Online Crises: Only Six Social Solutions?

There is a lot involved in the decision-making process to determine how to manage a social media threat.   But for all of the required complexity, there’s typically only six solutions to choose from:  delete it, ignore it, monitor it, redirect it, respond to it or engage deeply on it.  

For a deeper perspective on this, check out my article placed in the Fall edition of The Public Relations Strategist, the quarterly publication of PRSA.

At the top of the second page, you’ll see examples of two different companies that require very different criteria to choose from the six solutions.  The important point of the illustration  — there is no off-the-shelf plan or template that would have worked for either company.  The diagnostics involved for each need to be customized.

Sidebar:  I anticipate that some may disagree with the “ignore it” tactic on the basis that all of the public’s feedback is essential for consideration in brand or corporate reputation.  I disagree.  There is a great deal of noise online that is not worth the time or resource.  Some of it is nefarious “trolling” and is pointedly designed to make a company or individual look silly.  As long as a company has good diagnostics to logically sniff out noise — I think it’s smart to just ignore the noise from time to time.

Thoughts?  Feedback?  Please share below.

3 thoughts on “Online Crises: Only Six Social Solutions?”

  1. Don't disagree about ignoring. The key to this whole mess is composure and wisdom. Composure to not be swayed by your emotions when people are ripping you a new one, and the wisdom to know what to ignore and what to respond to.

    1. Agree and I'll raise you one: purpose. I see a lot of companies "going social" to spread the word about promotions and advertising, but not necessarily to extend the dialogue in other areas beyond marketing. This makes crisis communications in this space doubly-difficult. Thanks for responding.

  2. The crisis management solutions briefed here for facing these online crises was really informative. The six solutions given here are really helpful to handle this crisis efficiently. Keep posting more of these sought of tips and updates to use internet effectively in future also. Good job!

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