With social networks, wrong action or negative comments can lead to an online crisis leading to social condemnation. The digital transformation has changed the rules of brand-public relation and a growing number of companies are joining the new trends of communication and consumption. It is essential to develop a digital strategy for times of conflict and thus avoid possible negative consequences. The fact of providing a basic service to society, as do pharmacists, clinics and hospitals, places them on the requirement to be correct and efficient both in the background and in the forms.
To deal with negative situations in the digital environment, companies dedicated to health often have a marketing agency that advises them on their digital strategy. First of all, the risks that can be faced are analyzed in advance, in order to present an adequate communication crisis strategy in social networks to reverse the situation.
Guidelines for crisis management in social networks
Anticipating problems is key, so studying and knowing the risks of the company in the face of possible bad comments, opinions, and experiences can overcome many obstacles. If a rumor is spreading, the environment should be monitored and all departments officially informed. You have to be prepared as soon as possible to provide a quick and efficient response.
When the comment already circulates online, it should not be ignored either in social networks or in front of the public, it should be contrasted and if it were necessary to take responsibility. Many times eludes both apologize and an offer of dialogue, although it seems logical and tends to allow the passage of time, which can cause the online crisis to increase.
A preventive practice that is usually used is to define well and communicate the contact channels or suggestion boxes. If you want to do things right, you should listen to the client’s opinion at all times. Another tactic may be to publish articles through content marketing. These articles, always realistic, allude to services, functions and even advice related to the product or service and encourage the interest of the client to know the company and to understand those possible shortcomings on which they are working.
What to take into account to develop a good digital strategy?
It is very important to inform all employees about the guidelines for action in the event of an online crisis, especially the communication department that is linked to the marketing agency. Currently, workers are part of our public cloud and, perhaps without a defined action protocol, when they see an attack on their company in social networks they could respond in an unpromoted manner which could make the situation worse. Therefore, there must be a public and informative document that indicates all the courses of action and what arguments to appeal.
Some guidelines that this plan should follow:
- Possible sources of conflict according to interest groups and consequences that may result: provide the indications in a table and specify what could happen according to the group. You have to include the courses of action.
- Routes of action: you must be specific about the steps to follow in case of conflict, that is, establish the action protocol.
- Answers: in this part, the answers are detailed, once the possible actions have been studied. You have to specify tone, style and guidelines to respond.
- Against campaigns: in case the response provided is not enough, from the communication department you can study some strategy to divert attention to another issue, with the aim of giving visibility to other aspects of the company. The reputation crisis is used to show an advantage. In social networks, with an SEO-oriented campaign, positive results could be achieved in a short period of time.
You can solve any online crisis with the right strategy and communication for each situation. One of the key elements, as we have said, is to always anticipate. Therefore, a key action that we always recommend is the monitoring of keywords of our brand, product, and service in both social networks and web pages, forums, reviews, etc. In this way, we will have an analytical control of everything that refers to our brand in terms of communication by users, customers, patients and even haters.
