In her Brands-Only Summit presentation, Chevron's Olivia Harting teaches a class on how to leverage social media in a crisis.
She describes how to prepare a successful crisis communications plan to utilize social media to support and defend your brand during a PR disaster.
5. What to Do (or NOT) During a Crisis• Gather team, set up a situation room, run thru the checklist
• Get your dashboards up and running
• Don’t go ‘radio silent’
• Address the issue online within minutes
• Consolidate FAQs from your community online
• Don’t stop publishing altogether
• Publish updates ‐ show the community you’re listening
• Use popular vernacular (E.g., #refineryfire vs. #Richmondrefinery)
• Redirect paid search to broaden message
• Capture and post response updates via video
• Don’t overexpose an incident
• Implement appropriate targeting or cancel digital advertising
• Capture relevant screenshots of the incident for later
• Don’t have local channels that can’t be accessed by central team