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BPM Analytics

How social media analytics can help manage and mitigate crises?

60-70% of adults in the US rely on social media as their primary source of news. This highlights the critical role of social media in managing negative publicity, which can stem from various sources such as financial blunders, product recalls, faux pas, rumours and misinformation, negative press coverage, or even unfortunate incidents like injury or death of an employee or client.

Effective social media crisis response keeps you ahead of the curve. By proactively monitoring online conversations about your brand, assessing public sentiment, and publishing regular messages or news telecasts, you can manage the damage before it spirals out of control.


Events that can cause a social media crisis

From careless responses and negative comments to bad media coverage, there are several ways you can find yourself at the centre of a crisis. Here are some examples –

  1. Negative comments on social media posts or ads.
  2. Crisis spill over from a vendor or collaborator.
  3. Fake news or misinformation.
  4. An industry-wide event that impacts your business.
  5. Crisis due to tech glitches, system breakdowns, or security breaches.
  6. Product failure or recall eroding customer trust and loyalty.

The recent global IT system crash at Microsoft that showed the ‘blue screen of death’ is an example of a crisis. It affected systems running on Windows OS, grounded flights, impacted telecommunications, and led to a market value loss of $23 bn within a few hours.

Depending on the nature of your business, any of these events can snowball on social media. A quick, calm, and reassuring response from your crisis management team prevents reputation damage, avoids a fall in sales, restores trust and stability, and strengthens customer loyalty.


Mistakes that can amplify a social media crisis

Without the right technology and a plan for social media crisis response, you could make costly mistakes, causing long-term damage. A few examples include –

  1. Leaving comments or questions unanswered.
  2. Not having a proactive plan to answer the comments.
  3. Trying to use the crisis as a tool to profit.
  4. Being impatient or rude while responding to the comments.

The right way to use social media for crisis mitigation

Your crisis management team must leverage social media analytics to create a positive response plan and simulate potential crisis events. Here is how it helps in a live event –


Communicate quickly and proactively

A proactive plan lets you communicate quickly and adequately with the customers. Your crisis management team must respond to their questions and comments but take detailed communication offline.


Identify and track the emerging issues.

While responding to the current crisis, monitor any emerging issues, such as media slander or rumours, that require proactive handling. The right crisis management strategies and systems monitor the public sentiment before it causes significant damage.


Engage with stakeholders and customers in real-time

Acknowledge the crisis and provide specific information about its resolution to create a sense of security and restore trust among the clients and stakeholders. This is where the proactive response plan you design during crisis simulations helps.


Address concerns with empathy and transparency

How you manage the tone while addressing concerns will influence the brand’s public perception. Research shows that 68% of consumers want the brands to show empathy in all communication including that in a social media crisis.


How to use social media analytics for crisis management?

Boost crisis management with data-driven strategies

Boost crisis management with data-driven strategies

Real-time analytics is helpful in both handling a crisis and boosting positive sentiment. Here are a few ways to use analytics for social media crisis response –


Track engagement metrics

Metrics such as likes, shares, click-through rates, and comments show how the customers are engaging with your crisis response. It also shows which platform is giving a better response. Monitoring the traffic on FAQ and crisis response pages on your website shows the number of customers seeking information.


Monitor shifts in public sentiment

Sentiment analysis capabilities let you design an adequate response. Whether the customer sentiment is positive, negative, or neutral also shows how effective the crisis management strategy was.


Analyse the response time and its effectiveness

Post-crisis analysis must include measuring the response time. By studying the time taken to respond, you can identify the bottlenecks and create better crisis management strategies in the future.


How can Infosys BPM help empower a crisis response?

Social media analytics gets you actionable insights from structured online data and creates digital assets to serve the customer better in case of a crisis. Explore how Infosys BPM provides web and social media analytics solution, including social media monitoring, web analytics, campaign analytics, competitive benchmarking, and custom reporting. These services help businesses make data-driven decisions, enhance customer engagement, and optimise digital strategies to stay ahead in the competitive digital landscape.


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