In the world of social media marketing, one mistake can always prove fatal in many cases. With reputations hanging by threads and competitors lurking around every corner, you cannot ease up on your defenses. Always strive to make your website as user-friendly, engaging, resourceful, and as informative as possible. However, you can’t always have it your way and there are bound to be social media marketing disasters that occur. In this event, would you know what to do?
The first thing that should pop into your mind are the words: DON’T PANIC !
A lot of problems, more or less solvable, go down as critical hits or even fatal ones when panic sinks in and the administration is unable to respond effectively because of it. You need to have that ‘never say die’ attitude and always look for the solution in situations such as these. But even before that, you should always have a social media policy in place……sort of like a set of rules or protocols to follow, should your website be under threat.
Many large social media sites have these protocols in which they would temporarily shut down and resolve the case from the inside. A lot of websites are even capable of disabling certain features, while others remain intact. They would then just reactivate these ‘limbs’ once the problem has been settled.
This article from The Hub identified some survival tips to follow for any social media marketing team. Read more about these tips here.
When they know they have done something wrong, children will usually keep quiet until their parents find out. The same thing is true with some entrepreneurs these days. They would rather hide the problem from the public rather than acknowledge it and face it head on.
Don’t hide your mistakes – even the most skilled web designers and content writers can sometimes make mistakes which can be hilarious and frightening at the same time. These errors make or break your sites and honestly it is always a better alternative than trying to cover it over to your customers.
Say for example, your site got hacked and adult content is popping up like crazy. Take a step back and act from there. Never charge into battle based on a ‘knee jerk’ reaction. Generate a thoughtful response, not a panic reflex. Meet with the administration and decide on a suitable plan of action. Most of these problems are usually based on content or web design. But, some are more grave problems can include account-hacking and information-stealing. Always play it cool and act rationally, logically, and effectively.
Lastly, when the disaster is over – it is always important to rebuild your image. To rise from the metaphorical ashes, you need to understand that it may not happen overnight. You might need to work overnight in that instance, but the total recovery will not happen that quickly. Sometimes, you may not even be able to recover at all, which is why prevention is always more effective than a cure. Social media marketing certainly isn’t some playground in cyberspace, it is as real as the world in which we live – disasters and accidents are bound to happen. You need to be there to prevent, act, cure, and recover when they do.