Social Media Fire and Storm Prevention, Preparation and Response

Social Media Crisis Management advice for Local Government

Part of the Critchsue blog series – Managing Social Media in Local Government

In general, many Local Government organisations, especially those in New Zealand, are novices when it comes to Social Media management and participation. As such, dealing with a social media crisis is often a “seat of your pants” operation. We need to get better at this activity.

Social media crisis management is not very different from crisis management in any other area, except that the time for reacting to an event is much shorter. A huge storm can be created by social media users in a very short period of time (Pfeffer, Zorbach, & Carley, 2014). Organisations need to keep their eyes open, be realistic and anticipate the storms.

There are three components to managing a crisis:

• Prevent
• Prepare
• Respond

 Prevent the Situation

Prevention is better than a cure and often more cost effective. An orderly implementation that is gradually matured over time (Lee & Kwak, 2012) will go some way towards this prevention.

There are many tools available to assist with a successful social media implementation in an organisation. Some examples include:

An Implementation getting started guide (McGee, 2015)

Open Government Maturity Model (Lee & Kwak, 2012)

Book – Social Media Rules of Engagement

Social Media Profiling framework (Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillaga, 2010)

Google and social media searches using words such as social media implementation success will return many hits.

My favourite tools would be a combination of the Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillaga (2010) profiling framework to assess where the organisation currently sits combined with the Open Government Maturity Model (Lee & Kwak, 2012) to determine what the organisation needs to address next on their journey to a successful implementation, including maturing crisis event prevention.

Prepare for the Event

While we do our best to prevent a social media crisis, we still need to prepare to handle a crisis should our prevention techniques not be sufficient. This is a likely scenario with the proliferation of social media tools and sites and the ever increasing size and sophistication of the group using these tools.

The Social Media Rules of Engagement indicate this is the first line of defence when dealing with a social media crisis.

We also need to be mindful of the four lessons of social media crisis management:

1. It is a risky business that could make or break a business
2. You never know what is going to happen
3. Fire Drills – practice dealing with fires
4. Get ready to create – create content to stem the flow of negative activity

There are specialists around to assist with crisis mitigation and free downloadable crisis management plan templates.

Respond to the Situation

Inevitably there will be a crisis, or two, that needs to be handled. If we are prepared, these events should not be too onerous – the organisation will know what needs to be done. We will have participated in practice sessions so the actual event will be business as usual.

Digitlab  suggests that when addressing a social media crisis the organisation needs to be honest, respond in a relevant manner and switch the location of the crisis to somewhere more manageable (e.g. frequently asked questions on a website. It is important that the organisation listens, sets the right expectations and is transparent.

Other blogs in Critchsue – “Managing Social Media in Local Government” series

Social Media Privacy and the Digital Native

Social Media Risk Management – Is it needed?

Social Media Analytics – Makeover Time

References

Culnan, M. J., McHugh, P. J., & Zubillaga, J. I. (2010, Dec). How Large U.S. Companies Can Use Twitter and Other Social Media to Gain Business Value. MIS Quarterly Executive, 9(4), 243-259.

Lee, G., & Kwak, Y. H. (2012). An Open Government Maturity Model for social media-based public engagement. Government Information Quarterly, 29, 492-503.

McGee, T. (2015, Dec). A local government guide to getting started on social media. Retrieved Jan 2016, from LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/local-government-guide-getting-started-social-media-todd-mcgee?platform=hootsuite

Pfeffer, J., Zorbach, T., & Carley, K. (2014). Understanding online firestorms: Negative word-of-mouth dynamics in social media networks. Journal of Marketing Communications, 20(1-2), 117-128. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2013.797778

Social Media Risk Management – Is it needed?

Social Media Risk Management in Local Government

Part of the Critchsue blog series – Managing Social Media in Local Government

 

Are there any social media risks to manage in a local government setting? Everything done within that organisation is discoverable so data leakage and privacy aren’t a concern, or are they? Is brand damage a problem – we don’t have any competitors?

All organisations, even social media, have risk in relation to social media. It is just that some do not realise it. According to Altimeter, many are aware at some level but many just cross their fingers and hope.

Let’s get rid of that ‘head in the sand’ attitude and manage, rather than ignore, the risks associated in our organisations.

Getting Started

To start we need to implement a process whereby social media risks are continually identified, documented and mitigations developed. The ever changing social media environment means we can’t just do this once then put it in a draw – it will be constantly behind the times. The Accenture framework (Culp, Gomes, & Narveson, 2014) designed to generate a risk awareness culture within an organisation is a good resource if you are starting from scratch

Framework for Managing Social Media Risk (Culp, Gomes, & Narveson, 2014)

Best Practices

Some of the best practices to keep in mind when designing and implementing your risk management framework include:

• Risks are not isolated to internal staff – the public are able to produce negative content that could risk the organisation brand, quality of information and destroy trust (Schullich, 2012)
• Ensure all risks, not just those around reputation damage, are considered (Culp, Gomes, & Narveson, 2014)
• Rather than having a separate risk governance structure for social media, include the social media risk activities in the existing structures (Culp, Gomes, & Narveson, 2014). In the council there is already an audit function, recruit the manager of this area to assist with incorporating social media.
• Upon completion of the risk assessment, present it to the executive team for decisions on mitigation strategies (Schullich, 2012)

Resources

There are often resource constraints within organisations, particularly local government, in this area. Budgets are tight and the use of social media as a business tool is just emerging. Tapping into the knowledge of other councils within the region or local government specific resources such as the ALGIM resources on social media will extend the resources available to you. There are many resources available online that searches will reveal. Key words include social, media, risk, management, local, government. Some of these have been compiled for you in this storify.

Other blogs in Critchsue – “Managing Social Media in Local Government” series

Social Media Privacy and the Digital Native

Social Media Fire and Storm Prevention, Preparation and Response

Social Media Analytics – Makeover Time

References

Culp, S., Gomes, R., & Narveson, J. (2014). A Comprehensive Approach to Managing Social Media Risk and Compliance.

Schullich, R. (2012). Risk Assessment in Social Media. The SANS institute InfoSec Reading Room, SANS Institute.