Communicating during crisis

Are you the target of a bad buzz ? Negative content about you is spreading ? What to do in this case ? How to react and what process to put in place to prevent the risk ? 

With the arrival of social media, a simple negative review is enough to find yourself in a "bad buzz" that will severely impact your brand image. Nevertheless, with a well-defined strategy, these critical situations can be, almost, fixed with no harm ! 

Step 1.

In order to react quickly to a crisis on social networks, your brand must have a Social Listening strategy in place. Tools like Talkwalker or Karma can be very useful in these kind of situations. These tools crawl the internet and social media, looking for posts where your brand is mentioned.

Step 2.

Your brand needs to have a clear idea of what constitutes a real crisis on social media and a predefined protocol for responding (you don't want your teams to overreact to small issues)

Step 3.

Your teams need to acknowledge the problem in public and make sure that customer criticism is listened to.
This doesn't mean your brand has to admit to being at fault, but to acknowledge the problem.

Step 4.

Ask for forgiveness from your customers whether you are at fault or not. 

If your customers are not happy with your brand, you were at fault. A very basic "We're sorry you feel that way about our brand" may help to soften the angry crowd.

Step 5.

Most bad buzz on social networks can be avoided by clarifying a few misunderstandings caused by miscommunications.   

Remember! In times like these communication is key, and a well-managed crisis can win over disgruntled customers and turn them into brand ambassadors. Understanding, apology and empathy are all parts of a good "bad buzz" response.

We all need something. Sometimes you just have to put it out there...

Are you communicating about a new project? Is your next event a logistical challenge? Contact us and let's talk about it!

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