Detecting A Social Media Crisis vs. A Social Media Issue

In yesterday’s post I identified the difference between a social media crisis and a social media issue, and as Jeff Haws, of Grizzard Communications Group, Inc., tweeted:

“Spoiler: You’d prefer an issue.”

Jeff is definitely right. But how can your social media monitors easily detect when an irritating and overwhelming social media attack is either a crisis or an issue that needs to be dealt with? What are the red flags that clearly define a social media crisis vs. a social media attack?

Detecting the red flags of a social media crisis

If you can answer “yes” to any of the following questions, it’s highly likely that you can consider your brand in a social media crisis – and it’s time to activate your crisis communications plan.

• Is there, or is there the potential to be, a strong negative emotional impact?
• Does the issue or situation fall under your brand’s pre-determined categories of crisis situations?
• Is the situation, or is there potential for the situation to go viral?
• May this situation result in potential reputational damage to your brand?

Examples of social media issues

If the above questions don’t give you a clear-cut answer to understanding the impact and potential of the situation at hand, here are some examples of social media issues. They should give you an idea of how overwhelming and potentially harmful these issues may be, but when compared to the above questions, the answer is not yet a clear-cut “yes”.

Examples of social media issues include:

• A campaign-gone-wrong situation (case study example: Bic-For-Her)
• Negative comments or discussions being posted online (case study example: Starbucks Argentina)
• Unacceptable comments
• Negative customer service issues
• The circulation of online rumors
• Online technical errors that have the potential of resulting in unhappy customers who will post their complaints online (case study example: Boingo)
• Miscommunications on behalf of the brand (case study example: American Red Cross)

When in doubt, the above should give you a good understanding of what type of online attack you’re dealing with, what the potential impact is on your brand and which communications plan to activate a.s.a.p. in order to overcome the situation. Remember that just because a situation is an “issue” rather than a “crisis”, doesn’t mean that, without the proper communications, it won’t develop into something further.

Join me tomorrow, when I will take you through the last and final step of this three-part series: helping you prepare for both a social media crisis and a social media issue!