Creating a Social Media Marketing Crisis Plan

Did you know that when the US Airways plane landed in the Hudson River on January 12, 2009 the first news sent out was a Tweeted picture?  Then, within minutes hundreds of people around the world knew about what happened, and they didn’t find out about it on the news.  So what is the lesson here?  Create a social media marketing crisis plan for your company.

Hopefully you will never have to use this crisis plan, but you need to be prepared for anything that comes your way in the future.  There are two main crises that your small business should focus on to maintain a level of smart marketing:

Overblown customer complaint: It can happen to any small business out there, but if you have a social media marketing crisis plan it can be easier to handle than you might think.  Let’s say you post a new blog and a current customer of yours reads it and is highly upset by the blog’s content.  In turn they leave negative feedback in a comment on the blog or they update their Twitter or Facebook page with negativity.

The first step that needs to be an ongoing process as a small business anyways is building strong, valuable relationships with your customers.  This can be accomplished by providing original, useful information on a continuous basis.  Customers will learn to appreciate and value all of the information you are giving them and they will learn to really trust everything you have to say.

Unfortunate Publicized Event: Picture this: your small business appears on the evening news for something that happened at your company that day.  Or how about this viral Twit Pic that has been circulating around the Internet for the past few days: Seriously.  Your immediate reaction might be panic, but what you really need to implement is prevention and precaution.  After an event like this, social media sites (including your blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts) should be updated as quickly as possible with timely, correct information for your clients.

Not only does this show your customers that you care about your small business, it also shows that you care about your customers as individuals.  Taking the time to update your social media sites lets your customers know that they come first.  Although I all wish and hope that an event like either of the above mentioned never happens to your small business, I do want to ensure that you and your company are protected.  The quickest and simplest way to do this is to implement a social media marketing crisis plan that can be followed whenever a business-threatening event happens.