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While most big brands have Corporate Affairs functions and existing crisis plans, the vast majority of these brands have not updated their crisis management strategies to reflect both the speed and nuance of managing issues via social media.

Social media monitoring has become commonplace among most brands, and the process of evaluating sentiment among online conversations has started to produce greater understanding of both the viral nature of digital dialogue and the potential impact that those conversations can have. But these approaches and the intelligence collected have largely been applied to digital marketing and communications initiatives. While most big brands have Corporate Affairs functions and existing crisis plans, the vast majority of these brands have not updated their crisis management strategies to reflect both the speed and nuance of managing issues via social media.

A number of very high profile cases with big brands have further punctuated the need for these strategies, whether it's the Nestlé vs. Greenpeace issue that we saw flare up on Facebook or the total and complete dismantling of 10 years of BP's "Beyond Petroleum" brand-building in virtually every social channel by those criticizing and lampooning the company's handling of Deepwater Horizon. Considering these incidents and a myriad of others, it is critical for companies to look at their crisis plans in their entirety and expand them to include the processes for interfacing with their harshest critics online.

Flickr photo courtesy of Fabian Bromann

At Cohn & Wolfe, we take a systematic and thorough approach to digital crisis planning with our clients. In addition to daily, comprehensive monitoring, we work with clients to create a detailed inventory of business risks, mapping them on a continuum of severity. We look at existing conversations and evaluate the degree to which there are already conversations happening online about them. We chart a comprehensive communications course of action that acknowledges the nuances of each channel.

We help clients create materials that they can implement quickly including tweets, wall posts and Web videos that reflect the organization's POV. We run multi-day social media crisis preparedness work-sessions and simulations to take them through the paces so that they are not trying these things out for the first time during an actual crisis. We encourage a proactive reputation management strategy among brand influencers and consumers, so that in times of crisis you have others who will help you weather the storm. Most of all, we encourage transparency and expediency at all times.

The crises that companies face are rarely crises of communications. They are generally tied to an operational facet of the business that went awry. Most companies already know their areas of greatest vulnerability. For that reason, we advise clients to be prepared to make operational changes to address the issue and not just consider how it needs to be managed in the media.

Taking these steps before your next (or first) crisis will ensure that you’re not trying to fix two crises instead of one.