Delivered at PSWEWEB 2016 in St John's.

1. TRAGEDY, PITCHFORKS
AND TWITTER
Managing Campus Crises on Social Media
#pseweb@amygracewells

4. SOCIAL CRISES
Racial Tensions
Viral Events
Winter Weather
Cataclysmic Weather!
Confederate Flag!!
Roommate with Windex
Exploitation
Campus Shooting!!!
Campus Blackout
The photo
Body Found (Suicide)

5. I got this!

6. Holy @$!* run away!

7. WARNING
The proceeding will be filled with horrible trolls,
rude students, a good dose of humor, a bit of
mild profanity and, of course, gifs.

8. SOCIAL CRISIS
Any on-campus, off-campus or online event
that affects an online community and a
managed brand account.
It often requires a direct response from the
managed account.

9. + +

10. When viral happens
Is that real or Photoshopped?

11. Viral event
Challenged racial relations on campus

12. Viral event
Challenged racial relations on campus

13. 19,755
Messages generated to our Facebook and Twitter

14. Up your
listening
game

15. Be better than the NSA
• Pick a tool. We use SproutSocial.
• Find where the conversation is happening.
• Decide what is most important.
• Get to know your campus and community issues.

16. Where to grow
• Flowcharts/Clear protocols of chain of
communication.
• Better communication with key offices on who
manages social media.
• More staff in SproutSocial to spread load.
• More staff/time to regularly monitor anonymous
platforms.

17. Define your issues

18. The spectrum of hell
Being better than the NSA
requires time and effort
Hashtags, keywords,
geolocations, key accounts,
media, anonymous accounts

19. Annoyance
Lots of chatter, not much to be done
Parking, wifi, weather

20. Issue
May require an action, loops in others, safety often not an issue
Student actions, severe weather, controversial issues

21. CrisisImmediate response required, leadership involved,
safety of campus at jeopardy
Shootings, issues resulting in threats to students/staff, catastrophic weather

22. Campus shooting
Feb. 5, 1:28
Feb. 5, 1:55
Feb. 5, 2:17
Feb. 6, 12:18
No time for spellcheck

23. Where to grow
• More defined spectrum of issues.
• Clear protocols and expectations tied to spectrum
for each audience/channel.
• Menu of response from a content strategy view
point.
• Social team. Three layers deep.

24. Manage the mob

25. …said no sensitive person ever.

26. Confederate Flag
Taking a stand on challenging national issues

27. 18,295
Messages generated to our Facebook and Twitter

28. When you lead the call…

29. Direct and deflect
• Humans need to communicate and express
emotions.
• The mob will find a space so control the space.
• Essentially invite them to get it out so you can
move on.
• Also gives advocates a chance to self-police for
you.

30. Militarized zone
• Hide/delete for two reasons: personally identifying
information/threats or profanity.
• In general, don’t intervene with rants unless
inaccurate information.
• Use and TRUST your judgement.

31. Where to grow
• Know when you can be strong and respond.
• Respond to community response quicker.
• Find better ways to update during event for better
understanding.

32. Be social
Plug in and reach out to campus peers

33. Are you kidding me?
• We’re busy. We forget things in times of crisis.
Communicate after initial response.
• Arm community managers with talking points and
support.
• Remind them to check for scheduled tweets.
• Let them know the game plan for central accounts.

34. Where to grow
• Better/quicker ways to get info out.
• Better training for social managers.
• Stronger crisis response team.

35. Be human
And understand that humans are emotional, irrational beings

36. When things are scary
• People flip the freak out!
• They are grasping for comfort and familiarity.
• They want someone to speak to them and
understand.
• They don’t need all the information. They just want
to know what they can expect.

37. Understanding in crisis
• Use ‘we’ and ‘our’ language when possible. It’s
more personal and calming.
• Tell them when they can expect an update.
• If you don’t have any updates (aka nothing has
changed), tell them that. They appreciate it and it
calms them down.

39. Natural Disaster
Sometimes shitstorms happen
28 tweets in
three days
14 of those
updates to
weather page
11 updates on
Facebook in
two days

40. And people suck

41. Get a therapist
No, really.
I’m serious.

42. Social Support
• People are mean. Mean things are sticky. Sticky
things drive you crazy. Crazy people can’t sleep.
• Your people/person at home can’t take it all.
• Have co-workers, students, ‘professionals’ to
commiserate with.
• Let it out and self soothe.

43. Keep the good

44. And laugh when you can

46. @amygracewells
amygrace@gracefulcontent.com
Thanks.
Questions?