Surely many times you have asked yourself how to act in case of facing a crisis management that affects the online reputation of your company. For this type of situation, we must be prepared to establish a protocol of action that avoids improvised decisions that can blow up our reputation. In this article we will tell you everything you need to be successful.
That is why, first of all, it is important to establish a crisis management plan, to know what is to manage crisis communication and the factors that affect effective crisis management.
Why have an Online Reputation Crisis Manual?
- The news on the internet runs like wildfire. Go ahead
- The negative aspects are remembered more than the positive ones
- The Internet has a LOT of memory: what is written, remains.
Factors that most affect the recall of your brand
- The brand: The colors, the logo, the name of the brand, the corporate identity, its slogan, its authenticity, etc. Everything helps to create a subjective image of the brand.
- Advertising: Advertising is one of the factors that helps the memory of a brand. That is why we must always be attentive to the comments in the networks so that they do not relate us to negative stimuli.
- Historical prestige: Larger firms will have greater strength than small businesses that have just started.
- Comments: All comments made about the brand on social networks and any platform. Both positive and negative.
- Online communities: If users do not receive the message of our brand, they will be influenced by the comments and suggestions they read in forums, chats, social networks, etc. This can play tricks on us or act on our behalf, but we cannot control it.
Tips to improve the reputation of the brand
- Anticipation: Being realistic means knowing that at any moment we can suffer a crisis of reputation, so we must always put ourselves in the worst and work to anticipate the problem. For example, registering negative domains about our brand or archiving a series of automatic responses for certain doubts or complaints.
- Know how to listen: The main virtue of a brand is knowing how to listen, but also knowing how to respond. You have to monitor social networks and the internet and never turn a deaf ear to a complaint because a user is unhappy. It may be a dynamite box about to explode.
- Take care of your communications: Do not make hurtful, unfortunate and, much less, sexist or xenophobic comments. Use the vocabulary you would use in a job interview, but with more confidence and closeness.
- Reinforcement: If we know what our weak points are (for example, a defective product), let’s strengthen the place from which the majority of complaints come so that it does not happen again.
- Have an action plan in case of online crisis: Planning is not necessary, it is essential. We have to have activated an action protocol in case the storm suddenly explodes.
- Speed of response: If we have failed, do not give silence for an answer. The news runs like wildfire on the internet, so we must face and take our actions, apologize and point out that it has been an error. Let’s not try to justify the unjustifiable. And in case the company is facing a crisis like in the case of an ERE, let’s try to explain the reasons with pedagogy.
- Transparency: Transparency in our communications will save us from misunderstandings in the future.
Points of online crisis management manual
- Main guidelines: Brief introduction with the steps to follow in a crisis broadly.
- Internal communication: How the reputation crisis communicates internally.
- Channels and communication priorities: Internal communication channels to get the news as soon as possible to the person in charge and communicative priorities both internally and in terms of the media.
- Crisis committee: Area managers and master lines of action according to the type of crisis.
- External communication: How the reputation crisis is communicated externally.
- Pre-established responses: Given by the area manager and depending on the nature of the crisis, the potential and the severity of the crisis.
- Responsibilities: Assumption of responsibilities as quickly as possible by the company in case of having made an error.
Steps to manage an online crisis
- Analysis and monitoring: Analyze the origin and reasons why the crisis arises and use network and internet monitoring tools through which not only know all the negative or unfavorable mentions of the brand but we can also follow the evaluation process. In turn, if we are alleviating the crisis or if it is increasing.
- Reduction: Answer as quickly as possible clarifying or denying the situation.
- Evaluation: Establish ranges based on the nature, potential and current severity of it.
- Action: Indications to neutralize the most common cases and especially to completely stop the most serious crises.
- Learning: See what we have failed. Analyze the processes or errors and manage it so that it does not happen again.
- Monitoring: Studying harmful factors and how the situation evolves to check that everything returns to normal.
- Rethinking: Understanding and correcting. The apprenticeship must be applied so as not to make the same mistake again. It is necessary to improve and implement the necessary changes both in the way of action and in our online crisis management manual.