Social media can be a dream tool when the digital seas are calm and customers are singing praise far and wide across Twitter streams and Facebook walls. But what about when a crisis hits and the once-beloved social media channels turn from a lovefest to a battleground for disgruntled customers and fans? Recently, my alma mater Texas Tech University faced this very situation.

When news spread that the university had fired Mike Leach, the beloved, eccentric head coach of the Red Raider football team, Texas Tech fans, students and alumni stormed the university’s social media accounts to find answers, voice their opinions and vent their frustrations. What fans and high-paying students and alumni found, however, was that the university’s athletic department had locked its Facebook wall, was deleting fan-generated notes and comments, and had suddenly abandoned its regularly active Twitter stream.

Eventually, every company or organization will face a crisis or issue that plays out in the social media world. How you respond says a lot about you and your brand, and how committed you are to social media success. CMD counsels many of its clients on crisis preparation, and here are five tips that can help your organization face a predicament in the age of social media (Red Raider Athletic Department: Are you listening, yet?):

• Prepare
  • Do you have a social media crisis communication plan? Start by revisiting your existing crisis plans—do they include the use of your social media accounts? Spend time to develop messaging for each of your crisis scenarios and draft Facebook posts and Tweets so that your first communication during a crisis occurs within minutes, instead of hours or days. Are there prominent bloggers or Twitter users that can disseminate important information to target audiences during a crisis? Include them in your crisis plan. Also, assign a team member(s) to monitor and administer your social media accounts. In the case of Texas Tech, new Tweets and Facebook wall comments were coming in by the hundreds each hour—there needs to be a person dedicated to monitoring these conversations.
• Listen
  • An essential aspect of social media is listening—especially when a customer or fan is expressing a concern. What are the key issues your audiences are focusing on? What type of action are they calling for? Take this opportunity to let your customers and fans know that you not only hear their concerns, but you are taking them into consideration when planning your next course of action. The insights you gain from listening will help shape additional communications during a crisis as well as improve your communication plans in the future.
• Contain the conversation
  • People can be downright rotten at times, and unfortunately, the worst often comes out in the midst of a crisis or dispute. While you might not enjoy the name calling or what’s being said about your organization, it’s important for those conversations to occur in the appropriate space and that they don’t extend the reach of the crisis to unrelated digital properties. Don’t lock your Facebook wall or blog comments section, because detractors will simply find another place to voice their criticisms and these actions can add significant fuel to the fire. In the case of Texas Tech, the athletic department’s decision to lock its Facebook wall spread the flame war to the university’s general fan page, which is moderated by a separate office on campus and opted to remain open. Like Texas Tech’s general fan page, foster a place for open, two-way communication on a space that you control and are able to track. Also, keep in mind that your social media accounts should maintain the right to delete vulgar content; but don’t delete a comment because it states a point of view that you don’t agree with—after all, disagreements are simply human nature.
• Respond
  • Social media—especially Twitter—is all about what’s happening now. Your social media accounts will soon be, if they’re not already, the first places people visit when a crisis breaks. Become the main source of news by offering valuable information, such as insights from key executives on how they are taking steps to solve the issue. At the onset of a crisis, a post as simple as this could suffice while your team listens to the conversations and develops a forthcoming plan of action, “Hi all, we understand your concerns and we are here listening. We are taking everything you have to say into consideration and you will be the first to know when we plan our next steps.” Other actions include adding more robust content in the form of videos, additional information, updates, etc. to help balance the ongoing dialogue and achieve search benefits for your side of the story. For particularly influential detractors, determine whether it’s possible to take the conversation offline by offering to talk through their concerns or misgivings directly—person to person.
• Research
  • Research is essential to effective public relations. In the days and weeks following a crisis, track the conversations across your social media channels. Where did most of the conversations take place? What was the key issue that users focused on? Use this information to see what messaging was effective or what key events triggered a shift in your audience’s tone. This is also invaluable when modifying your current crisis communication plan to fit the behaviors of your target audience.