Effective Steps to manage a PR crisis online
In today’s thriving social media world, a PR disaster can hit you anytime. When a crisis hits, it affects your business. Having robust crisis management services helps you alleviate the impacts that come along with a PR hit.
In this digital world, companies face multiple challenges in managing their reputation; a single error can threaten your organization’s reputation. However, the way a business handles a crisis can make a long-lasting impact on the brand image. Being experienced crisis management services, we at Reptick are committed to assisting your organization in this crisis. Here, we mention some smart strategies that we follow to manage a PR crisis online.
What is a PR crisis online & how does it impact any business?
A PR crisis can hit any business at any time. So, companies should be prepared beforehand to handle such risks effectively. Social media backlash, negative product reviews, and data breaches are the major reasons behind the PR crisis. The crisis can instantly spiral out of control when it’s not handled properly.
Not every business owner is ready or fully prepared to deal with such a crisis. 95% of business leaders said that they don’t have effective strategies for managing a PR crisis. So, don’t wait until it affects your business. Always play safe & plan ahead to make preparations to deal with the PR crisis.
In the following post, we will explore a few tips to measure the situation and mitigate the damage by applying some effective tips from our online reputation repair.
Identifying the signs of a PR crisis early
The first step to identifying a PR crisis is assessing the signs earlier & finding ways for a Crisis management plan. You must have a system that tracks your online & offline reputation. To identify the risks earlier, we followed the following strategies.
- Assess your environment
Tracking your environment is the first step in identifying the PR crisis. For this, you have to keep your eyes on social media, reviews, blogs, forums, and other sources that may affect your brand value. Furthermore, track your metrics like customer satisfaction rate, website traffic lead, employee engagement, etc. By assessing such factors, you can identify the crisis earlier and take necessary actions to mitigate the issues.
- Determine the impact & emergency
The next step in determining the PR crisis is to measure the emergency and impact of the situation. Not every bad comment or feedback brings a PR crisis. So, it’s your responsibility to measure the emergency & how it affects the stakeholders. When you reach us, our online reputation repair experts use a simple matrix to classify the situation from low to medium and medium to high. Low or medium emergencies bring minor errors to the website and can be fixed easily. Additionally, high-impact emergencies can affect millions of customers, so urgent action is needed to recover.
Building a crisis communication plan
When a high-impact emergency occurs, the requirement of PR crisis communication is immediate. A crisis communication plan is a necessary aspect of a business preparedness program. The business must be able to respond accurately & confidently during a crisis. The plan must target a specific group of people who are either directly or indirectly impacted by this.
It is necessary to build a list of the following key stakeholders: investors, customers, partners, employees and media, and regulators. Businesses can also use multiple channels & tools for PR crisis communication, for example, interviews, surveys, social media, email & chat. By listening to them, a business owner can understand their requirements, perspectives, and how they perceive their reputation.
Handling social media backlash effectively
Social media is a broad platform to engage your customers and raise brand awareness. However, it can also pose serious issues to the company’s reputation. When a crisis hits the business, social media can quickly spread that news and affect a business’s value and brand image.
The platform can make a crisis worse for any business. So, you must have some strategies to mitigate this backlash. When you reach Reptick, you can meet with the crisis management services advisors, who will suggest the best practices to effectively manage the social media backlash.
- Acknowledge the mistakes
Don’t delete the negative posts or comments from social media by your customers. Instead, you can measure the issues & express your concerns. It shows that you care about the customers & taking necessary action on behalf of them.
- Share updates with customers
Being a great business, you should always be transparent with your customers. Don’t leave the audience in the dark and make them wait for too long. Send them regular updates about the actions you took and the results. Use multiple channels to reach them. The following Crisis management plan helps you build trust on customers again.
- Be respectful throughout the process
You shouldn’t be defensive when dealing with any social media backlash. You should be respectful and empathetic towards your audience. Try to understand their views and demands and then find ways to fulfill them. This is how you can limit the Social media backlash strategies to avoid it.
- Take necessary action
Don’t just say sorry; rather, take action to follow up on your promises. You must implement the corrective measures along with preventive actions to avoid such a crisis in the future. Talk with the customers and let them know the steps you are taking to improve your product or services.
PR crises aren’t often, but these are things your business should know how to deal with. If you respond to these crises earlier, you may benefit from skillful handling. If you aren’t prepared to mitigate such issues, connect with our team at Reptick.