Introduction
Uh oh. As a celebrity, something just got posted to your social media account that shouldn’t be there. Now, your fans are jumping in posting criticism, adding insult to injury. Your stomach is in your throat, and your brain is kicking into panic mode . What should you do? How should you respond? Should you ask for help? Is this your fault?
It’s in these period that having a social media crisis management plan is so essential. That way, you can quickly put out the fire without inciting further damage.
Sometimes, social media mistakes are inconsequential. Other times, they can be more serious and have a huge effect on your brand as a celebrity. But we are humans and humans, sometimes we make mistakes. But when a mistake happens, you can expect people to take to social networks to talk about your brand.
When a problem arises on social media, you can follow these quick steps:
1.
Ask yourself whether this is a real crisis.
2.
If it is, own it. (Quickly.)
3.
Have a plan.
Let’s take a closer look at these steps. In this piece i’ll address the difference between a problem and a crisis and, what to do if you’re actually involved in a crisis, and how you can create your own social media crisis management plan as a celebrity.
Problem or a Crisis (Determining the level of damage it may cause your brand)
We may have all recall a bit of negative news that surrounded Tv3 news anchor, Nana Aba Anamoah. She was slapped by her fans on twitter by making false claims that she was in old trafford to watch to her favorite team, Manchester United Played against Sunderland.
This is was a big problem to her brand, and the story could have just ended there. Instead this problem escalated in to crisis because she resisted giving an apology or saying the truth until is too late. The outcome significanlty affected her as she was indefinetly suspended by TV3 ( the media house she work for as a news anchor)
NB: Crisis have long term reputations on your brand and goes along way to affect your brand buttom line. So in this case of Nana Aba, she was faced with a social media crisis.
Problem have short term implications on your brand and by just saying sorry, the problem will be resolve. So in this case of Nana Aba, even though she was faced with a problem initially, she refused to use apologetic phrases like i’m sorry and that’s how come it turned out to be a crisis.
And as digital strategist for getghanaonline.com and a student of social media marketing, i suggest that if Nana Aba Anamoah had quickly apologized to her fans and retracted those tweet she posted on twitter, her problem would not have escalated to a crisis or a point where her employers (Tv3 network) will have to suspend her indefinitely.
Creating /managing a social media crisis plan
In this case Nana Aba could have done the following to prevent this problem from escalating in to such proportions of her being sacked by her employer or being busted by her fans :
a. Deleting the tweet withing 10 mins once she identified a problem with it.
b. Pausing any social media campaign/promotion
c. Issuing a blog post to share her mistake with her fans and apologizing to her fans.
c. Developing a response/holding statement for potential questions that will be ask by the media, and her core fans.
And these are some Checklist every celebrity should use when face with a similar problem.
- Pause any social media post
- Pause paid ads on any social media network eg. facebook
- Delete Posted Item/tweet
- Apologize to your fans, use words like i’m sorry
- Create a blog entry for addressing the problem at hand
SOURCE :Gad Ocran/gonewsgh.com