Social media community management can be challenging and rewarding for brands looking to build their reputation. Balancing content creation and curation, posting, social listening, and engagement can positively impact brand efficacy in engaging its audience. When brands experience a social media crisis, online community management and engagement can become difficult. Integrating a crisis communication plan into your online community management strategy can prevent and alleviate such situations.
The Ideal Situation for Social Media Community Management
Like other digital marketing initiatives, social media marketing is part of an omnichannel strategy that includes paid and organic outreach, user- and internally-created content, and appropriate KPIs and analytics. Effective social media strategies target a specific audience, highlight specific brand themes, and curate and create content that reflects that particular brand.
Social listening and monitoring are also critical for effective community management, allowing brands to determine the flow and tone of online conversations. Recording and measuring specific social media analytics and KPIs is essential to successful community management.
Social media managers face the challenge of creating an effective workflow that integrates these elements. Although creating an effective workflow can be challenging, effective community management can be maintained.
Why You Need a Crisis Management Plan
Although many brands avoid overt controversy, a post that does not match its tone or messaging can adversely impact online perceptions and conversations. Breaking news about particular subjects can also adversely affect a brand’s outreach. Crises that impact brand reputation such as security breaches and staff issues may need to be publicly addressed through real-time social media outreach. Managing an online community through a difficult time while maintaining an effective workflow can be especially challenging without preparation.
Although many brands try to handle their social marketing campaigns professionally, some situations lead to a crisis that potentially compromises their reputation. Preparing a crisis management plan as part of an overall social media strategy can alleviate these concerns. Setting up specific strategies, procedures, and processes to handle brand crises online can ease community management during stressful times. A crisis management plan is necessary for any social media campaign to ensure smooth handling and brand integrity.
Crafting the Ideal Social Media Crisis Management Plan
The components of an ideal crisis management plan include
- Create/Enforce an Internal Social Media Policy – Although most brands and businesses may already have this in place, a formal social media policy can mitigate the negative impact of social media during a brand crisis.
- Monitoring and Listening to Identify Potential Crises – Using social media monitoring and listening tools and other strategies such as media monitoring and Google Alerts that can capture brand mentions can determine appropriate trends, conversation patterns, and potential troubleshooting opportunities.
- Identifying Key Team Members – Integrating social media governance guidelines into crisis communications planning fosters a more immediate and effective response. Knowing what individuals are responsible for particular duties during a crisis ensures effective outreach and mitigation of potential damage to brand reputation.
- Determine Appropriate Response Protocols – Identifying specific protocols with a social media crisis management plan can ensure that a brand responds immediately and appropriately through cross-channel outreach and mitigation.
- Determine and Measure Analytics for Success – Developing and measuring specific analytics for a social media crisis management plan provides insight into campaign effectiveness and can inform future crisis mitigation strategies.
Prevention is the best method for handling a potential brand crisis through social media. Crisis mitigation and customer service through controversy and crisis can be difficult without having formal strategies and procedures in place. Responsible social media community management must include formal crisis mitigation planning to foster a proactive approach to ensuring brand integrity and reputation.
Author: Gordon Dymowski
B2B Social Media Marketing Consultant/Copywriter
Gordon Dymowski is a B2B social media consultant and copywriter working with small to medium-sized businesses around audience engagement, lead generation, and driving revenues. Gordon has assisted various organizations in social media strategy, engagement, and analytics with a specific focus on healthcare, technology, and mission-driven ventures. He is also a fiction writer who has written for various independent publishers.
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