How to mitigate social media crises
American entrepreneur Warren Buffett once said, “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
How true this is. Especially in the digital age, where a reputation can be ruined with a single tweet.
And this is exactly what happened to the chair of Amnesty International UK.
Mental health mockery
In 2013, Ciaran Helferty was forced to resign from his high-profile role after some jokes he posted on Twitter enraged supporters.
The inappropriate jibes, which Helferty later admitted were a “poor choice of humour” made light of mental health issues:
Here’s a taster.
"When one door closes, another one opens. Jeeze... I hate this OCD."
"I've decided to enter that BBC TV singing contest for schizophrenics – The Voices."
“The first rule of OCD club is that there must be a second rule, so we have an even number of rules.”
Enraged
The jokes prompted an immediate outpouring of criticism on social media.
“Really disappointing. Sorry to see this is what my donations have been supporting”.
“I can't believe that a man like @ciarnanhelferty is chair of @AmnestyUK. Aren't they embarrassed?”
Other users went a step further and withdrew their support.
Backlash
Given Helferty’s high-profile position with the charity, whose purpose is to "protect people wherever justice, fairness, freedom, and truth are denied", the backlash wasn’t surprising.
But the negative publicity was amplified when the media caught wind of the outrage and the story appeared in all the national papers.
Apology
Helferty attempted to limit the damage with a public apology. He said “I understand why concerns have been pressed and apologise unreservedly for any offence or embarrassment caused by my jokes.”
But the damage was done.
The charity lost the respect and income of loyal donors.
And there was a ton of negative publicity online for the world to see.
Considering one in three people conduct online research before giving, the crisis may have cost the charity new donors too.
How to mitigate crises
Amnesty International weathered the social media storm as it was well-established in the sector.
But smaller/lesser-known charities may not be so lucky.
Want to avoid an Amnesty International-style crisis?
Do the following:
1. Create a social media policy
A social media policy is an evergreen document that outlines how an organisation and its employees should conduct themselves online. If you don’t have one, it’s worth implementing, as it’ll lessen the risk of someone going rogue and sending your social media profiles into a tailspin.
It should outline the following:
Who is authorised to access your accounts and post content.
Who is responsible for reviewing and moderating content, and how often
How complaints should be acknowledged and dealt with
What to do in the event of a social media crisis
If you need a steer with your policy, check out this template by Charity Comms.
2. Monitor your channels
Social media monitoring is the process of proactively tracking online mentions and conversations about your charity.
It’s a savvy tactic to employ, as it’ll enable you to identify negative comments and deal with issues before they escalate into full-blown crises.
And there are loads of tools you can use to do it.
For example:
Brand Mentions is a social media tracker that aggregates user-generated content from all the social channels into a single stream of information.
SumAll connects to a variety of different social accounts to provide you with insights about your followers, interactions, and engagements.
The paid version offers content recommendations and automatic post-scheduling.
Mentionlytics is a user-friendly web and social media monitoring tool designed to capture and track branded and general keywords.
You can use it to analyse the sentiment of your social mentions and create clusters of similar mentions for easier monitoring.
3. Establish a crisis communications plan
Having a crisis comms plan in place before you need it will enable you to respond quickly and effectively if disaster strikes.
As a minimum, it should outline:
Who is authorised to manage the response on your socials
The approval process for content
Pre-approved internal and external messaging
A link to your social media policy
On the hunt for a digital fundraiser? We’re on hand to help. Give us a call on 0203 750 3111 or email info@bamboofundraising.co.uk to get started.