In my last post we touched on what’s turned out to be an already impressive year of case study worthy social media blunders. And what ultimately separates the winners & losers among brands like Aflac, Kenneth Cole & Chrysler, boils down to their post-crisis response. While I think we can all agree that brands will continue to goof, putting a solid Social Media crisis response plan on paper (something that for the record only a quarter of big brands admit they have), can only help mitigate the opportunity for a big time crisis to unleash itself.

These days crisis happens in real time. The luxury of mulling over a messaging strategy before an official press release is pushed out no longer exists. The most effective crisis plans are built for flexibility in order to accommodate the inevitable shifts & twists a message undergoes once it enters the socialsphere.

While every organization demands its own unique plan and every crisis presents a unique set of challenges, I’ve put together a basic framework, built on self-posed questions, for how to begin establishing your own preparedness plan.

First off, ask yourself…

Who are my stakeholders?

Identify the team of individuals from within your organization who will drive the implementation of your crisis plan. Below are some of the key stakeholders who will most likely play a role in your crisis response:

The Monitors: Charged with listening and closely analyzing the social web for any disconcerting mentions or changes in volume, sentiment and negative keyword associations linked to your brand.

The Decision Makers: A core team of managers who will guide the crisis through critical decision points and determine appropriate courses of actions. A crisis isn’t a crisis until this group says it is.

The Message Architects: Those individuals, who will assemble official statements for social media channels, “standardized” responses to individual inquiries and determine the time, place and manner of your messaging strategy.

The Mouthpieces: Will there be an official spokesperson for social media channels? How will this person / team deploy messaging and in what contexts? Keep in mind, your company’s “official” spokesperson may not necessarily be the right fit to speak to your social media communities.

The Final Sign-Off: Will Legal or the C-Suite need to give a final sign off before messaging goes live? Devise a strategy to obtain these in the most efficient way possible. Organizations may need to re-assess these approval processes to accommodate the real time nature that is social media.

Once you’ve got your stakeholders ID’d, it’s time to establish an action plan. Thinking through this process is a great exercise in and of itself as it will help you fine tune the roles and responsibilities of your Social team and challenge your organization to embrace the kind of agility that Social Media demands.

What type of crisis is this?

Yes, there are more than one. And while you may decide to go even more granular in your classifications, typically a crisis falls in to one of these two categories. It’s advised that you create a unique action plan for each.

Foreseeable: A crisis where internal stakeholders are notified in advance and have the opportunity to own the original messaging via an official company statement i.e. press release, media alert, etc. An example of this would be a product safety recall. A Foreseeable Crisis won’t typically start via Social Media, but certainly may still catch a fire there.

Abrupt: Where the messaging originates from a third party source i.e. inflammatory blog posts, spreading of misinformation, slanderous word-of-mouth campaigns or any other unforeseen event that threatens the public perception of a brand.

When will we message?

If PR is deploying an official statement, how will the Social Media alert be timed against this? Have you identified any Social benchmarks that will effectively serve as your indication that a crisis is bubbling? Timing your deployment is critical and in many ways a fine line. You don’t want to be overzealous and draw attention to a crisis before it’s warranted however you certainly want to avoid missing the window of opportunity to own your own message. Plan for close monitoring and analysis along with hour-by-hour consults with your core team.

Where will we message?

It’s generally recommended that a crisis be dealt with across all of a brand’s official channels. If the goal is to communicate a message, avoiding certain contexts out of fear of the response, can be perceived as deceitful or at minimum, lacking transparency. And bear in mind that once a crisis has legs, it will find it’s way into these networks regardless. You’re better off maintaining some stake in your message before it takes on a life of it’s own. Also, determine if you will reply to each individual inquiry and if not, how you will gauge which messages warrant responses.

And finally, will you address external mentions such as blog posts publically (in the comment section) and at what point an exchange should be taken off line?

How will we message?

Once your “official” statement has been deployed, it’s important to determine a protocol for how and when to respond to your communities. Consider the individual make-up of these networks as you’re developing your messaging. Your Facebook community may be more consumer focused vs. your Twitter account that might speak to more of an industry and/or journalistic audience. Communicate authentically and leave the spin to the PR pros.

While crisis planning is critical, and arguably even more so for social media, the truth is, in a world of citizen journalists and self appointed experts, you’ll never please everyone. The end goal for any crisis strategy is to leverage your communities to quell a potential disaster. Take responsibility, exercise transparency, speak authentically and LISTEN. Your brand may just be better for it.