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Crisis Communications & Social Media

Britt Farrar, APRDec. 6, 2012

Uh-Oh!

Types of Crisis

Victim• Natural disasters• Workplace

violence• Rumors• Product

tampering

Accidental• Technical –error

accidents• Technical –error

product harm• Company’s

operations called into question

Preventable• Human error• Organizational

misdeed• Management

misconduct

Social Care

• Influence• How many followers?• What else are do they

discuss?• Engagement

• RTs?• Responses?

What is a crisis for you?

Put social media policies in place:• Employee guidance• External procedures

Protect yourself.

• Who is listening for your organization?• When are they listening?• What tools are you using?• What is night and weekend coverage

practices?

Listen.

Monitoring tools

Have a plan before you need it.

• Who can respond on behalf of your organization?

• How nimble is your approval process?• Do you already have an established

presence on the major social media platforms?

• What are the worse case scenarios?• Do you have standby messages in place?

Participate.

• Put all the information in one place.

• Be sorry.• Allow complaints.• Take it offline.• Follow the rule of three.

Strength in numbers.

• Build brand ambassadors in your customers.

• Build relationships with industry influencers.

• Arm your employees with training and accurate information.

Crisis can be opportunity.

• 11.2M website hits in one day after the Kansas game

• 7,500% increase in use of #vcu on Twitter

• $250,000 donation from Mayor Bloomberg

• Influencers rallied around the organization

Big Bird, Big Win

{Questions?

Britt Farrar, APR