Raleigh FCMO: Crisis Management for Social Media

The world of digital marketing has grown to encompass a vast range of tools, platforms, and ways to communicate with your audience and customer base. The internet is also increasingly filled with deepfake videos, customer complaints, and viral social media posts that could cause lasting damage to your business and its reputation. That is where fractional CMOs in Raleigh can help you. 

A fractional CMO can help you understand a social media crisis and how to navigate it. Social media, or SocMed, includes all platforms and technologies where users generate, share, and discuss content in real time. Considering that there are 5.24 billion social media users globally, the best way to manage a social media crisis is to get ahead of it.    

Core Elements of Social Media Crisis Management

It is crucial to understand fully what social media crisis management is and what it entails. This guide delves into the fundamentals by examining the following:

• The 5 C’s of Crisis Management
• What managing crises on social media involves, and how to identify them
• How to respond to a crisis
• How to prevent future crises

Together, these elements form the core of social media crisis management. 

What Is Social Media Crisis Management?

Social media crisis management is the strategic and tactical response process that a business or brand uses when they face misinformation, backlash, or any form of negative publicity online. The crisis often escalates rapidly, particularly on social media platforms.

A key to success is early detection of crises, which is often done by constantly monitoring comments, mentions, and general sentiment towards the company. Once you identify a threat, a swift response is crucial in protecting your business’s reputation and maintaining audience trust.

You need a game plan for any potential situation to manage your crisis effectively. A significant issue is that only 49% of U.S. companies have a formal crisis management blueprint.  

How To Identify a Social Media Crisis

With the help of an FCMO for SocMed crisis management, you can identify social media crises through several means, including using social listening tools. These tools include the following:

• Mention tracking: There is software that enables you to monitor any mentions of your business or brand, including related keywords associated with you. 
• Real-time alerts: Social media never sleeps, so you must set up alerts that detect spikes in mentions, particularly if negative sentiment is attached. 
• Sentiment analysis: Specialized tools can analyze the general sentiment towards your brand, and if it is leaning negatively, this could mean a crisis is brewing.    

Essential Strategies for Managing a Social Media Crisis

Before you can protect your business from online backlash, it’s important to understand the core strategies of crisis management. Two of the most critical areas are the principles that guide your communication during a crisis and the practical steps you need to take when responding in real time.

What Are the 5 C’s of Crisis Management?

Social media, at its core, is communication. That is why the 5 C’s also refer to crisis communication, as it deals with analyzing what social media users are saying and your responses to their concerns and statements. 

A Raleigh FCMO for SocMed crisis management can assist you in implementing the following 5 C’s:

1. Concern: Your company must show genuine concern for any crisis at hand. It is also vital that social media users and other stakeholders see that you care about the issue from the start. 
2. Commitment: Show that you are committed to amending the situation and addressing the root cause of the problem. Also, show your audience that you are implementing ways to ensure a crisis will not happen in the future.
3. Competency: You need to respond in a way that shows your audience you are fully competent in following through with your commitment to resolve the crisis. Showing competence helps to soften current skepticism and regain trust.
4. Clarity: There should be no room for assumption or misunderstanding regarding what you tell your audience. Miscommunication can be costly, so you must be clear about what has happened and how you intend to proceed. 
5. Confidence: The right FCMO can help you to create messaging and convey it confidently, so your customers, and others, believe that you are still trustworthy. Weak or hesitant messaging erodes trust, as audiences quickly recognize when a brand lacks conviction.

How To Respond to a Crisis on Social Media

Analyze the data and determine that you are dealing with a crisis, and not merely routine negative sentiment — such as a handful of negative reviews. Once you have identified a crisis, you must start executing your FCMO’s crisis management plan. Responding to a crisis on social media will follow steps similar to these:

1. Acknowledge and assess: As mentioned, you will need to identify the scope of the issue by analyzing the nature of the backlash. You need to determine if it is localized or spreading, and whether it is misinformation or fact-checked pushback. 
2. Pause scheduled content: You want to avoid the idea that you are unaware of or insensitive towards the crisis. Instead, give yourself space to focus entirely on crisis messaging. 
3. Gather your response team: You should have a pre-existing plan, including all stakeholders, such as social media managers, PR, legal, and leadership. You should know who is responsible for outreach, approvals, and internal communication. 
4. Recall the 5 C’s: It is vital to craft and post authentic responses to the matter. Responding might mean apologizing formally, showing accountability and empathy, and correcting misinformation. Be sure to refrain from defensive or combative language, though.
5. Monitor and adapt: Use analytics and listening tools to track and gauge how your online audience engages with your messaging. You might need to adapt and adjust the message based on ongoing feedback.
6. Review and grow: Once the crisis has passed, debrief your team and update your crisis plan based on what worked and what didn’t is important. 

How To Prevent a Social Media Crisis in the Future

Social media management services help identify, target, and pacify potential crises. Having an established plan and constantly monitoring the social media environment is the best means of prevention. This goes hand in hand with your ongoing marketing and social engagement. This is why having an FCMO oversee your marketing is wise.  

Combine marketing and social engagement with the guidance of a fractional CMO, and recognize the difference between tactical and strategic marketing. Both play complementary roles in preventing future crises. 

You can think of strategic marketing as your crisis response blueprint, while you will use tactical marketing much like a fire extinguisher. These two work hand in hand and can help to prevent damage and respond accordingly. Other steps you can take include:

• Having data-driven marketing as the backbone to your advertising ventures. Using hard and fast data is a far more effective means of making marketing decisions than relying on what you feel is the best way to get your message across.
• Ensuring you implement Raleigh local SEO, as crises often happen in your backyard, particularly for small to medium-sized businesses. Consider local SEO your reputation’s digital armor — it boosts visibility and helps you bounce back when things don’t go well on social media.

Choose a Digital Authority Partners FCMO for Social Media Crisis Management

At Digital Authority Partners (DAP), we understand the importance of managing your online reputation. Our FCMOs are skilled at social media crisis management, and other strategies for online brand protection. 

If your business needs social media crisis management, contact us today and start benefiting from the services of high-quality FCMOs. We can assist with existing crises or help to predict future problems that might develop.