A Social Media Strategic Plan for Online Crisis. An Outline for Bed and Breakfasts and Other Businesses

by Heather T. | Feb 27, 2020 | Bed and Breakfasts, Marketing, Operations, Security

Many businesses large and small don’t think about creating a social media crisis strategic plan until after the fact. I liken it to not backing up your personal and business information from your computer or computers until after the fire that guts your office or the flood that sweeps away the business.

Planning ahead and at least getting a handle on how you would approach an online crisis before it happens is key to helping your business survive an incident without you having to have a mental breakdown during a situation. This can cause an enormous amount of stress between employees and management or partners and spouses/significant others. Or if you are not that concerned about a full-scale online meltdown but simply want to be better prepared when you have a review or two that is negative and you need a plan in place for how to handle it this can be useful to at least do the basics.

I wrote this out a few years ago for a client’s use and just recently updated it and thought it may be helpful to post it as I see many reputation management companies out there making suggestions but not many give (or any I could find easily at least) actual step by step guidelines and suggestions for what to do. I would guess they want you to pay for it but it’s an important topic that many small businesses may not and do not have in the budget to employ a company to handle and manage this.

You can download this in (PDF) Social Media Strategic Plan for Crisis or MSWord Social Media Strategic Plan for Crisis, and here is the text to review if you would like to peruse what constitutes putting a plan in place. This is an outline to be modified or tweaked as needed and to customize it to your own business. Be safe and be prepared! (and backup your information too!!!) Please feel free to take it and adapt for use, if you are going to copy it and use it for distribution, some credit would be appreciated, if you are going to copy it for your own and sell it for a fee, karma will come around and bite you at some point and you are not a good human being, enough said.

Strategy for Social Media Crisis for “Your Business“

Date Created:
Date last updated:

Facebook-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Facebook Access: Admin Editor Moderator Advertiser Analyst
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Facebook Access: Admin Editor Moderator Advertiser Analyst
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Facebook Access: Admin Editor Moderator Advertiser Analyst
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

Twitter-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Team Member: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Team Member: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

Pinterest-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Access to shared boards: Yes No Yes, which specific ones:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Access to shared boards: Yes No Yes, which specific ones:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

Youtube-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Youtube Access: Primary Owner Owner Manager Communications Manager
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Youtube Access: Primary Owner Owner Manager Communications Manager
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

Instagram-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

Google My Business-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• GMB Access: Primary Owner Owner Manager Site Manager
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• GMB Access: Primary Owner Owner Manager Site Manager
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

Yelp-Who has Access?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Full Access: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Full Access: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

Other Social Media Channels-Who has Access? For Lodging Add Tripadvisor and OTAs, for other hospitality, any other specific platforms that take reviews.
Cut and paste and put the level of access in if applicable:
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Full Access: Yes No
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

What channels and programs are being used to monitor company reputation online? (Be specific) include costs if applicable.

How often are those channels be checked?

Who is responsible for company online monitoring?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

Define what a crisis is
Single Event VS Massive Online Meltdown: (Define)

Single Event (i.e. a comment) VS Single Event that Snowballs (i.e. it keeps getting larger): (Define)

What constitutes an online crisis to your company (be specific if possible)?

What are some of the repercussions your company can face in the event of an online crisis?

Who will be the point person in responding to online crisis events? (Add contact information here)

Who is a secondary person (in the event the first is not available or additional help is needed)? (Add contact information here)

Who needs to be informed of an online crisis? (Add contact information here) Add secondary people who can make recommendations and directions in the event the key people are not available.

And what are the steps and procedures point people need to follow in order to inform the above?

Who should an employee or company contact get in touch within the event something is seen online that the company needs to address? (Add contact information here)

What steps should a point person take immediately if they are unable to get a response from a key person in charge of decisions?
Examples: Unpublish the Facebook Business Page, Deactivate Twitter account (you have 30 days to recover it), Instagram: temporarily deactivate account, Pinterest: temporarily deactivate account, Youtube: turn off commenting, etc. (major crisis)
Or
Delete posts, pins, boards, videos etc. (minor issue)
++Keep in mind people screenshot, so just deleting something doesn’t necessarily mean the problem will go away if someone saw it and took a screenshot or more it can resurface.

Who is responsible for company online monitoring?
• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

• Name:
• Role in Organization:
• Email address:
• Alternative Email Address:
• Phone Number:
• Cell Number:

What are the goals you want accomplished?
Examples: minimize publicity etc.
Damage control doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time and attention to it.

Who can your company reach out to to minimize impact and even out bad reviews or other bad publicity?
Examples: employees, past customers, business supporters, press.
If you have press contacts, who are they and how can a company contact them?

What message in a crisis do you want to be conveying?

What can you put out there to promote and reinforce your brand’s core message?

What are your company’s values?

What is your company’s value proposition to your customer base?

In the event of an online crisis, what guidelines for each platform should your point people be following?
For example: Facebook-delete post or respond (outline a standard response)
Yelp reviews- respond (outline a standard response)
Google My Business reviews- respond (outline a standard response)

What follow-up and addition steps can be taken to mitigate an online crisis?
Press Releases-Who will write, who will have input
Website Statement-Who will write, who will have input
Social Media Statement-Who will write, who will have input

Response templates for reviews: Customize to suit the platform, a Facebook response may not be worded quite the same way as you would word a Google My Business review or post:
Facebook:
Instagram:
Twitter: (keep in mind the 280 character count)
Google:
Yelp:

Other channels:
-Write up an initial response for each, a brief response acknowledging and the situation. This needs to go out as soon as there is a problem.
-Write up follow up responses, there will be two main types, responses to worried concerned people and responses to very unhappy/mad people.
-Create responses for key people as well. A moderator may be posting on behalf of the company owner or manager but it needs to be labeled as a response from that source.

What are some questions that might be asked by people in the event of an online crisis? Write some template responses in how to address these common questions.

What follow-up will you do online and off in the event of an online crisis and for how long?

If a crisis, even a minor one occurs, note what were the results of this, what could you have done differently? What did not go as planned? Did the process for addressing a problem go well? If not what could be tweaked to make it better if something happens in the future?

Reputation Management Checklist for Platforms

Google My Business/Google Maps= Checked Listing
Yes No
No: Check

Claimed Ownership of listing
Yes No
No; Claim

Verified Listing Information is Correct
Yes No
No: Fix

Signed Up for Email Alerts of Reviews
Yes No
No: Sign Up

Yelp = Checked Yelp Listing
Yes No
No: Check

Claimed Ownership of listing
Yes No
No; Claim

Verified Listing Information is Correct
Yes No
No: Fix

Signed Up for Email Alerts of Reviews
Yes No
No: Sign Up

Checked Bing Local Listing http://www.bing.com/businessportal
Yes No
No: Check

Claimed Ownership of listing Yes No
Yes No
No; Claim

Verified Listing Information is Correct
Yes No
No: Fix

Signed Up for Email Alerts of Reviews
Yes No
No: Sign Up

Checked Yahoo Local Listing/Yext
Yes No
No: Check

Claimed Ownership of listing
Yes No
No; Claim

Verified Listing Information is Correct
Yes No
No: Fix

Signed Up for Email Alerts of Reviews
Yes No
No: Sign Up
++Note about Yahoo listings, the site signup is confusing, this article may help https://localmarketinginstitute.com/yahoo-free-business-listing/

Optional Merchant Circle, Manta, Other directories

Other services and monitoring:
Check to see if your business name is taken on social networks:
http://namechk.com/

http://knowem.com/
-Don’t sign up for the service, just use it check (and be cognizant of the fact that they don’t seem to be right 100% of the time)

Free Reputation alerts:
http://google.com/alerts (put in quotes for better return results)
Real time search (twitter) https://twitter.com/search-advanced

Paid:
• https://mention.com/en/
• https://sproutsocial.com/plans-and-pricing/

There are additonal paid monitoring services out there, use your judgement, get a demo, talk to other companies who have used them. Benchmark any reports and results if you pay for it.