Prepare Internally For Social Media Crisis

Prepare Internally For Social Media Crisis

“A social media crisis is a crisis issue that arises in or is amplified by social media, and results in negative mainstream media coverage, a change in business process or financial loss.” (Owyang, 2011)

In Jeremiah Owyang’s report “Social Business Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare Internally”, he discussed the main causes of social media crises and examined the preventive ways companies should prepare themselves for social media crises.

According to Owyang, social media crises are on rise due to the lack of essential internal requirements such as a professional staff, triage system, and employee social media policy of companies. Studies show that more than 76 percent of social media crises could have been diminished or averted had companies invested internally. But even advanced companies still suffer from a fragmented technology and lack standard measurement frameworks.

So, how do companies avoid a social media crisis? Altimeter Group developed a “Social Business Hierachy of Needs” to help prep businesses achieve social business readiness.  Briefly speaking, there are five stages of this preventive system for social media crisis.

• Foundation: Define business objectives. And develop four sets of policies: social media, disclosure/ethics, and community and privacy.
•  Safety: Set up a team to monitor social media channels.
•  Formation: Take inventory of all social media assents and reform the team accordingly. Form a social media “Center of Excellence” that serves the entire company.
•  Enablement: Enable business units to deploy and run social media programs on their own.
•  Enlightenment: In an ideal state, businesses are able to make decisions based on real-time intelligence and use social data to inform product development and partner relations.

From my point of view, enablement is what most companies lack for their teams. Social media is still brand new to the masses. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets users are able to utilize social media for entertainment, information outreach, and social networking. But for tapping social media in a business angle, most people are in the loss. Even for a PR major like me, I am still learning on my way. Therefore, companies could invest in social media education internally by, for example, building up a social media library where people share books, materials, or even tutorial videos of social media.

Social media is rising, so is its related crisis. So watch out, use social media strategically and safely.