Clear and understandable crisis management guidance for social media is definitely something you need to look for if you’re a stressful, work-psychotic type of person. Working too hard all day long and just worrying about crisis because you have no time facing it simply is not gonna do much good.

You’re obviously aware of the fact that just one wrong move on social media might cause huge problems. Different kinds of people are too sensitive over their own personal stuff and beliefs, and the world we live in as a whole is a fragile place. Sooner or later you will come across either a minor or a major social media crisis.

Your only concern should obviously be about facing it and hindering it. Keep in mind that you don’t have to limit your creativity and ideas, you should just make necessary adaptations.

Depending on your company’s sector and area of interest, you need to address people with specific characteristics. Despite differences in those characteristics, a set of rules and guidelines is going to work for you regardless.

So, here’s a clue on what you have to do if you care about saving your brand from all that potential social media fight awaiting in the corner.

1. Create a Social Media Policy

As a first and fundamental step, you need to start from guiding your employees and setting rules that are aligned to the image you want to create towards your own audience. In the case of handling a crisis, you should obviously focus on rules that help limit negative viral publicity.

Of course, you must not in any way restrict your own workforce’s capabilities, you should just make them work under a safe and effective strategy.

In order to point out your overall goals and objectives make it clear to your employees that every time they post something, they represent the brand as a whole and not themselves.

For your effective internal communication, you can utilize Hootsuite Amplify, an online tool that helps you guide your workforce on what kind of messaging they should use during crisis periods.

2. Keep your eyes open

By being smart enough to prevent your brand from messing badly with already existing small issues, you surely put a cap on getting involved in a future potential big crisis. You need to pay attention to the internet in general and utilize social listening in order to understand both your brand’s and your audience’s boundaries.

By having a clear idea of what others think of your brand and getting deep into defining and securing its identity, you’ll gain the ability to limit any existing negativity.

Taking advantage of social listening won’t just help you understand and comprehend important information, it will also give you guidance on better strategic actions that ultimately change your brand’s image for the better.

3. Be able to identify and accept the crisis

Sometimes brands create their own problems by making small things bigger. By understanding the gap between a few negative social media reactions and a true social media crisis you’ll be much more capable of preventing actual a crisis from happening.

When just a handful of people express their complaints about your brand on your accounts it’s no crisis. Many times crisis occurs when you don’t handle properly those early stages of negativity.

Also, brands a lot of times face a crisis not because they’ve done something wrong themselves, but because there is an overall bigger crisis. If for example, scientists found out that chewing gum harms someone’s teeth, companies involved in producing and selling gums would suddenly be in big trouble.

Overall, it all comes down to how one communicates a brand’s work and image.

4. Never argue

A lot of times people can get really rude and aggressive on social media. You probably have come across such a situation on your accounts, or on other accounts. Obviously, not everyone is kind and patient.

Remember though, disappointing people is not a crime, what could be a crime, after all, is arguing with them and displaying a negative image. Not keeping your composure and acting like a mad brute would make your brand look incompetent and impolite. Bear in mind that you have a better chance of winning an argument against stubborn and negative people if you help your brand retain its dignity.

Try to move conversations towards fields that favor your side and don’t get too deep into giving answers to their allegations.

Being polite towards the most quarrelsome individuals surely showcases professionalism and it ultimately attracts other people who view your activity. It overall helps further engagement and it’s key in securing a crisis.

5. Think long-term

A lot of times something which looks positive at a certain period of time could easily make a u-turn and ultimately turn against your brand in a matter of months, weeks or just days. On the other hand, negative publicity usually stays the way it is and doesn’t limit itself to just a few days or weeks.

You can protect your brand from getting roasted by fixing your activity for the long term and acting as preventively and as precautiously as possible.

Your responses or announcements should feel right not just at the precise moment you give them, but after some time as well.

Whenever you’re about to post something, try to manage your posts accordingly to your future plans by also paying close attention to upcoming trends or hot issues.

Sometimes it’s just better to keep your nose out of some stuff. Think long term and you’ll know what you should mix your brand with and whatnot.

If you take these guidelines seriously and truly adapt them to your employees’ and your own everyday business, it’s almost guaranteed that you won’t need to worry anymore about being in the spotlight for negative reasons. Do these and you definitely won’t join the club of most hated companies.