5 Things to Avoid During a Social Media Explosion
// March 27th, 2010 // social media, web thoughts
The spotlight turned back on to social media management recently following the way that Nestle handled the ‘social media explosion’ that occurred on their Facebook Page. Greenpeace created a video about Nestle’s use of palm oil in Kit Kat’s and how it directly endangered the lives of orangutans. This video quickly went viral after it was removed from YouTube and the main focal point for the public’s rage was the Nestle Facebook Page.Below are 5 things to avoid doing when the going gets tough.
1. Moderation
Don’t delete peoples comments, unless they are totally irrelevant or break the terms of use of the environment you are in. On Facebook there is a Report function that might be advisable to call upon rather than deleting a comment. The removal of comments is both frustrating (for posters) and confusing (for readers).
2. Composure
Remain calm and collected, don’t rise to any comments that are obviously posted to generate a reaction. Never reply in anger.
3. Change
Resist the urge to edit or tweak your original statement, treat a post in social media like you would a blog and use strike-throughs and updates to modify a message.
4. Haste
The immediate reaction to a social media onslaught on your Facebook Page or Blog is to quickly reply to each comment or query. The danger here is that the quality of your message will be effected. Slow down and where possible compose responses that meet the needs of a number of commenter’s into a single reply.
5. Abandon Ship
I’ve seen on more than one occasion a brand’s Facebook Page that has been abandoned after an explosion. If the situation is not managed well the community of ‘fans’ that remain may be very jaded and any communication that the brand communicates might be met with negativity. The only way to resolve this would be to back track and clearly address the root cause of the original problem and hopefully move forward from there.
I hope you’ve found these 5 pieces of advice useful and it would be great to have any additional words of wisdom added in the comments below…
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Island Pulse, Simon Lilly. Simon Lilly said: First blog post in a two-part series on dealing with a 'social media explosion' – What not to do… http://bit.ly/chNiK6 [...]