Crisis Planning: How to Publicly Respond to Business Problems

Want to be prepared for problems in your business?

Wondering how to plan a public response to any issue?

To explore when and how businesses should respond publicly to a crisis, I interview Gini Dietrich.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Gini Dietrich, a crisis management professional. She's the founder and CEO of Spin Sucks, a site that helps businesses thrive with their public online communications. She also hosts the brand-new Spin Sucks podcast.

Gini explains how to handle a range of problems from online trolls to crises that threaten your reputation or revenue.

You'll also find tips for preparing company leaders to speak transparently to the public and handling a crisis quickly and effectively.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
Listen Now

Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Crisis Planning
What Is a Crisis?

In the past, PR agencies focused on crisis communications, and they were able to specialize in it because the crises were so few and far between. Today, somebody can be upset with a flight, a hotel stay, or a Crock-Pot killing a fictional TV character and take to Twitter, Facebook, or any social network where the issue can become blown out of proportion.

Today, everybody has a megaphone because of social media. Before, if you were upset with somebody or something, you told your neighbor, your friends, and your family, but your message was contained to about 30 people. Today, you can be upset about something and share it with thousands of people.

In this environment, it's important to identify an issue versus a crisis. You have an issue when somebody is antagonizing you or pushing your buttons, but their comments aren't going to go anywhere. On social media, issues are common and might be painful for a day or two or maybe even a week. But as long as the comments don't cause reputation or money loss, it's an issue, not a crisis.

A crisis has the potential to cause a stock price decline or a loss of customers, revenue, or reputation.

Issues and crises exist on a spectrum, where a troll creating an issue might be a level 1, and the money or reputation loss is a level 10. You need to think about how you respond to each level in between.

I ask whether the Cambridge Analytica story would be a level 10 crisis for Facebook. Gini says she would categorize that crisis as an 8 or 9 because the whole world is talking about that story, so Facebook has taken a reputational hit. However, after Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress, stock prices went up. Because Facebook isn't losing money, the crisis isn't a 10.

Listen to the show to hear Gini and me discuss how well Facebook handled the Cambridge Analytica crisis.

How to Handle Issues

Gini was recently in a Facebook group conversation with Jay Baer and Mitch Joel about whether to respond to trolls who leave negative, one-star book reviews on Amazon. Mitch Joel suggests not responding because his book won't be for everybody. However, Jay Baer thinks you should respond to them in order to hug your haters and make them feel warm and fuzzy.

From a crisis perspective, Gini leans more toward Jay Baer's perspective. Although you're not necessarily going to change the mind of a troll, a negative reviewer, or the person who's upset with you, your response can incentivize other people who see your response.

Because people can leave negative things online anywhere at any time, how you respond can mitigate the situation. Gini recommends leaving a professional, non-emotional response one time. If the troll comes back, you can say, "I'd love to have this conversation with you offline. Let's connect via phone, email,