The

Social Media
Crisis Management
Plan
HUBSPOT | Social Media Crisis Management Plan 1
 Introduction
Uh oh. Something just got posted to your company’s social media account that shouldn’t be there. Now, commenters
are jumping in posting criticism, adding insult to injury. Your stomach is in your throat and your brain is kicking into
panic mode. What should you do? How should you respond? Should you ask for help? Is this your fault?

It’s in these moments that having a social media crisis management plan is so critical. That way, you can quickly put
out the fire without inciting further damage.

Sometimes, social media mistakes are inconsequential. Other times, they can be more serious and have a huge effect
on your business’ bottom line. Of course you always want to use good judgment in your day-to-day activities, but
companies are run by humans -- and humans sometimes make mistakes. When a mistake happens, you can expect
people to take to social networks to talk about your company.

When a problem arises on social media, you can follow these quick steps:

1. Ask yourself whether this is a real crisis.

2. If it is, own it. (Quickly.)
3. Have a plan.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps. In this guide we’ll address the difference between a problem and a
crisis, how you can become an expert problem solver, what to do if you’re actually involved in a crisis, and how you can
create your own social media crisis management plan.

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 Contents

04 Problem or Crisis? Determining Urgency &

Level of Importance

06 Becoming an Expert Problem Solver

09 Creating Your Crisis Management Plan

11 In Case of Emergency: A Marketer’s Checklist

05 Final Thoughts & Additional Resources

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 Problem or Crisis?
Determining Urgency and Level of Importance
You might recall hearing a bit of negative news
regarding Food Network chef, Paula Deen,
back in 2013. She was caught making racist
comments in a videotaped deposition she gave
as part of a $1.2 million discrimination lawsuit
that was filed against her by a former employee.
This was immediately a huge problem for her
brand, but it could have ended at being just a
problem. Instead, this problem quickly escalated
into a crisis because she resisted giving a public
apology until it was too late.

The outcome significantly affected her

brand’s bottom line. She lost $12.5 million in
endorsements and major sponsors including a (Image source: CBS News on YouTube)
cookbook publisher and her show on The Food
Network. She also came across as whiny and victimized in her late and ingenuine public response, which pushed her to
became headline news for 20+ months.

Social Media Marketing World speaker, Gini Dietrich, suggests that if Paula Deen had quickly (and genuinely)
apologized for making racist remarks, her problem would not have escalated into a crisis. Empathy goes a long way
-- it ends crises quickly, limits damage, and restores reputations. The Deen crisis had the potential to turn into great PR
for taking a stand against racism, which would have switched the negative news off. If this were the case, she’d still
have her reputation, sponsors, and $12.5 million in annual revenue.

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 So what is the difference between a problem and a crisis? As you’ll see in the Excel template included in this kit,
examples of crises include natural disasters, issues with the stock market, and white collar crime. The reason these
fall under the ‘crisis’ category is because they can have long-term repercussions on your brand’s reputation if you
don’t act accordingly. There’s also often a loss of money involved and you must respond within 60 minutes. A
problem, however, is not necessarily harmful to your brand’s reputation, it doesn’t affect your company’s bottom line,
and it can escalate into a crisis if not handled immediately -- so you still need to respond within the first hour.

When a HubSpot employee accidentally posted a picture of her

pregnant belly to HubSpot’s company Twitter account, that was a
problem. However, the situation was cleared up within 15 minutes
and no long-term harm was done. We ended up deleting the tweet
and the pregnant culprit issued a blog post to share her mistake with
the world. It was a very human mistake, and we wanted to share the
lessons we learned with the world.

A tweet can turn into a crisis when it’s clear that there’s been
deliberate insensitivity and there is no apology issued. An example
that few have forgotten about is when fashion designer Kenneth Cole
made an insensitive tweet around the protests in Egypt in 2011. It’s
clear that his intention was to capitalize on the buzz, believing that all
PR is good PR. This is not the case when your PR turns into a crisis
that impacts your stock prices in a negative way, which is exactly what
happened to Kenneth Cole.

Most difficult scenarios you’ll face will be problems. The challenge

then is to not let a problem become a crisis that affects your
company’s bottom line. The next sections of this guide will dive into
how you can become an expert problem solver, and what to do when
a problem does escalate into a crisis.

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 Becoming an Expert
Problem Solver
When it comes to solving everyday problems, Jay Baer, President of Convince & Convert, would tell you to “hug your
haters.” Answering complaints increases customer advocacy, while not answering complaints decreases customer
advocacy. You should be answering every complaint, on every channel, all of the time. Most people don’t follow this
rule because 1) they don’t see the complaints, 2) they don’t want to dignify the complaint, or 3) complaints are too
numerous. So instead, social media managers will answer some complaints, in some channels, some of the time.
Unfortunately, this approach ends up hurting your brand because complaints can escalate and put you at risk for a
crisis. Haters are not actually the problem; ignoring them is.

So why is it worth the effort to reply to every complaint, all of the time? First off, complainers start appearing before
you even know you have a problem -- they are your early warning sign. This is actually a good thing ... but only if you
listen. Second, people who complain are actually giving you a chance to turn the situation around and make it right. If
you respond to a bad situation with a quick, empathetic answer, you might even turn that complainer into an evangelist
who promotes your brand or becomes a customer on the spot. The most dangerous customers aren’t the ones who
complain, but rather the people who have no opinion whatsoever and disappear before you even know you need to
save them. Finally, when you ignore a complaint, it really just fuels a fire that your brand started to begin with. We’re
only human, and everyone makes mistakes. So when you’re responding to a complainer, be sure to respond to a
human complaint with a human response.

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 The best way to calm a problem is to take the complaint offline immediately. Provide the complainer with a space for
you to have a private, 1:1 conversation so you can find out what really went wrong. Most online complainers simply
want an audience to broadcast their complaint and actually don’t expect to receive a response. If you can pleasantly
surprise a complainer in 60 minutes or less, you’ll have the chance to turn them into an evangelist.

Airline company KLM does a great job with setting expectations regarding response time. They show you how long
it’ll take you to get an answer on their Facebook and Twitter header photos. These are changed every 5 minutes,
so you know it’s always accurate. Today, KLM has 150 full time people answering questions in social media alone.
They answer 60,000 questions a week, 24 hours a day, in 14 different languages. This is an extreme example, but it’s
important to note that anyone can set clear expectations with their brand’s response time -- it could be as simple as
adding an estimated response time as a line in your bio.

(Image source: KLM’s Facebook Page)

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 Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when crafting your responses. Talk to your public relations and legal teams
about specific topics that you should avoid discussing (e.g. revenue performance or partnerships) and confirm
the best way to reach them. It’s helpful to meet other teams like PR and Legal and talk to them beforehand about
expectations. You might find that your customer support department will aggregate soundbites for these types of
situations, and you can base the modifications you use for social media on those. Having experience in customer
support will help you prepare diplomatic responses and to escalate to the right people. If you don’t already have this
experience, try working more closely with your services teams to understand how they communicate information and
perfect the company’s tone.

When it comes to a problem where you or your company were in the wrong, it’s important to apologize quickly and
sincerely. Don’t take it personally, apologize, and take it offline. Use statements such as, “We apologize for X,” or
“We are very sorry for Y.” Next, let the public know how you’re going to fix it. For example, you could say, “We are
are looking into the issue and will update you by 12:00PM,” or “Moving forward, we will put our time and resources
towards educating people on this problem so we can change it for the better.”

If the problem sounds like it could be a PR/security/legal issue and you haven’t heard of it before, it’s probably good
to get a second opinion. More specifically, you should always move up the chain to a manager or authority figure any
time someone threatens violence or a lawsuit, questions hiring practices, talks about insider information, or mentions
something that could be damaging to your company/executives/partnerships.

If you’re experiencing a real crisis, you should always involve other team members to help you come up with a
solution -- your public relations team and possibly legal or security, depending on the issue. You want to balance
acting quickly with acting wisely -- the last thing you want to do is make a crisis worse. Also ask yourself who else
might be affected by this -- that question will tell you whether you need to bring in PR, legal, someone from customer
support, or a sales account manager. It’s possible you might rope in a manager, but if you have enough preparation
in place you should be able to cut out the middleman and just report as things are going on, not necessarily before.
Don’t necessarily ask people just to have other opinions; ask people who might have information you don’t or who
have a well-honed sense of good judgment (especially if you are still honing your own).

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 Creating Your Crisis
Management Plan
Here’s the part where you open your Excel spreadsheet that was included in this kit. Note that this is simply a template
for you to use as a guideline -- you’ll need to add in specific scenarios that happen in your particular industry, or delete
rows and columns that don’t make sense for your brand. To get started with this plan, you’ll want to get in a room with
a representative from your PR and legal departments and brainstorm every possible scenario that could happen to you.
Then, do a risk assessment. Is this a problem or a crisis? Will it affect the company’s bottom line? What is the point of
escalation for this problem? Make your best guess and write it down.

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 Have an established chain of command ready to go with resources available and key phrases to look for. Know the
chain of command and report it as soon as you sense trouble. With this, make sure you monitor everything from
hashtags to search engines (in real-time), identify the red flags, and assign someone (or a team) to the task. In a crisis
you’ll need to stop all promotion including ads, social media posts, emails … everything! You’ll see a full a checklist in
the next section of this guide.

Once you’ve filled out your entire Excel sheet, you’ll need to come up with a plan/response for each scenario. Confirm
with the people in your chain of command whether there’s a specific soundbite you’re supposed to use. Create a
holding statement that mentions that you are aware of the issue and you are looking into it. Be compassionate in your
answer and promise real-time updates with a date and time when you’ll be providing that update.

Sometimes it’s helpful to keep an ongoing list of FAQs for social media along with their canned (<140 character)
answers. Obviously most of the time you don’t want to tell people to say the same thing to everyone (ick!), but for
really delicate or technical situations it’s helpful to have something to work from so you don’t have to keep reaching
out. In general, try to be diplomatic, comment only on what you know, and move communication offline as quickly as
possible.

Practice makes perfect. You should run a drill with your email, PR, etc. teams before a crisis actually happens. Have
clear expectations of roles and point people for specific issues with available resources about those issues. Run
training for everyone beforehand on where these things are and how the day will work including a list of FAQs in one
easy-to-find location. If you’re using this plan for an event, you should also print this information out so it’s on-hand.

Okay, let’s recap. First, you want to define all your potential scenarios. Next, you should assess the potential risks and
categorize them. After that, define your stakeholders and audiences; who needs to know about this problem? Once
you’ve determined who’s involved, develop your holding statements and response protocol. Finally, practice the crisis
from first warning signs to putting out the fire -- make sure you have your social media accounts set up so you can
monitor everything and have two-way conversations.

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 In Case of Emergency:
A Marketer’s Checklist
Below is a checklist to consider for quickly catching and limiting a crisis situation:

Pause scheduled social media posts

Pause paid ads on social media channels
Pause marketing emails
Assess planned blogging and campaign schedule for appropriateness
Create blog entry addressing situation as needed
Provide talking points for executives as needed
Check all content for relevant references that could be perceived as offensive or rude in light of the event
Cancel any planned product updates or changes
Create plan for employee communications as needed
Communicate office impact / updates via social media
Communicate issues with customer support via social media
Notify folks speaking that day on need to address (or not) and relevant talking points

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 Final Thoughts &
Additional Resources
By now, you should feel confident with your social media crisis management plan, including a chain of command and
appropriate responses for each scenario. You now know the difference between a problem and a crisis, and what
to do when a situation escalates. If you feel like you’re missing out these initial complaints due to the type of social
media software you’re using, grab a free trial of HubSpot’s Social Inbox by clicking the image below. With this, you’ll
get notifications sent to your email inbox anytime someone mentions a trigger word that indicates there’s a crisis
approaching.

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