Improve your crisis PR management with a triage approach

Social media monitoring can alert brands of customer service problems and potential reputation-damaging issues. Just remember that not every problem or negative exchange is a crisis.

Some organizations may feel compelled to react to every problem with a public statement or social media post. Ironically, that can draw more attention to the initial issue and inadvertently increase reputational damage.

A poor review or disparaging social media post does not qualify as a crisis, at least not usually or initially. Triaging, or sorting issues revealed through social media listening, is the first step in determining the appropriate crisis management response. It’s essential to recognize what’s a crisis and what’s merely an issue needing a resolution.

Convince & Convert cites three elements that can transform a social media problem into a PR crisis:

Lack of information. If you know less than your critics or people at the scene of an incident, you have cause for concern. Such lack of knowledge creates a dangerous information dissymmetry. Once you gain information, the crisis eases.