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Tips To Manage Social Media Crisis

diksha
February 7, 2025
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Social media has become an important part of our lives. News travels like fire on social media. According to a report, 60-70% of adults in the USA rely on social media as their primary news source. A social media mistake or crisis is a nightmare for many brands. One wrong word, image, move and your brand will receive a huge backlash and criticism. The world of social media moves at a fast speed, your brand needs to cope with its speed.

In this article, we’ll learn about the social media crisis, strategies to counter such situations, and much more!

What is the Social Media Crisis?

A social media crisis is a situation where negative content such as brand mentions, comments, etc about your brand spreads online rapidly. It can begin with a badly executed campaign, post, strategy, etc. This situation can adversely damage your reputation and sales. It can also hamper relationships with customers. If you do not intervene at times then the situation will get worse.

The characteristics of a social media crisis are that it spreads fast, is unpredictable, gathers higher visibility, and evokes strong emotions such as anger, displeasure, etc. A social media crisis can cause long-term harm to your reputation. It increases scrutiny from industry experts, customers, etc. It also causes financial loss and leads to customer disloyalty.

Strategies to Counter Social Media Crisis

Shockingly, only 49% of US companies have a formal crisis communication plan, while 28% have an informal crisis communication plan. Here are some of the simple strategies to counter the social media crisis that can be used by every business.

Secure Social Media: Many social media crises happen or begin over small issues that are left unresolved or unanswered. You must limit the number of people who have your social media passwords. A password system lets you build a strong password and limit the access of employees who no longer work with you. For more security, you must enable a two-factor authentication system. It gives strong control over who can log in to your accounts.
Find the Issue: When you are stuck in a crisis, you must first identify the issue or cause behind it. You can detect the source of your issue by monitoring past brand mentions or customer reviews. You can conduct a sentiment analysis to detect the social media platforms that have caused negative reviews and feedback. Analyze the context of the interaction to find which groups create negative sentiment.
Monitor Brand Mentions: You can track and monitor brand mentions. You can use software that tracks brand mentions and notifies you when they observe a sudden rise in your brand mentions. You can track mentions in real time so that you can respond quickly. Tools and software also help in sentiment analysis to understand how people think about their brand during a crisis. You should also track online reputation scores. The team can also identify negative reviews and respond to them to control further damage.
Reputation Score: Online reputation score is an important social media metric. It displays how well your brand is performing online. During the crisis, the score usually decreases. However, after implementing the crisis management plan the score should increase. Keeping track of this score helps in predicting future trends.
Crisis Management Plan: Build a team with well-defined roles and responsibilities. Each team member should have a well-defined role. The team should have representatives of different departments within the organization so that all the relevant people make a collective decision.
Train Employees: It is important that all your employees are on the same page and should be aware of the actions of the organization. So that there is no confusion or misunderstanding between the employees.
Pause Scheduled Campaign: Brands usually schedule their posts in advance. But if your brand is trapped in a crisis-like situation then you should pause or stop all scheduled campaigns and posts. Scheduled posts will make you look uninterested and lost. You must employ all your resources and efforts to resolve the crisis.
Build Social Media Guidelines: To prevent your brand from a crisis-like situation you must establish some social media guidelines. Some of the basic features of the guidelines are copyright, brand style and voice, privacy, etc. All your employees should know how to use and credit the content to avoid copyright infringement. Also, your employees should know the difference between open conversation and personal, private conversations. You must follow your branding style and voice.
Design Crisis Communication Plan: You should have a crisis communication plan at hand so that whenever such a situation arises you can get started rather than wasting your time. Your communication should be clear at both levels. One on a personal level where employees have a mutual understanding and another on an external level where they know what message they can post on the official website and social media accounts. Select a spokesperson who is well aware of the situation and possesses all the relevant information. You must follow a consistent message and time across all your platforms.
Evaluate Crisis Response Plan: Once your plan is ready, you must know how to evaluate it. Evaluate how effective your strategy is in resolving the crisis. Work on the weak elements of your strategy.
Respond to Users: You are accountable to your users. You should respond or issue a statement in such situations as they have the right to know what led to this situation and if you are at fault they deserve an apology from you. You should respond to their issues professionally and rationally. Don’t run away from your mistakes, own it and apologize.

Example of Brands Who Handled Social Media Crisis

Let us look at some of the examples of the social media crisis and how these brands countered it.

British Museum’s Misguided Meme: In March 2024, the British Museum posted a meme that gathered a lot of outrage from the users. The post suggested that “girlies” visit their Roman Army exhibition to find men by “looking confused”. It was meant to riff on TikTok about men pondering the Roman Empire. Social media users and activists find this post sexist and unprofessional. The museum initially defended the post as a joke about “mansplaining” in the comments. They clarified that they weren’t suggesting women “need to look for dates or pretend to be dumb”. After a huge backlash, they deleted the post from TikTok and Instagram. After this, they issued an apology.
H&M’s “Coolest Monkey”: In January 2018, H&M posted an ad featuring a young black boy wearing a hoodie with “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle” printed on it. Social media accused the brand of racism and insensitivity. Several celebrities and influencers called for a boycott of the brand. The protest was so severe in South Africa that several H&M stores were thrashed. Their sales fell drastically. H&M in its response issued an apology. The company promised to review its internal processes and appointed a diversity leader to address cultural sensitivity issues. H&M also connected with community leaders to discuss concerns and make necessary changes.
Balenciaga’s Teddy Bear Mishap: In November 2022, Balenciaga launched an ad that backfired. The ads show children holding teddy bears wearing what looks like bondage gear. This outraged social media users. They accused the brand of sexualizing children and promoting inappropriate content. Balenciaga witnessed a loss of 100,000 Instagram followers, fell out of the Lyst index’s top 10 brands, and saw a decline in sales. To this, Balenciaga responded in stages. Initially, they denied the responsibility and filed a lawsuit against the production company. Howeve,r after huge public backlash,h they changed their course. They issued an apology from the company’s leadership, took responsibility for the wrong, and announced new content validation procedures.

Social media crises can happen to any brand irrespective of its size, industry, etc. This is why it is important to build a crisis management strategy. When you have strong strategies and tools, it is easier to tackle a crisis. The crisis management plan includes a crisis management team and communication strategy. Social listening is important to understand the audience’s perception. Lumia 360 offers digital solutions to small and medium enterprises. Our Online Reputation Software helps in tracking brand mentions and ensures your brand ranks high in SERP.