As a PR practitioner, you are aware of the crises that your organization may face and how to manage each crisis via traditional PR tactics; however, those same tactics may intensify or extend the crisis if executed via social media.
To counter these threats this article will emphasize the importance of creating a social listening stream, the components of a useful social listening stream and how to use the social listening stream to determine when and how to respond to crises via social media.
The Importance of Social Listening
10 years ago communications about your organization were primarily one-to-many, controlled by your PR team and deemed authentic. Now these same communication tactics may be perceived as deceptive if applied via social media. With the addition of this new communication medium, conversations are now one-to-many and one-to-one and require different approaches. These approaches can be determined by expanding your monitoring capabilities to include social listening.
Social listening—as defined by Sprout Social—is “the process of tracking conversations around specific phrases, words or brands, and then leveraging them to discover opportunities or create content for those audiences.”
The process of social listening is similar to that used to monitor mentions of your organization via print, radio or television. The difference is that it is immediate and more comprehensive. HootSuite says social listening is more than “searching for and collecting data and mentions of your brand, industry and audience conversations, [it is also the process of] analyzing this information and taking action—turning the data you have collected into a viable strategy.”
By adding social listening to your crisis management plan, you will learn the following:
- Who is talking about your brand
- What is being said about your brand
- When the conversations about your brand are occurring
- Where the conversations about your brand are occurring and determine the following:
- Why the conversations about your brand are occurring
- How you will address the conversations about your brand
Now that you know the importance of social listening, we can explore the components of a useful social listening stream.
Components of a Social Listening Stream
Successful social listening is not a set-it-and-forget-it activity. In fact, it requires many resources to be useful, e.g., tools to gather and analyze social data, persons to set up and manage the tools, persons to interpret the data and communicate the analyses, persons to prioritize the results and develop strategies based on the results and persons to execute and manage the tactics.
If you have a social media team, that team will assume these aforementioned roles and consult you for setup, reporting, messaging and escalation strategies, which we will address in the next section. If you do not have a social media team, then you will need to assume these roles beginning with the selection of a social listening tool.
When selecting a social listening tool, look for one that
- Analyzes data and aggregates points of commonality,
- Finds themes without being prompted by keywords,
- Automates the highly labor-intensive aspects of recording, analyzing, categorizing and visualizing data and insights,
- Enables leaders to evaluate the analysis and
- Offers a genuine price value.
Although free tools are available, you should invest in solutions like SocialReport or HootSuite Insights that provide metrics such as message frequency, reach, placement and sentiment, poster demographics and keyword identification.
Once you have selected a social listening tool, you will need to set it up. As in so many PR activities, begin by determining your goals. Here you need to decidee and get agreement on what your organization wants to learn from the social listening stream.
For the purpose of crisis management, I recommend that you start with a broad search of your brand name, including all spelling variations of it, in all social networks in all physical locations and in all languages. Next, create notifications for sudden or large frequency (amount of messages) increases. Once your stream starts to aggregate and analyze data, you can adjust the settings to achieve the results you need.
Now that you have created a useful social listening stream, you need to know how to interpret the results from your social listening stream and determine when and how to respond to crises via social media.
Interpreting Results, Courses of Action
As your stream gathers information, look for sudden or large increases in conversations. If you notice sudden or large conversation increases, do not respond immediately. Instead, monitor the conversation’s frequency (number of messages), reach (number of people receiving the messages) and influencers (persons who have posted the most regarding this conversation or have the largest share of voice in this conversation), sentiment (see upper graphic) and keywords (see lower graphic).
If the conversation’s intensity lasts beyond 24 hours, you may have a crisis to manage; however, conversations losing intensity within 24 hours are less likely to be considered crises. If you are unsure, consult with your social media team. They will know if the conversation has become a crisis.
If you determine that you indeed have a crisis to manage, allow your social media team to determine the best manner to respond to the crisis.
Preparation With Social Media
As a PR practitioner, you are trained to get in front of the conversation by responding with prepared statements that support your organization’s position and/or refute the alleged accusations about your organization, but this tactic may not be the best course of action for social media.
Prepare statements for use should the need arise; however, only use these statements if absolutely necessary and allow the social media team to revise these statements to reflect the voice and medium to which it is shared. Remember that unlike other forms of communication, social media is more emotive and reactive, so it is better to err on the side of caution when responding to a crisis via social media.
Now that you see the value of incorporating social listening into your crisis management plan, schedule a meeting with your social media team to learn how your teams can work together better. You bring unique and valuable skills to your organization that will both be needed in a crisis.
CONTACT: [email protected] @dnpeting