Let’s Talk About Crisis Management Plans and Why Your Brand Needs One
Imagine this: you are working about your day and checking up on your social media accounts, when you notice that you are being tagged in a bunch of posts, receiving negative comments from your following, and don’t know what to do. Thankfully, there is a way to help you if these issues arise, which is a crisis management plan.
According to Kristen Baker, a writer for HubSpot, “a crisis management plan is an established process a business follows when dealing with a disruptive or unexpected emergency situation. Your crisis management plan should be completed prior to crises so your business is prepared to use it to combat and rectify any unexpected events.” A question that a lot of people wonder is if these plans are necessary for every business to have. I believe that it is necessary for every business to have one because you never know when you are going to need it. It also helps you stay more prepared just in case something does pop up and create an uproar on social media. Baker discusses that every business should have one “to be prepared for any unplanned event and prevent long-term damage from happening as a result.” She also provides four other reasons as to their importance, which are the following:
There are many key elements to include when developing a crisis management plan. One of the key elements that is essential is creating a team for communication. Jonathan Berstein mentions that those who should be on this team are the CEO, a public relations executive, and a few members of the legal department. Also, I believe that those who are a part of the social media team should be included as well since they are also the ones managing the social media accounts and are monitoring the activity that is occurring. Another element that is important is the tone for when responding to followers. With some of the previous experience I have had, the best way to respond to customers is making sure the tone of voice aligns with your brand’s “personality”, in a professional manner, and putting the follower first. Finally, another piece that is essential is the chain of command. The way to respond to these issues is by first having someone on the social media team inform their manager and the rest of the members of the crisis management team. Next, the social media manager and member of the social media team draft a response based on developing certain scenarios that could potentially happen. Then, there should be a meeting with all the members about the situation with the drafted response. Finally, once the response is approved by the CEO and other team members, it should be posted.
There are two brands that have handled crisis both successfully and unsuccessfully. The first brand I want to talk about is Cracker Barrel. They experienced crisis management when Bradley Reid posted a question to their Facebook page saying “Why did you fire my wife?” since she was working there for 11 years. David Johnson writes more about the issue where the internet took over and created #JusticeForBradsWife and #BradsWife became trending. Not only did people on the internet continue to blow the issue up, but so did other businesses such as Chick-Fil-A, who created a picture displayed on the left.
With all of this uproar, Cracker Barrel did not create a response or say anything to anyone. I think that staying silent on the issue was not a great way to go about this because it could potentially ruin the reputation of not just the brand, but also the employees reputation as well. If I was working for Cracker Barrel, I would have drafted a response to Brad’s comment that was a generic way to go about the situation, such as “We appreciate all of the hard work that your wife has done for us and she was a special part of our team. Please direct message us your email so we can contact you about how we can help.” This is a generic response that shows how the company can stand up for themselves without having backlash happening on social media. It also shows that the brand is putting the customer first and will not ruin their reputation. Once I receive a direct message of his email, I would ask him to provide the details of the situation and the specific Cracker Barrel location. I would then put them together with either the CEO or overall management and staffing of the department to determine if there was another Cracker Barrel they could move her to or even if they are able to have her hold her position until she could find another job. This is a way to keep these people to potentially go back and talk about their experience and what we did to help them out. It also shows employee loyalty and how the business treats their employees.
Another brand that recently experienced a crisis management issue was The Try Guys. Being a fan of their work since the very beginning and watching their videos, they released a video about doing an ice bath challenge. They included an interview of Ben Greenfield, who had given some harmful opinions, according to Devanshi Mehta. They noticed that there were a lot of negative hate towards their brand, so they took down the video and included this comment in their YouTube Community tab and also on other social media platforms:
They then re-uploaded the video and started getting comments in the YouTube community thread talking about how they handled the situation and received support from their followers:
There was nothing that I would have done differently. The Try Guys did a superb job of being professional about the situation and talking about how they are going to handle the situation going forward so they don’t make this mistake again. They also had a quick turnaround for the edits of the video and were able to reupload it as if nothing ever happened.
