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PR Crisis eBook It’s not IF it happens. It’s WHEN.
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An organization or an individual receiving negative, humiliating, damaging publicity.
PR crises are serious. Disruptive. Damaging. The popularity of social media means that a crisis can be spread globally, in an instant.
Trying to stop a crisis going viral online, is akin to herding kittens.
What’s a PR crisis? Introduction
You’ll get a buzz from PR crisis management. If you do it well. Panic will get you nowhere, while balance keeps your brand on track.
Diffuse the situation, and potentially you can turn a minus into a plus. This special edition eBook walks you through before, during, and after a crisis.
Ready?
Every company should be prepared for the inevitable public relations crisis - data breach, executive scandal, negative review, failed event, badly planned marketing campaign.
Yes, an increasing number of brands do appreciate the importance of having a crisis management plan. But, according to a PR crisis survey conducted by PRNEWS and CS&A International, only 62% have one. With doubt as to how regularly they’re updated, meaning they’re not as prepared as they think.
This is not good news, folks. A PR crisis can hit any one of us.
Hit by a PR crisis, you’ll need a fast and carefully crafted response. We’re talking damage limitation, folks. It’s about protecting your brand reputation.
You’ll need a PR crisis communication plan and crisis team in place, BEFORE you need them. That’s not to say that when it happens, there’s nothing else to do.
A crisis will be a surprise. Your response should already be prepared. You’ll need holding statements, trained spokespeople, social media monitoring, crisis alerts, role play, and more.
Let’s get you locked and loaded... >>>>
04 Why your brand needs a crisis plan 04 When is a crisis a crisis? Not every issue is a crisis
05 Look who’s talking too! Look Listen Learn
05 Which PR crises demand action? Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
06 How to avoid a PR crisis Implement rules for content
Who can access your social media accounts?
Proof & proof again
10 11 steps to PR crisis management 1. Plan ahead
2. Create a crisis response team
3. Nominate & train your spokespeople
4. Create your PR crisis management plan
5. Create holding statement templates
6. Comms & intelligence
Table of contents
9. Accept responsibility & apologize
11. Channels of distribution
17 What not to do in a PR crisis Being an ostrich
A knee-jerk reaction
Picking the scab
20 Crisis management tools Real-time alerts
Image recognition
Video analytics
Sentiment analysis
33 Crisis management templates Crisis communication roadmap - minimize the risks and create
an effective plan
In case of emergency - crisis plan checklist - don’t miss vital steps
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Large or small, your business has to have a PR crisis management plan. A crisis management team. Crisis management tools.
Because, let’s be honest, it’s not IF it happens, it’s WHEN. It could be a teeny-weeny blip on Facebook that can be resolved with a painless, quick fix. Or, it could be a code red hitting all your social media accounts simultaneously, that needs the full crash team. Both with the potential to damage your brand reputation. Both needing prepared crisis management.
When you see a potential social media crisis emerging, you have to work through your crisis management checklist. This should include...
• Identifying the type and severity of the crisis
• Electing your crisis management team - including their contact details
• Creating your internal communication plan
• Setting up the approval process for messaging
• Agreeing pre-approved messages
Why your brand needs a crisis plan
When is a crisis a crisis?
Not every issue is a crisis…
Before panic sets in, ask yourself...
• Will this issue critically affect my company’s workflow or send the board into a frenzy?
• Will our brand’s reputation be damaged - stakeholders, customers, prospects, industry?
• Will our bottom line be disrupted?
You might think that any of the above would constitute a PR disaster. But, you’d ride them, if they occurred separately. Even a couple of them hitting simultaneously, would be manageable. All three?
PR CRISIS!
Before we talk about a full-blown crisis, let’s take a step back. Overreacting will heighten a potential issue.
Not every issue is a crisis… A negative review, a mocking social media post. These aren’t crises. Annoying, certainly. Reacting to them too strongly, can increase the potential for reputational damage. It can turn them into a PR crisis.
To determine the appropriate response, you need to categorize issues. Social media listening will help you recognize an issue that could become a PR crisis.
How do consumers currently feel about your brand?
If you can’t answer this question, how will you know if sentiment is shifting? Establish the average volume threshold of negative mentions for your brand with sentiment analysis. If you see a shift towards negativity, consider it a warning. You could be heading into a PR crisis situation.
Don’t stop monitoring. Running sentiment analysis during a crisis will determine how your customers, influencers, prospects, and your industry are reacting. How they’re reacting will carry significant weight and if negative, could harm your brand. Targeted responses are the answer.
Look who’s talking too! Which PR crises demand action?
A sudden drop in positive sentiment can be the first sign of a looking crisis.
There are three levels of PR crises that would require a swift and well- planned response from you.
Level 1 These have the potential to become a disaster. Your brand will struggle to walk away unscathed.
• Product recall - defective and/or unsafe goods
• Workplace harassment - intimidating, offensive, abusive, discriminating behavior
• Corporate impropriety - deception, theft, fraud, negligence, corruption, poor customer service
You’ll face negative media mentions across the board - press, social media, news channels, tv and radio. Your response has to be multichannel. Post your apology and explanation on your website, across social media, press and broadcast.
PR crisis management plan - no question.
Level 2 Less scary, but don’t ignore. Customer complaints and criticisms can be dealt with quickly, before they escalate into a disaster. Depending on where the comment appeared, determines whether the issue can be handled one-to-one or publicly. Monitor with social listening to catch early and respond quickly.
Level 3 If one of your competitors or related industries experiences a crisis, it could tarnish your brand reputation. By association. The solution is competitor analysis. You’re already monitoring your social media channels - I hope - so monitor those of your competitors. If you get a sniff of a potential issue, post a statement fast. Put distance between your brand and this oncoming crisis.
Track your competitors - listen to the chatter.
Establish guidelines for everything you post.
• Social media guidelines will help your brand avoid blunders. They need to be flexible, to allow for changes. These social best practices will guide your team, your company voice, the language you use. Guidelines will give context to your social media strategy.
• A social media policy is stricter. Your team should follow the policy, no question. A comprehensive policy will help you avoid legal issues and security problems. It’ll explain how your team should behave online. It’ll protect your brand’s reputation.
Who can access your social media accounts?
Scenario #1 Sharon had a great weekend. She had a few cocktails, went dancing with her besties, and took some selfies. How do I know? She posted her photos on Instagram. Unfortunately, she forgot to switch accounts, and posted from the company one.
Big oops!!!
How to avoid a PR crisis You can’t. However, you can minimize the risk, and come out the other side.
There are best practices you should follow, to avoid a PR crisis.
In 2017, Francoise Nyssen - the French Culture Minister - had her Twitter account hacked by the son of her community manager. The 13-year old tweeted insulting and inappropriate messages that when found, caused many red faces and were swiftly deleted.
Scenario #2 Harsh but true, Sharon was fired. Forgetting to switch accounts, meant she’d posted inappropriate content on the company account. Unhappy at losing her job, she let everyone know how she felt about being fired. Again, from the company account. Intentionally - it happens - or not, we’ll never know. The damage was done.
Proof & proof again You’re not just looking for spelling mistakes. You’re checking for leaks of company information and inappropriate content that will offend. Your PR crisis management social media plan should protect against anything that could potentially rock the boat.
Don’t be offensive! How many times have you seen brands overstepping the mark with their messaging? It’s quite simple. Involve other people and ask their opinion? If you’re in any doubt. Pull it.
Remember this?
Lose the fat fingers!
Who in their right mind… BTW - Charles is a New York Times columnist with 558.8K followers!
The tweet remained for several hours, without further enlightenment. Taking advantage of the possible error, Wendy’s gleefully jumped in.
Wendy’s had a laugh at McDonald’s expense.
Think! The CEO of PepsiCo - parent company of Doritos - claimed that women “don’t like to crunch too loudly in public. And they don’t lick their fingers generously and they don’t like to pour the little broken pieces and the flavor into their mouth.”
Hello, have we met? Worth pointing out that the PepsiCo CEO is a WOMAN!
The brand killed this product suggestion.
These muted handbag snacks never saw the light of day.
Fair play, McDonald’s didn’t delete the tweet. It took it on the chin and came back laughing. Sometimes the best way to deal with a social media blip...
Implement rules for content Social media messages, blog posts, press releases, interviews, etc. Nothing should be released that hasn’t been checked and approved. Nothing. Establish guidelines for everything you post.
• Social media guidelines will help your brand avoid blunders. They need to be flexible, to allow for changes. These social best practices will guide your team, your company voice, the language you use. Guidelines will give context to your social media strategy.
• A social media policy is stricter. Your team should follow the policy, no question. A comprehensive policy will help you avoid legal issues and security problems. It’ll explain how your team should behave online. It’ll protect your brand’s reputation.
Who can access your social media accounts?
Scenario #1 Sharon had a great weekend. She had a few cocktails, went dancing with her besties, and took some selfies. How do I know? She posted her photos on Instagram. Unfortunately, she forgot to switch accounts, and posted from the company one.
Big oops!!! But, not without a heap of laughter from social media users.
Unpredictable management behavior The CEO’s increasingly erratic behavior peaked, with a weed and whisky fueled interview, ONLINE. It went viral. OF COURSE. Stocks plummeted. Key executives quit.
Stone me, Musk pulled a blinder!
I’ll remind you at this point that what you don’t want to go viral… WILL GO VIRAL!
Fries & rats Fries and a rat with your burger?
No joke. A fast food brand in Delaware introduced a new special to its menu. One eagle-eyed customer caught the product launch on video and posted it online, where it was shared, again, and again, and again.
More haste, less speed Yes, time is of the essence. But, don’t rush in with your eyes closed. You’ll go smack into the first obstacle you come up against.
Shut up!
Take a breath! React emotionally and too quickly, and you’ll make the situation worse.
Most companies - probs all - will face a PR crisis at some point - it’s kinda inevitable. From bad reviews to a management scandal, a negative situation will have a powerful impact on your brand’s reputation.
You’ll make mistakes. You won’t be perfect. But you must be human. You must be honorable. Here are the steps you need to take that’ll get you to the end of the tightrope, without plunging into the abyss.
Just... eewwwwww!
There are three stages of a PR crisis…
1. Before 2. During 3. After The first and third, last forever. The second... feels like it lasts forever.
A PR crisis need not be a disaster. You can even win plaudits for how you respond, and it can help drive necessary change and improvements to your working methods. Follow my 11 steps to PR crisis management.
Remember... prepare, respond, reflect. 1. Plan ahead
2. Create a crisis response team
3. Nominate & train your spokespeople
4. Create your PR crisis management plan
5. Create holding statement templates
6. Comms & intelligence
8. Get the facts before you speak
9. Accept responsibility & apologize
11. Channels of distribution
11 steps to PR crisis management
1. Plan ahead Should you plan for something you don’t want to happen?
Yes. Yes. Yes. With your PR crisis plan in place, you and your team will save confusion and stress. When time is of the essence, you can’t afford to waste it trying to find the CEO’s mobile number, or being unable to post on social because the community manager is on holiday and no one knows the credentials.
You see where I’m coming from?
Avoid social media blunders You need to establish a social media protocol in your PR crisis comms plan.
Scheduling social media content makes life easier. In the event of a PR crisis, be sensitive to the situation. Are those planned social posts appropriate? Clear your social calendar and restrict to messages addressing the crisis. Post human responses to your audience’s comments.
Don’t lose your cool. Getting angry or defensive won’t do you any favors.
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2. Create a crisis response team A mishandled crisis is often caused by a leader going rogue. Thinking they can deal with the situation without working with their team.
If that’s you, listen to me. You will make things worse. You will be blamed. Your brand will suffer. Up to you. Build a PR crisis response team and listen to it. Make it diverse. Why? Because your audience is diverse - different races, genders, ages, perspectives, politics, etc.
Run your crisis response messages past the team.
Tony in accounts thinks the message is a winner. Dave in IT can’t relate to it. Steve in sales has scheduled a meeting with HR. Pete in operations hasn’t got a clue.
A diverse team will give you different perspectives. Could your messages be misinterpreted? Will they fuel the crisis fire? What works for some, may offend or baffle others.
I would suggest you test all future communication with them - marketing campaigns, press releases, posts, etc. - using them as a focus group to provide feedback.
Your PR crisis response team...
• List in order of priority, who should be notified when a crisis strikes. This will depend on the level of severity. Don’t start passing all negative tweets to your CEO. You’ll soon regret it.
• Ideally, your CEO should lead your crisis team, along with your head of PR and legal. Depending on the nature of the crisis, you’ll need people with knowledge related to the current crisis.
• Establish a chain of command and an approval process - CEO, marketing manager, legal, HR, etc.
• Before a crisis strikes, nominate who will speak on behalf of
your company - your media spokesperson. Reacting quickly and speaking with one voice is critical, as multiple voices will confuse and possibly exacerbate the situation.
• Who is responsible for communication? Your marketing team has to be involved - social media messages, press releases, blog posts, etc. Depending on the type of crisis, all comms should be passed by your CEO, legal team, HR.
Once you have your team defined, make sure that everyone in your company knows who to go to for answers to questions. You need to be on the same page, otherwise there’s a danger of a rogue team member - intentionally or accidentally - adding fuel to the fire.
Our virality map demonstrates how one negative news story was shared across social media.
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3. Nominate & train your spokespeople Your PR crisis response team should be made up of approved and trained team members. Assigning a person for each channel of communication may be the best way. You might have a great CEO - team leader, knowledgeable, trustworthy - who’s terrible on TV.
Your spokespeople must have...
• Skills that fit. Online comms? Good spelling would be an asset. On camera? Being camera shy isn’t going to work.
• Level of authority. The nature of the crisis will dictate the level of authority required. National disaster, loss of life - demands your CEO at the helm. Along with external communicators - TV, public meetings, radio, press - you’ll need someone internally to update the team.
• Appropriate training. This is about being prepared, ready to respond. This isn’t a marketing opportunity. It’s about protecting your reputation. Ensure your spokespeople are fully up to speed.
4. Create your PR crisis management plan When a crisis hits, you’ll be flooded with requests for information. To show that you’re in control of the situation, you have to be ready. This is when your crisis communication plan will come into its own. It should contain...
• A checklist of what needs to be done - it’s easy to miss steps when everyone’s running around like headless chickens
• Contact details of key people - aaargh… the head of support is on holiday and I don’t have the deputy’s mobile number
• Who you gonna call? Experts, friendly journalists, influencers, lawyers
• Draft messages - templates for press releases, social media posts, interview Q&As...
To draw up a dummy-plan, brainstorm with your PR crisis team. Get feedback from customer-facing teams - support, product, sales, legal, etc. Discuss all possible crises that could hit.
Yes, some are hard to predict, or admit to...
“Our product is perfect in every way. A product recall is not going to happen.”
If you can’t be brutally honest, we may as well stop now.
Some potential crisis situations are easy to predict - mass redundancies, buying out a competitor, a firing at C-level - yikes!
Brainstorming brings benefits...
• You might discover a potential crisis can be resolved before it hits, by changing an existing process
• Responses can be written, giving you a head start if/when a real PR crisis strikes
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Role play Simulate potential crisis situations and practice, practice, practice your response.
Depending on your industry, some crises are easier to predict. For instance, the food industry would be wise to consider food poisoning, rodent infestation, severed thumb in packaged food.
Okay, that last one is probs not on your list of predictions. But, you get where I’m coming from.
With your list of potential crises, demonstrate how you’ll tackle them. Messaging, media responses, interviews, press releases. Your communication templates can then be customized to fit future crisis situations.
5. Create holding statement templates You can’t write messages to deal with a crisis, before it strikes. But, holding statements can be created to cover predicted crises. These will also provide templates that can be adapted to fit unpredicted crises.
For instance, an airline hit by a natural disaster. Without facts, official messages should be restricted. But a holding statement could be issued…
“We’ve implemented our crisis response plan, which prioritizes the safety of our passengers and team. Additional details will be posted on our website and social channels as soon as possible.”
Review your holding statements regularly. Update and add new ones, when relevant.During a PR crisis - listen, identify, review, respond.
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6. Comms & intelligence If you want to be alerted to early warning signs of possible PR issues, you have to be listening. Make a list of key things to monitor - your brand, trending topics, key personnel, influencers, hashtags, products, competitors, industry news.
Communication channels We’ve moved on from sending a fax. Phew!
Today, we’ve got multiple phone numbers and email addresses. We send text and instant messages. Then there’s social media. It’s the fastest and most efficient way to communicate with your audience.
If you’re not using social media as part of your marketing strategy - seriously?!! - you should be. In this day and age, when a crisis strikes it strikes BIG on social. If you’re not there, you’ve already lost control.
I refer back to my herding kittens reference.
Choose your comms channels before a crisis situation hits. Remember, we use multiple channels. Some people favor email, but not everyone. Maybe a text message, but it might be ignored until later. Not everyone lives on social media. Multiple, will catch more.
Intelligence gathering You must monitor what’s being said about your brand so you can identify - catch a negative trend - and respond. This will include social media, the press, review sites, blog posts, employees, customers, influencers, competitors, etc.
During a crisis, monitoring feedback will help you modify your response strategy.
A monitoring system isn’t just for a crisis situation. A good social listening strategy will not only identify negative trends, it will catch positive user-generated content, product feedback, audience sentiment, trending topics, etc. Social data crucial to creating your marketing and communication strategy and messaging.
7. Identify influencers & brand ambassadors These guys aren’t only useful for marketing campaigns and product launches, they’re also great for swaying opinion during a crisis. The nature of the crisis will determine which individuals you should approach.
Read more about influencer marketing and how it will benefit your brand.
8. Get the facts before you speak I know, everyone is panicking. Everyone wants action, answers. You have to remain calm. Follow your crisis procedure. Don’t speak until you have all the facts.
Keep it factual. Never speculate. Always apologize.
9. Accept responsibility & apologize Acknowledge your mistake, say sorry, and take responsibility. Make it genuine, sensitive, human. Be honest. Be vulnerable.
Don’t be scared to apologize. It’s the right thing to do and will quickly change the dynamic of the situation.
Always tell the truth If you hide your mistakes, you’ll be found out. Your brand reputation and value will be damaged. Be transparent. Consumers buy from companies that they trust. That they believe in.
If you deny a negative situation, dismiss the issue, blame others - you’ll make things so much worse when the truth comes out.
And it will.
Tell people what you’re going to do to rectify the situation, and how you’ll avoid it happening again.
• What happened.
• What you’ll do to solve it
• What you’ll do in the future This is where the role of PR in crisis management becomes clear. Read more about how to create your PR strategy and protect your online brand reputation
Be open, be honest The sooner you communicate your apology, explanation, and solution, the sooner people will stop trashing your brand.
Don’t offer false promises This will make the situation worse. Always respect the facts. There are people out there that could know more than you do. The media, for instance.
Be reactive When Starbucks faced a PR crisis - two black men waiting for a business meeting in a Philadelphia branch - the brand acted immediately. All 8,000 US branches were closed for staff training. The CEO published a statement of apology and the social media team addressed online comments.
Fast reaction to a crisis that should never have occurred.
Empathize It’s not all about maintaining the value of your stock. Yes, ensuring your business survives is YOUR priority. But for those hit by the crisis - the general public, your employees - less so.
Don’t flood with messages Three to four is more than enough, and adapt them according to which channel you’re going to post on. For instance, a tweet would contain a link to your website statement.
Provide clarity People have to understand what’s happened and what they need to do. Don’t panic them. Show that you acknowledge that there is a crisis, explain your plan and what you’re going to do to avoid future incidents.
11. Channels of distribution This will depend on your usual corporate positioning and overall communications. The channels that work best for your brand when talking to your audience - blog, social media, TV, press, etc. Take into account the different characteristics of each.
• Social media involves conversation - be ready to talk and control your messages
• Press releases broadcast globally and are readily picked up by agencies
• Blog posts give you greater control, plus you’re talking with your company voice
• Television needs experience, training, and an agreed script -great for talking to a wider audience
Social media is awesome! We have a voice, a loud voice. We can enthuse, complain, discuss, share. This freedom of expression scares some brands. They’re reticent. They hold back. They ignore.
Unfortunately, consumers don’t care whether brands are there or not. If they’re going to complain, they will. This means that brands have to monitor and be prepared to jump onboard. Post messages and respond to comments. Have a presence.
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Okay, I’ve told you what you should do. Here’s a list of what you should avoid...
Being an ostrich You can’t pretend it’s not happening.
• Keep the conversation going, be visible, be active on social media, respond to queries - communicate as clearly
• If you don’t have an update, tell people
• Create content that will help consumers and strengthen your brand relationship with them by supporting them during a time of need
A knee-jerk reaction Cancel all ongoing projects.
Don’t you dare. • Pause
• Take a breath
Step back and review upcoming projects before you cancel everything. Yes, you’ve been hit by a crisis, but you still have a business to run. Check what’s planned…
• Social media scheduled posts
What not to do in a PR crisis
Consider each through the eyes of consumers, while you’re in the middle of a crisis…
• Will it inflame the crisis?
• Is it inconsiderate, insensitive, tactless considering the crisis?
• Can it be used to resolve the crisis, or tune it into an opportunity (take care with this one)?
For instance, a scheduled report on the airline industry, shortly after a plane disaster, would be heartless, and inappropriate.
If you use automated posting for your social media channels, review upcoming posts. A tweet about the best global banks while the world is engulfed in a financial crisis, is going to make you look insensitive and/or a bit silly.
Going on the offensive • Don’t react to false rumors about your brand
• Don’t blame others
• Don’t respond negatively
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“NO COMMENT!”
No, no, no. You’re not an actor being hounded by the paparazzi. No comment won’t hold water.
Being unable to answer a question is damning in a PR crisis. It makes you look guilty, unprepared. Often, arrogant.
I’m not suggesting you make something up. That’s even worse.
Be honest. Admit you don’t have sufficient information to respond. That you’ll issue an update as soon as possible.
Responding too quickly or slowly It’s all in the timing. Don’t give a response before you have all the facts. You’re gonna look pretty stupid if you have to retract earlier statements. Delaying a response will give the impression that you don’t care that much.
It’s a fine line.
Take care what you share When an issue goes global, everyone wants to be in on the story. Part of the information stream. As a brand, you have to stay relevant and share the latest data and trends with consumers. You want to help if you can. Offer support.
But… take care. Fake news, disinformation, even correct info misinterpreted, can damage. Never assume that everything you see online is true, or accurate. If you must share, ensure it’s passed a credibility check and come from a reliable source.
Picking the scab People move on. Another crisis comes along and suddenly you’re no longer making headlines. Everyday business must continue. You have a brand to market, a product to sell.
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Monitor. Update. Analyze. Learn. Your messages are out there. Being read. Being ignored. Being commented on. You have to continue monitoring the situation.
Instinct doesn’t count for much during a crisis, you’ll need real-time insights to enable data-driven decision making. Create a crisis dashboard to help you monitor the situation. Include data such as…
• Social media data. This helps you track social opinion of a crisis. Whether global sentiment is positive or negative. Identify how consumers are reacting. If there are trending topics related to the issue, or your brand specifically. How’s your brand reputation looking?
• Competitor analysis. What are your competitors doing? Are they producing content that you’re missing? Talking to an audience that you’re ignoring? Have they confronted and beaten a similar crisis in the past? What did they do?
• Financial data. How’s the market handling the crisis? Will that have a direct impact on your strategy, and will you need to adapt your marketing campaigns?
• Consumer data. How are your customers talking to you about the issue? Are you getting an increase in complaints? What are the details of their complaints? What will you do to help?
A command center would hold all this relevant data, and make it accessible to everyone in your business. Keeping your lines of communication open and clear.
Post-crisis review
Is the PR crisis still a crisis?
It can take time for things to return to normal. It could also rear its ugly head again. You have to be ready if asked, to give more statements, interviews, another press release, answers on social.
How’s your brand reputation, following the PR crisis?
Use sentiment analysis to find out how consumers feel about what happened, your response, the current situation.
Getting hit by a PR crisis is devastating. However, every cloud has a silver lining. You’ll learn from the experience. Whether it’s avoiding future crises, tackling issues, improvements to company operations, better products.
After the crisis • How did your team manage the PR crisis situation?
• What needs to be improved in your crisis plan?
• What should be changed to avoid it happening again?
• How will you recover your credibility, repair your reputation?
A crisis can impact your brand differently across the globe. Look at data at a regional level, to create targeted responses for different audience needs.
Yes, having a code red team is essential. Taking responsibility and being transparent, should be the norm. Apologizing like a human rather than a bot
C’mon, that’s obvious. But... none of this matters if you don’t have the best crisis management tools for the job.
A crisis will have several defining characteristics. The crisis will have the potential to go viral and will often outweigh any form of common sense. It’s likely to provoke customers, followers, employees, and stakeholders.
When a social media crisis hits, it does far more damage than a bruised brand reputation. It can create devastating, long-term, if not permanent, impact that’ll make your teams, customers, and potential customers second-guess your reputation and fiercely question your bottom line.
Which leads us to the big question. How to deal with a crisis?
You’ve got your crisis plan and team agreed. Now you need crisis management tools.
Choose your social media crisis tools wisely, preferably ones that
Crisis management tools
provide the following features - and more - all under one roof...
• Real-time alerts - you can set up Talkwalker Alerts, but to avoid major crises you’ll need a more robust tool - such as Talkwalker Analytics.
• Image recognition - research shows that up to 80% of pictures shared online, don’t bother to reference brand names in the accompanying text. Our image recognition technology identifies these posts so you as a brand can protect your trademark against misuse and abuse.
• Video analytics - by 2021, 80% of all online traffic will consist of video. You ready? Video marketing drives more engagement. Digital marketers say they get 66% more qualified leads per year. While 90% of consumers state that watching a video helps them choose a purchase. Along with our image recognition feature, our AI-powered video analytics allows you to find up to 3x the number of brand mentions. Meaning you’ll never leave your brand exposed to abuse.
• Sentiment analysis - or opinion mining - reveals what consumers think of your brand, product, event, etc. Our AI-powered tech finds opinions online and scores them positive, negative, or neutral. Our sentiment analysis feature understands 92 languages, with up to an average 90% accuracy. Grasping the meaning of full sentences, and able to accurately determine customer attitudes and contextual reactions in tweets, posts, and articles. It even gets sarcasm and irony. This means you can amplify messaging that’s receiving positive engagement, while responding quickly to negative comments.
• Business impact metrics - track and analyze the impact to your business during/following a crisis. Use automated reporting to collect insights and share with all your teams.
If you can find a crisis management tool that has monitoring, listening, and analyzing all in one place, your response time will be accelerated. Detecting and managing crises will be painless.
Take a look at the following crisis management tools. See what you think...
A few years back, Reuters published an article covering an Oprah Winfrey speech at the Golden Globes. Our virality map monitored the journey of the story - in this instance, positive.
Talkwalker’s social listening platform gives you a comprehensive brand protection and reputation framework so you never miss a mention - across social media, online, and print media, TV and radio.
Mitigate reputational risk through an early warning system. We’ll help you to monitor potential issues with instant and predictive alerting, unique AI-powered sentiment analysis, image and video analytics.
Social listening & analytics
Talkwalker | Crisis management tools As consumers using social media, we expect an instant response to a support question. Personalized messages. We expect brands to listen.
With all of us meeting up online, sharing our opinions, complaints, praise, frustrations, the arrival of artificial intelligence was timely.
AI brings the ability to identify, listen, and analyze heaps of social data. This gives brands the power to protect their reputation, manage a crisis, and target their communication. Talkwalker’s AI Engine can find patterns in social media communication and identify the sentiment behind it. This data will alert your crisis response team to any oncoming storm, so action can be taken immediately.
Using a social listening tool will bring a new level of insight enabling you to protect and enhance your brand reputation.
Quick Search | Social media search engine Ever tried to stop a crisis from spreading?
Two words... herding kittens.
Taco Bell underestimated how powerful social media is when it became the victim of a foul-mouthed employee. The shocking video of the employee calling the police when a deaf man tried to order food, was quickly shared online. At the time of publication, the video had over 1.7M views. Needless to say, there was a deluge of negative comments.
Quick Search reveals the sentiment for the first ten days of the video going live...
Ouch!!!
The video was posted by the mother of the victim. The employee was fired and the remaining team has been retrained.
Quick Search - crisis management tool - sentiment analysis.
“Quick Search provides such an easy and user- friendly opportunity to deep dive into your competitors’ social sphere; letting you harness their strengths and weaknesses to improve and cultivate a winning marketing strategy. For a specific breakdown of the importance of this, you should definitely check out Talkwalker’s latest article on the necessity and implications of competitor analysis for your business and brand.”
I’ve used our powerful social media search engine - Quick Search - to listen and find content ideas, detect influencers, understand your audience, and recognize trends. You can track keywords on all social media, blogs, forums, and online news sites.
• Compare up to five brands or topics for benchmarking
• Access vital KPIs - engagement, volume, demographics, SOV, and sentiment analysis
• Unlimited search, unlimited results - going back 13 months
• Global coverage - social networks, news sites, blogs, review sites,
and forums
Video analytics | 3x more brand mentions Talkwalker’s video analytics feature takes center stage in the market. Not because I’m paid to say it’s good. Not because I’m biased. But because it’s unique. It’s a pioneer in the video analytics market. It’s a sight to be seen.
“Talkwalker’s new video recognition feature is a true game changer. As the industry is moving towards visual content creation, it’s important for us to have the tools to be able to analyze and report the data effectively. This new tool presents more opportunities to analyze the real KPIs for video assets on social. In my opinion, Talkwalker has again raised the bar for what social listening tools are doing!”
The global video analytics market was valued at $2.77 billion in 2017. Estimated to increase to a staggering $8.55 billion by 2023.
The analytics work on two levels - motion detection and pattern recognition.
• Motion - examines each pixel, detecting every movement
• Pattern - identify and monitor objects, recognizing objects that have moved, gone, or are new
Video analysis tools allow businesses to monitor in real-time, and find inconsistencies in videos. The technology is used in many sectors, including…
Marketing • Identify 100% of visual mentions - your logo in videos - boy, oh boy!
• Competitive intelligence - compare the effectiveness of your video campaigns
• Find strategic business insights and drive conversions, increase engagement
• Helps determine and spend video marketing budget effectively
• Pull out audience insights - demographics, interests social activity
• Exploit visual user-generated content (UGC), both positive and negative
• Prove the ROI of sponsorships - sports events, concerts, conferences, etc.
• Protect your brand’s reputation - find fake brands, logo abuse, counterfeit merchandise
• Find and monitor influencers - unplanned influencer-generated content (IGC) is a big win
Karen Freberg Ph.D KarenFreberg.com
• Object identification
• Facial recognition
• Object detection
• Entrance path analytics
• Visit duration/frequency
• Unique/passing traffic
• Display effectiveness
Video analytics pulls data from videos. This data is then used to trigger actions - contact security, start recording/counting, send trademark abuse alert, capitalize on user-generated content, etc.
“Today’s brand captures tomorrow’s business insights.”
Allow me to set the scene… It’s the Early Stone Age. History has just been made. Homo erectus learned how to control fire!
Why on earth - you ask - am I talking about controlling fire? Well…
Fire played a fundamental role in humans’ evolution. We launched revolutionary video analytics technology! It’s a first for social listening.
It will play a fundamental role in digital marketing. Finally, we have 100% control over brand mentions in text, images, AND videos.
GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!
Not a phrase I often use, but it seems to fit.
Is your logo missing in action?
Talkwalker’s AI-powered video analytics technology lets you capture the value of your brand in action. Framing your brand for success.
Use this unique technology along with our image recognition and you’ll find up to 3x the number of brand mentions. You heard me… 3 times!
Working together with our image recognition technology, it has access to our 30,000+ database of logos, objects, and scenes.
Meet the woman who went viral for her ball skills. Meet the brand that went viral...
I’m talking about protecting your brand reputation. Your logo.
With video analytics, you will find all the videos that include your logo. Even without a mention in the content! Think how crazy that is, and how useful. Find counterfeit products and logo abuse.
Be alerted to negative incidents that could indirectly damage your brand reputation.
Cute trademark infringement, identified by video recognition.
Protect the reputation of your brand logo with video recognition.
Ouch! Give yourself a break. Use video recognition.
Talkwalker Alerts | Real-time crisis tracking Talkwalker Alerts is a free tool - similar to Google Alerts, but way more efficient - that tracks online mentions and tweets, so you’re notified immediately if any of your keywords or phrases are found.
Yes, it tracks Twitter.
It will hunt down negative comments so you can catch them before they go viral and damage your brand reputation. You’ll receive alerts of mentions from news feeds, blogs, forums, and Twitter.
We currently deliver 700,000+ Talkwalker Alerts to 500,000+ inboxes
every day.
You can set up an alert in 10 seconds - enter keyword, language, frequency, and result type.
Search for your brand, products, keywords, key personnel, competitors, industry news.
Social media dramatically changed marketing. We’re connected instantly and constantly. When a brand makes a mistake, it goes viral before you can say,
“I should’ve used social listening.”
Talkwalker Alerts - free crisis management tool.
Talkwalker | Free Social Search Free Social Search is free and makes hashtag tracking, child’s play. With unlimited searches, you enter your brand, campaign, or hashtag to measure the impact on your social media channels.
Features include…
• Event performance -real-time insights from tracking event hashtags
• Hashtag tracking - find the best for your content, and track yours and your competitors’
• Campaign tracking - track the impact of your campaigns - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, news, blogs, forums, review sites
• Brand protection - monitor your brand’s reputation by tracking mentions, sentiment, engagement reach
TweetDeck | Twitter management dashboard TweetDeck is a crisis management tool for monitoring your brand and potential social media crises. It’s simple. It’s effective. You won’t get bogged down with analytical or complicated processes that would distract you from your main goal - social media management and social media monitoring.
With TweetDeck, set up a dedicated column to track your brand mentions. You can also create a search term specifically for keywords about your brand that would display all your replies and tweets. This is awesome for seeing who you’ve responded to and how quickly you were able to respond to a social media crisis.
Monitor interactions, which show you when someone tweets, retweets, or favorites something you’ve done on your account. As well as when someone follows you or adds you to one of their lists.
Free brand monitoring tool - Free Social Search - to search for your company, brand, competitors, hashtags, industry, trends, keywords.
TweetDeck - monitor your Twitter accounts, your competitors’, your influencers’, all on one dashboard.
SumAll | Track business & social metrics SumAll is dedicated to helping your social media accounts grow without a ton of effort on your part. The platform helps to grow your business, save your money, and find you a larger, applicable audience for your social media channels.
A free program - not many of them left - SumAll helps you to engage your customers 24/7, without you having to physically engage.
Automatically share your content to your social media networks. No hassle. Also, get the lowdown on your data. That means you’re able to track your social media performance, your ads, and your sales data with ease.
Connect all of your social media platforms in one place, making social media listening and analysis a cinch. You’ll be able to monitor what people are saying about you, how often people are talking about you, that state of your brand reputation, and more.
You won’t need to log into multiple platforms to post or monitor, instead, you can sign into one dashboard and get all the information you need, making it a breeze to monitor and respond to multiple platforms at once.
Buffer | Schedule posts & track performance Buffer is a crisis management tool that allows you to track any negative feedback about your brand, so you can immediately jump in and deal with a potential crisis situation. Buffer allows you to fully manage all of your social media accounts on a single dashboard. You can...
• Schedule posts
• you need, and most importantly
• Monitor online conversations about your brand
SumAll - automatically share content to your social media accounts.
Buffer - manage all your social media accounts from a single dashboard.
Hootsuite | Social management platform Hootsuite is one of the most comprehensive and reliable free tools out there for brands looking to develop a social media crisis management plan. Not only is it exceptional when it comes to monitoring bare bones social media chatter, it also has well-designed applications for tablets, phones, and desktops. Making it versatile and useful no matter what platform you’ve been using to manage your crisis plans.
The platform offers various plans that allow you to keep track of basic and advanced analytics. However, the free version is enough for a simple crisis management plan. You’ll have the ability to monitor your accounts from LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Because it’s an in-cloud service, you’re able to log-in from anywhere and from whatever device you choose.
Slack | Team collaboration The tools I’ve already covered are for social listening, and to enable a fast response to social media issues. But, you’ll need more than monitoring tools to work through a crisis. You’ll also need a quick, convenient, and reliable way to update your social media and marketing teams as to the status of a crisis situation.
Slack to the rescue!
Slack is a cloud-based set of tools for team collaboration that keep your team in touch at all times. It’s a quick, convenient way to privately chat with your entire team, specific members, or certain groups dedicated to specific projects.
Slack is a tool that companies use to encourage collaboration and workflow, and it allows you to share the information you need, as well as get in touch with the right people as quickly as possible. The best part? Slack is a free tool that anyone can download and use.
Hootsuite - monitor the online chatter surrounding your brand. Slack - keep your team in the loop at all times.
MailChimp | Email marketing platform It’s vital that you maintain open lines of communication with your existing customers. MailChimp is the answer.
MailChimp is an awesome email marketing platform that allows you to design and target professional-looking email marketing campaigns. It’s available in both free and paid options, and can do wonders for your social media crisis management.
For example, if your brand is embroiled in a negative social media issue, you can reduce potential damage with an email marketing campaign that will allay your customers’ fears.
With MailChimp, you’ll be able to design your own templates, copycat off pre-designed templates, and build an email marketing campaign that works best for you.
Mailjet | Monitor transactional email Another alternative for email needs is Mailjet. It’s an email solution for fast-moving companies looking to stay in contact with their customers on a regular basis. It offers you tons of beautifully-designed, custom templates for your campaigns and provides a heap of tools for analyzing and segmenting the correct information to the correct customers.
Mailjet allows you the freedom to customize your templates, as well as monitor your transactional email in real time, highlighting what’s important.
Compare your campaigns, and design specific campaigns for specific customers. It’s an all-in-one email marketing campaign service that will keep you and your customers in touch simply and efficiently.
MailChimp - design and target professional-looking email.
Mailjet - analyze and segment your email marketing campaigns.
Crisis management templates If a crisis strikes your brand today, are you ready?
A crisis will be a surprise. But, your plan of attack should already be prepared. Your organization will be judged on how it responds. You’ll need a crisis plan and a response team. You’ll need trained personnel and social media monitoring. You’ll need damage limitation to protect the reputation of your brand.
Don’t jeopardize your brand. Use our crisis management templates...
• Crisis communication roadmap - minimize the risks and create an effective plan
• In case of emergency - crisis plan checklist - don’t miss vital steps
Forever monitor. Forever listen. Forever learn.
Protect your reputation
Measure your campaigns
Promote your brand
@talkwalker contact@talkwalker.com www.talkwalker.com