Photo by cottonbro studio

Imagine a favorite brand that you follow suddenly changes everything about their social media marketing. Emojis are dropped, accessibility is not a priority, hashtags suddenly have commas, and the brand look and feel have transformed. Is this the same brand that you loved? Not at all. 

Marketing consistency builds trust, and transparency, and sets expectations for your community, your customers, and your brand. Continuity planning helps you maintain your consistency to weather disruptions.

We’ve all seen the posts in Facebook Groups, calls for help, asking how to get back into my social media account, and the dreaded trial and error of account verification, login loops, and two-factor authentication. We’ve all seen that clear delineation line when one social media manager leaves the management of a channel and the tone, copy, language, and brand changes overnight. 

Social media continuity planning goes beyond a password login or an admin role and is not a process you undertake in the two-week notice of your social media manager leaving your company.  

In broad strokes, continuity planning analyzes, builds, and refines a plan in the event of business disruption. In terms of social media marketing, these disruptions can be broad or narrow in their impact, duration, and scale of response. 

Common marketing scenarios that could be addressed with continuity planning may include:

• • Platform Outages: A popular social media platform experiences a temporary outage.
  • Account Compromise: A social media account is hacked or account access is lost due to staffing changes.
  • Algorithm/Platform Changes: Social media algorithms change affecting the visibility of your content or a platform shifts to a subscription model for core functionality. 
  • Crisis Communications: A crisis occurs, and there’s a need for immediate social media activation. 
  • Employee Turnover: Key personnel responsible for social media management leave the company.
  • Regulatory or Vendor/API Changes: Regulatory changes or Vendor/API changes roll out new guidance that impact your marketing.
  • Emerging Social Media Platforms: A new social media platform gains popularity and you’ve been tasked with figuring out if this new platform fits with your existing marketing.

How can you plan for social media continuity now?

Much like a crisis communications plan, it’s best to be proactive with a continuity plan rather than strategizing on the fly. Continuity planning is extensively behind-the-scenes work that shapes marketing. How can you audit your logistics, documentation, and human capital to support social media continuity planning?

Be Curious About Logistics

1. Ask yourself what continuity support is already in place. This could take the form of recovery strategies, documentation, or staff training/onboarding.  
2. Identify the most valuable content and connections within your organization. This can be software access or individuals who are training on social media for the organization as a whole.  Who are your people and what are their potential roles in a continuity plan? 
3. Conduct a risk assessment for potential threats (e.g., platform outages, account hijacking). A risk assessment will help you ultimately build a continuity plan that serves your business and your marketing. 
4. Seek clarity on how your account logistics. Explore how your accounts are currently set up, and who has different access, roles, and training on specific social media platforms, marketing tools, and/or software. Understanding the tools you have will better help you optimize the software at your disposal. Monitoring tools and social listening can help you proactively anticipate situations that may invoke continuity.

Don’t Ignore the Documentation

Explore your foundational marketing documentation. How long has it been since you reviewed, refined, and/or disseminated your style guide, social media brand guidelines, and/or marketing standard operating procedures? 

Invest In Your People 

1. Establish clear communication protocols for your team. Clear roles for continuity planning can help reduce the time to resolve an issue. 
2. Invite folks to the table to review your continuity plan including folks who may be very far removed from marketing/social media. 
3. Stress collaboration between marketing, IT, and security teams.
4. Work together. Discuss how these teams can work together to ensure a holistic approach to continuity planning.

If we revisit our marketing, social media, and/or business scenarios, let’s review what a continuity plan may look like: 

Marketing Scenario	Continuity Plan
Platform Outages: A popular social media platform experiences a temporary outage.	Maintain an active presence on alternative platforms. Use email lists or other communication channels to inform followers about the situation and provide updates.
Account Compromise: A social media account is hacked or account access is lost due to staffing changes.	Have a protocol in place for reporting and addressing security breaches. Quickly regain control of the account, communicate the situation transparently, and implement additional security measures.
Algorithm Changes Impacting Visibility: Social media algorithms change, affecting the visibility of your content.	Diversify content across platforms. Stay informed about algorithm updates and adjust content strategies accordingly. Focus on building a strong organic audience and consider paid promotions.
Crisis Communications: A crisis occurs, and there’s a need for immediate social media activation.	Establish a crisis communication plan, designating spokespersons and clear messaging. Leverage social media for real-time updates, and ensure consistency in messaging across all communication channels.
Employee Turnover: Key personnel responsible for social media management leave the company.	Cross-train team members on social media responsibilities. Document processes and access credentials securely. Ensure that there’s a smooth transition of responsibilities during personnel changes.
Regulatory or Vendor/API Changes: Regulatory changes or vendor/API changes roll out new guidance that impacts your marketing.	Stay informed about regulatory changes. Adjust marketing strategies to comply with new regulations and communicate any necessary changes transparently to the audience.
Emerging Social Media Platforms: A new social media platform gains popularity.	Evaluate audience adoption of new and emerging social media platforms and consider a social strategy that is sustainable to your team’s size. Adjust marketing strategies to reach audiences and support a new platform.

 

Extended your continuity planning beyond the borders of your Marketing team

Continuity planning is a business plan that has marketing origins, inviting stakeholders to the process, the table, and the evolution of your continuity plan. 

While this can feel like too many cooks in the kitchen, training team members on social media continuity procedures can advance an organization’s social media literacy, highlight the impact social media can have on business operations, and support the need for continuous skill development to adapt to evolving social media landscapes.

The Evolution of Your Continuity Plan 

Continuity planning much like our crisis communications and social media marketing strategy is not a “set it and forget it” marketing effort. Test your continuity plan, and review it for updates to align with changes in social media algorithms, policies, and technology, before you need to enact your continuity plan. Fortify your social media strategies, navigate disruptions effectively, and ensure continuity in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

Happy planning, marketers! Join our conversation on LinkedIn regarding continuity planning.

 

Author: Katy Spencer Johnson, SMS

Katy Spencer Johnson, SMS (she, her)  is a Social Media and Content Strategist, Educator, & Marketing Consultant. An advocate for social media best practices and digital literacy, Katy has worked in higher education, non-profit, finance, healthcare, and publishing industries, building content and community. Katy is a certified Social Media Strategist by the National Institute for Social Media. She wields a fairly mean editorial red pen and can be found with oddly, grammatically incorrect social media on X, Threads, and Instagram at @katyb_spencer and on LinkedIn.