As part of Social Media Club Atlanta’s Coffee and Content breakfast series – I recently spent the morning with a group of social media marketers discussing our favorite Social Media #Fails. Of course, we weren’t just meeting to laugh at our fellow marketers, but to try and learn how we can avoid some of the situations and pitfalls that these marketers found themselves in.
The discussion was lively - and definitely amusing - but I think the best part of the morning was our recap of what to do when you are the one making the mistake on social media. So here are my steps on how to minimize the damage, and perhaps turn the social media #Fail into something positive for the brand by showing that you are responsive, that you are transparent, and that you care about the community you are interacting with.
OK, here we go. Someone in your company did something on social media… and the shit has hit the fan. What do you do?
So, what do you think, did I miss anything?
The discussion was lively - and definitely amusing - but I think the best part of the morning was our recap of what to do when you are the one making the mistake on social media. So here are my steps on how to minimize the damage, and perhaps turn the social media #Fail into something positive for the brand by showing that you are responsive, that you are transparent, and that you care about the community you are interacting with.
OK, here we go. Someone in your company did something on social media… and the shit has hit the fan. What do you do?
- Own up to the mistake immediately. Timeliness and responsiveness are key to getting a handle on this and ensuring that it doesn’t become an even bigger issue than it has to. You may not have all the answers yet – but admitting that you made a mistake in a timely fashion and that you are actively investigating what happened will curtail a lot of chatter and speculation within the social community. The more time spent contemplating what to do next, the bigger the issue will become.
- Admit your mistake – don’t shift blame. #1 and #2 go together. It’s your fault, admit it. (I don’t mean you personally, by name – but you the company or organization. PLEASE don’t publicly blame or shame an individual.)
Don’t blame a 3rd party like your marketing agency either, even if they played a role in the mistake. You’ve heard “The buck stops here” – well it’s true. You are responsible for the oversight and management of your own social channels. - Explain what happened – be transparent. You know that authenticity is key to your interactions on social media. There is no time when this truer than when you are trying to recover from a blunder. Again though, transparency doesn’t mean throwing an individual or a 3rd party under the bus. Don’t think about how an individual failed – think about how the PROCESS failed.
Transparency also means that you don’t try to hide the mistake. Trust me, within 5 seconds of your post, if something screwed up someone else has a screenshot of it. Now, if the content of your snafu is pornographic, obscene, a personal attack, or otherwise NSFW… sure, you probably want to remove it. But if you can, in the interest of transparency, you shouldn’t hide or delete your posts. Even when you screw up. - Discuss what changes are being made to prevent something like this happening in the future. This is the big one. What changes are you making, what new processes are being put in place to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. This may be bigger than a tweet – you might need a blog post or something to really discuss the situation transparently and how you are rectifying the situation. But seriously, this is the most important step. Admitting you made a mistake doesn’t mean much if you aren’t talking about what you are doing to prevent these types of mistakes in the future. So… how are you updating your process, oversight, management, etc. to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.
So, what do you think, did I miss anything?
