Social media has lots of interesting new ways of ruining your day. Any brand or organisation can suddenly find itself in a crisis. The availability of huge volumes of real-time data can make the situation better, or worse. It all depends on how you use it - to keep people focused, make decisions and measure progress. This is a guide to making the most of data to get through a crisis, and move on. By Alex Steer, Strategy Director at Fabric Worldwide. Presented to the Market Research Society in January 2014.

1. Oh my God a horrible crisis has
just broken and I didn’t see it
coming and it’s all going wrong. I
really wish I’d been a bit better at
using real time data so I could
work more effectively now that I’m
in a crisis management situation.
Unfortunately I didn’t, so now I’m
going to clear my desk.
Alex Steer, Strategy Director, Fabric Worldwide

2. We use fast-flowing data
to deliver creative advantage for brands

4. your brand goes here

5. Chrysler Autos
@ChryslerAutos
I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the
#motorcity and yet no one here knows how to
fucking drive

7. Gap
@gap
All impacted by #Sandy, stay safe! We’ll be
doing lots of Gap.com shopping today. How
about you?

8. Roy
@monacograndprix
#McDstories The advantage is you can keep a
happy meal for years and it is still as
“pristine” as the day you bought it.

9. TechnicallyRon
@technicallyron
.@BritishGas #AskBG What is the best
temperature to thaw an elderly relative at and
what seasoning would you use with one?

11. Good crisis management applies
the discipline of research
at the speed of social.

12. 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Keep perspective.
Define KPIs at the start.
Build a chain of command.
Set stages and gates.
Know your exits.

13. Keep perspective
•
•
•
•
How big?
How new?
Which channels?
What size response?
Use social data to scale and
situate the problem, and to
stop the initial panic!
Free tools are your friend.

14. KPIs at the start
•
•
•
•
What’s the damage?
What’s driving it?
What needs to change?
How quickly?
Use social data to keep
everyone focused on the task
to be done today.
Tracking is your friend.

15. Chain of command
•
•
•
•
Which people?
How often?
In what format?
When do we escalate?
Use social data to build your
reporting cycle and escalation
structure.
An email template is your friend.

16. Stages and gates
• Which challenges, in which
order?
• When’s ‘the end of the
beginning’?
• When does it end?
Use social data to make sure
everyone knows how complete
the task is.
Rapid research is your friend.

17. It does end.
•
•
•
•
Remember your old KPIs
Plan to get back to them
Know when it’s over
Know how to move on
Use social data to keep
monitoring – but don’t get
stuck in crisis mode forever.