3 Lessons To Survive A Social-Media Crisis

As we discussed in the last post, social media (SM) can be a powerful tool to nurture a relationship with your stakeholders. However, SM can also turn into an incredible threat, especially when your worst nightmare occurs: your organization is involved in a crisis.

Since SM assure immediate access to real-time data, they can immediately spread an issue outside the organization’s control, thus increasing organizations’ vulnerability during a crisis.

By looking at the recent Starbucks’ case, here are for you three lessons that could save your life when the public wants your public execution.

Starbucks #RaceTogether fiasco

Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ CEO, launched on March 2015 the #RaceTogether campaign, aimed to initiate a national dialogue about race. People were asked to discuss racial issues on SM, and baristas had to write the hashtag on customer’s cups to stimulate the conversation.

A pretty nice effort, right?

Let’s just say that it didn’t exactly went as Starbucks expected.

The initiative was immediately in the eye of the storm. As soon as the campaign started, countless critics started coming from SM, and eventually start spreading on news media as the New York Times and Rolling Stone.

Starbucks didn't exactly handle the situation in the best way; lucky for us, their mistakes can be a lesson for practitioners about what to absolutely avoid when facing a crisis. 

Prevention is the best cure

Source: unsplash

A crisis, by definition, is a sudden and unexpected event that can threaten your organization’s reputation. There are sometimes in which a storm appears from nowhere, and it takes time to take the punch. However, in this case, Starbucks was the one who initiated the conversation, so they could have been at least a bit more prepared for the negative reactions.

If you are starting a new campaign, always be prepared to counter strike eventual backlashes. And don’t forget to continuously scan and monitor the online environment to catch crisis signals as early as possible and to be prepared to react quickly to let your voice be heard. 

Don’t commit social suicide

 Source: unsplash

As the tweets started targeting also Corey duBrowa, Starbucks PR executive, he reacted in the worst way possible: he shut down his Twitter account.

And people, this is like the PR equivalent to the hara-kiri.

During a crisis, managers should engage the on-going conversation, listen to stakeholder’s concerns and reply in a timely and appropriate manner. Hiding and hoping that the crisis will disappear by itself is not an option. If your organization fails to adequately communicate via SM, negative contents and rumours will start circulating, and stakeholders’ behavioural intentions and your reputation will be affected. 

Is it too late now to say sorry?

 Source: gettyimages

Starbucks did not back down and continued defending its campaign, until it disappeared from SM and cups. Sometimes, you just need to recognize that you were wrong and apologize to your public. Especially on SM, where a crisis can rapidly escalate and harm your organization’s reputation, a rebuilding strategy can be your best chance to win back your audience.    

What would you have done in Starbucks case? Are there any life-saving lessons that are worth sharing? Share and comment this post!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cristina Canale

During the day, Corporate Communication master student from University of Amsterdam interested in social media, crisis communication and brand management.

At night, rock-n-roll fanatic with an insane passion for Italian food and Snapchat.