysis.
Always consult your everyday social media team and relevant insiders who are key decision makers so that you can make the most informed decisions possible. Use these pointers to keep you on track:
Determine how urgent the situation is: Don’t allow a couple of hot comments to get you anxious that an online crisis is actively brewing, because that information alone can be very misleading. If you believe this is an urgent situation, discuss the solution with all internal parties involved as soon as possible.
Bring in the right people: Consider who from your organization should be brought in on this situation. Contact customer service, sales, or marketing, if those departments are involved. If you need more help, turn to Chapter 16 and familiarize yourself with more in-depth guidelines to crisis communication. Move quickly, though — time is of the essence.
Determine a solution: Once all the parties involved have been consulted, it’s time to determine and begin implementing a strategy to communicate your solution.
Different situations call for different solutions. Sometimes you must come out swinging — and sometimes you just have to take one on the chin. For instance, if suddenly one Thursday all the red widgets you sold turned out to be pink, you should apologize to the affected customers and offer to make things right (in whatever way that makes sense) as soon as possible.
Keep your back-up teams on standby: Notify your crisis and executive teams that an issue is brewing so that they can step in if they determine that the problem has a larger scope than you realized, given the information that you have to make a decision. They may have a different perspective that sheds further light on the topic.
They also need to be mentally prepared as much as possible so that if they are called into action they will be ready to move fast.
Craft your response message: Take a little time to carefully consider how you want to respond to the issue at hand. For example, you can apologize about something a few different ways. Frame your message most effectively by making it short enough to tweet. Some other key considerations include
• Understand how social media can explode a topic in hours.
• Create trust by maintaining transparency, even if doing so is embarrassing for you or your organization.
“The dog ate my homework” didn’t even work in grade school. Advise your team about blame shifting. It can seem like an effective tactic, but if your brand is at all responsible for the situation at hand, it can easily make problems much worse. When your brand is (or isn’t) responsible, acknowledge that responsibility honestly.
• Discover your silver linings to this storm cloud, such as gaining a new perspective on your brand’s persona, learning about problems that need to be fixed, and converting critics into fans.
Validating concerns
Look for opportunities for when you can do something about the situation at hand, if only to express concern. If reasonable people are making negative comments about your brand, apologize and offer them something special, such as a trial use, bonus item, or special discount.
People want to be heard, understood, and to have their concerns validated. I call this the Triumvirate of Online Reputation Management. Some ways to address this triumvirate include
Following people who complain and comment
Being sensitive
Apologizing when necessary
Looking for common ground
Taking it offline as quickly as possible
Discerning the source of their objections
Engaging just enough
Don’t bother trying to please everybody online. It simply can’t be done. Occasionally people on your social media team may be inclined to respond to the same commenter or group of commenters back and forth, comment for comment, instead of making a statement and then reinforcing it with your other fans and brand advocates online.
Overengaging is sometimes the worst thing you can do for your online reputation. It signals to people trying to provoke you that they’re “getting to you,” which only fuels the fire.
It also signals to search engines that something interesting is going on and needs to be elevated in the page rankings. Believe me, you don’t want this kind of attention online.
By responding immediately and often in a state of “false alarm,” you can actually escalate your own issue and transform it from a flakey series of comments to a full-blown online firestorm.
The best way you can know if you’re overengaging is to check out the online influence of your commenters. If they don’t have much influence, just say one kind, accurate, balanced thing to let them know you are listening to them. Then just let it go.