A deck I wrote for some training at Unilever, exploring social media crisis management. Inspiration from Jay Baer (http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-crisis-2/dont-be-scared-be-prepared-how-to-manage-a-social-media-crisis/).

2. Crisis
What this means for social and why it’s all
going to be ok

3. Debunking a few myths/
Golden rules/
The Lynx Challenge/
What do you need to prepare?/

4. Debunking a few myths/
Naughty journalists…
Trade publications love a crisis; and often create a storm in a teacup. While corporate
reputation is important, taking a measured view is key
Social media crisis are no different to any other marketing crisis; they‟re just much, much
quicker and a lot more visible
Most „social media‟ crises are nothing more than bad customer service

5. Golden rules/
Number one
Accept and acknowledge

6. Your first
response
should always
be “yes, we
realise
something has
happened”
even if you
have ZERO
answers.
This will stem
the tide of “hey
company, did
you know?”
messages.

7. Golden rules/
Number two
Accept and acknowledge
Don‟t stick your head in the sand

8. 89% consumers began doing business
with a competitor following a
poor customer experience.
50% of consumers give a brand only one
week to respond to a question
before they stop doing business with
them.
Source: RightNow Customer Experience Impact study Oct
2012

9. Golden rules/
Number three
Accept and acknowledge
Don‟t stick your head in the sand
Remember what you already know

10. During the two-day network
outage, new Twitter followers
increased from an average
of 155 to 13,500 per day.
O2 quickly became a hot
topic, with a 4,836 percent
uplift in people
talking, @replying and retweeting.

11. status.o2.co.uk
news.o2.co.uk
o2.co.uk
community.o2.co.uk
twitter.com/o2
facebook.com/o2uk

12. Direct
Rising above it
Personalisatio
n

13. Humour
Being humble

14. Golden rules/
Number four
Accept and acknowledge
Don‟t stick your head in the sand
Remember what you already know
Be authentic

15. FedEx recorded an apology video with Matthew Thornton, senior VP
of FedEx's US operations.
In it he said that: “As the leader of our pickup and delivery
operations across America, I want you to know that I was
upset, embarrassed, and very sorry for our customer’s poor
experience. This goes directly against everything we have always
taught our people and expect of them. It was just very
disappointing.”

16. Golden rules/
Number five
Accept and acknowledge
Don‟t stick your head in the sand
Remember what you already know
Be authentic
Mirror the correct channel of communication

18. Golden rules/
Number six
Accept and acknowledge
Don‟t stick your head in the sand
Remember what you already know
Be authentic
Mirror the correct channel of communication
Get the message out there

19. 1. JetBlue keeps passengers onboard at
JFK airport in new York City for up to 14
hours on Valentine‟s Day, 2007
2.
3. Saturday, October 29, 2011. JetBlue
Flight 504 departed Fort Lauderdale, FL
for Newark, NJ. An unusual October
snow storm moved into the northeast
causing flight problems for Newark and
other nearby airports.
“Unfortunately, no official statement
appeared on the JetBlue web site within
24 hours of the crisis. Most of the news
stories noted a representative for the
Bradley International Airport was not
available for comment. Hence, the airport
was silent immediately after the crisis.”
- PR Strategy & Application

20. 4. March 2012: JetBlue Flight 191 lands in
Amarillo, Texas, where it was diverted after the
captain began yelling about „bombs on board‟.

21. Golden rules/
Number six
Accept and acknowledge
Don‟t stick your head in the sand
Remember what you already know
Be authentic
Mirror the correct channel of communication
DON‟T PANIC!

22. The Lynx Challenge/
The problem

23. The Lynx Challenge/
Context
In February 2012 the „Lynx Challenge‟ became a trending topic on Twitter.
Young guys were actively participating and putting the videos on social spaces.
Participants were posting on our FB page.
Solvent abuse is incredibly dangerous so we needed to shut the conversations down and
fast!

24. The Lynx Challenge/
The solution
Initial response was to delete the videos from Facebook. We actively monitored Twitter to see what the general
consensus was. Luckily most were negative and anti the activity.
Contacted YouTube and asked for the videos to be removed for Health and Safety reasons.
If the chatter didn‟t die down we thought that a good response would be to purchase a promoted
tweet, containing either a shortened form of the Unilever response, or a link to the full response.
This would get the message in front of people who are searching and finding this on Twitter, they would see
our tweet first before they see the videos and other tweets.
It will also show that Lynx is responsive and understands the platform. Ideally the shortened version of the
tweet would be in Lynx‟s TOV.

25. The activity peaked at around 5am
GMT which implies most of the
conversation during the peak
happened outside of the UK. This is
reinforced by the number of mentions
from Australia and USA. Most of the
2,183 mentions occurred on
Twitter, likely driven by the trending
topic. This is supported by the fact
that the activity dropped off in the
morning after the trend ended.

26. How to prepare/
What do I need to do?
Invest in social listening; and outline rules for who‟s going to watch this
Decide what constitutes a crisis:
– If you don‟t know any more than the public
– When a distinctly different line of negative conversation happens
– If something has a material affect on a company
Create an escalation chart
Prepare an FAQ
Prepare to give people an outlet on an owned space (requires senior education)
Know when to take it offline, sometimes you‟ll never win (remember rule of three)

27. If you can‟t get a video of your CEO
online from anywhere in the world in
four hours, you need to plan more