How to Prepare Your Business for Social Media Fails in 5 Simple Steps

• Date: 13 January 2020
• reading time: 7 Minutes
• Blogger: Sydney Tierney
• E-mail: [email protected]

Social media fails usually come out of nowhere. One day everything seems fine, and a tweet later the entirety of a brand name, can be demolished by those who once were followers.

A business facing a social media fail can be one of the hardest challenges to try and overcome, with a sorry just not being enough in some cases. While it may often be hoped that the controversial piece of content posted just may not have been seen, you can remain confident that is has. With social media discovered to be used multiple times a day by over a third of the world’s population, this form of hope of remaining unseen is highly unlikely. 

In this article, we will be discussing how to prepare a business for a social media fail, to hopefully decrease any chances of long term backlash, while allowing the social media content team to get back on their feet within no time. 

What Is a Social Media Fail?

When it comes to describing a social media fail, there are, in fact, many different types. From the extreme controversies and build-up of stereotyping to the minimal yet questionable status posted in the early hours of the morning. An inappropriate office joke that is not funny to anyone else, or the hacking of the beloved video workstation, that is not fun for anyone. 

A prime example of social media fail can be seen back in 2018. In this instant, Snapchat, tried and failed to convince themselves that any publicity was good publicity. 

It all began with celebrity fans of the platform started hitting back at the makers of Snapchat. Such celebrities voiced their dislike of the platform, announcing that it was not worth their time and that they preferred the service offered by competitor sites such as Instagram. The first criticism was seen with makeup entrepreneur and reality TV star, Kylie Jenner suggesting that she no longer uses the app.

The sudden loss of loyalty amongst their once faithful fans, saw Snapchat lose a grand figure of  $1.3 Billion. But this was only the beginning. To get back on track, Snapchat decide to release a game labelled ‘Would you rather?’ to which they asked the audience if they would rather slap Rihanna, or punch Chris Brown, not a great choice considering the domestic violence background. 

This ‘thought to be a good’ idea game cost the platform an additional $650 million with the backlash and rise of disgust spreading and becoming vocalised across a range of different social media platforms. The shock and disgust against Snapchat was heightened when Rihanna herself made a formal comment. Since then, the platform has not been the same. 

While this may be at the higher end of seriousness, it is still a social media fail, something that we want to avoid happening at all costs. So, no matter how minute the fail may be, below are some of the best ways you can prevent a failure from occurring with your company’s social media accounts.  

1- Always Have A Policy In Place

Within a business, it is an imperative feature to have a worker policy set in place. By having one of these, anyone that works under the brand name will know how to act, speak, and approach any issues to ensure only the most positive outlook is given. 

This is most important for those who will be posting content on behalf of the brand name. By having a quality social media policy in place can save the company’s reputation in even the darkest of times. To ensure a good policy is in place, the policy should cover the following aspects:

• Never release confidential information 
• Shows employees how negative or aggressive situations should be handled if they happen
• How the employees should speak about the company
• To never post or reply in a negative manner about a customer experience
• Any content released must be checked, kept to the brand identity and target audience

By having a social media policy that covers the key areas addressed here, as well as any additional features, a business can be certain that any media failures are kept to the absolute minimum. It is clear and should be remembered when posting on social media that everything will be there forever, even if deleted off the site. Because of this, there needs to be a continual rule passed down throughout the team. While they may enjoy sharing their personal lives online, this is not the same in a business place, and failures will quickly be conducted. 

2- Dealing With Negative Comments Quickly

It may feel easier or even safer to ignore or delete a negative brand comments from social media accounts. This idea stems from the belief that what cannot be seen no longer exists and the amount of customers seeing this kind of negative comment will decrease, right? This is not the case.

Nine out of ten brands make this same mistake and take the decision to not reply to negative commentary. With 58% of negative tweets being ignored by businesses on social media. This move to remove the comment does far greater damage than facing it head-on and tackling it with sophistication and manner. It is important to remember that even if the comment is not replied too, that the customer still feels this way, and the gateway to changing their mind is rapidly closing. So, it is most important to respond to each and every issue addressed to the brand through any form of social media.

Be sure to remain aware that the customer and their comments have been taken seriously, and while a positive outcome may not be certain, the brand can be sure that they promised a better product experience in the future. 

3- Jumping Into The Wrong News

 A relatively common social media fail seen throughout various platforms, is businesses trying to increase brand awareness. This is most often witnessed by the brand involving themselves into news or conversations that doesn't entirely concern them. While this is bad in itself, it’s even worse when the business has not taken the time to research the news and result in fooling themselves by posting something that is rather controversial, without even realising. 

So, avoid piggybacking a pre-existing hashtag, unless the social media team is fully aware of the news that they are diving into, to ensure any comments made cannot be turned against the company name.

4- Have Secure Accounts

Being a business and owning a social media account can incur a range of content failures, but what about the security failures? This is a very risky situation that can leave the business stuck in a web that may prove difficult to wriggle their way out of. Particularly if the system is hacked, and unreasonable content is posted out onto the social media accounts for all followers to see.  

There are some rules to follow in order to decrease the chances of a security breach that could certainly lead to a social media failure. For example, keep those who know the account password to the bare minimum. By ensuring this, there is much lower chance of a slip up happening, with an inability to even guess the password at hand. 

Similarly, try centralising the business systems. A centralized platform such as Hootsuite allows account access customisation, this offers the owner to decide who has access to which account. This is particularly important for when colleagues decide to leave the business, the owner still has the ability to control accounts, making sure they cannot enter and access the account once they have left the premises.

5- Have A Crisis Action Plan

Possibly one of the main features to running a business that will be interacting and placing content onto social media is to have a plan of action in case of a crisis.

This will rule out any time wasted, debates taking place, or the time colleagues have spent sitting around fearfully waiting for instructions from a managerial position. Instead, they can take control and get the situation under control within a matter of minutes, which could be the difference in saving the brand name or not. 

Being able to act fast in a moment like this is crucial, with online actions able to spread like wildfire and go global within just an hour. Because of this, the plan put in place should entail the exact steps each and every colleague should take, with no other possible stepping stone to ensure this is followed to the point. 

The social media crisis plan should entail the following steps to increase chances of success:

• The role and responsibility of each department in the event of this happening
• Pre-planned emails and content or messages to post
• A communication plan if the failure involves customers 
• Guidelines for measuring how bad the crisis is, to work out who needs to be involved. If the magnitude is small, focus on only the main departments saving the issue

Despite being completely ready for a social media failure, the likelihood of it being solved within a matter or a few pieces of content, is rather small.However, each released piece counts to rebuilding the brand name, and saving it from the depths it may have plummeted itself into. Just ensure that the followers are hearing a response, and the business has not decided to go into hiding, this is far more damaging than anything else. This is why having a social media crisis plan is crucial, to coping well in the event of a big business failure. 

Summary

Take the time to examine the business, the employees in each department, and most importantly, the content being put out onto every single social media platform.

By ensuring there is a secure set of guidelines to follow can guarantee that everything posted is well written, to the brand name and by no means entails any controversy or questionable features. Helping to keep the chances of a social media failure to an absolute minimum, but only if these things are done correctly.

In the event of a crisis, having a reputable action plan in place is the best way to deal with the issue, and kickstart the process of saving and rebuilding the reputation of the business. 

Posting on social media in this generation is hard, many passing comments being analysed intensely, while many followers will try to find issues within  content. Because of the severity of a simple word nowadays, keep to a content profile that is light-hearted and by no means negative or controversial. This way, the business should grow a positive following and keep to a well known, and well-trusted brand name. 

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• Blogger: Sydney Tierney
• E-mail: [email protected]
• Sydney Tierney; just recently finished her studies; is working her way into the world of content writing as a digital marketing assistant. She writes for clients that specialise in workstations, procurement and SEO management.
• Other blog articles of Sydney Tierney