Crisis Response Plan

Sometimes company, civic, or global incidents are serious enough to warrant specific action on our social channels. For instance, an explosion at your office or that of your competitors.

Here is how we will respond in the event of such a situation, in this order of action:

HALT: If we handle your organic content, we will log into the content scheduling tool and immediately halt all posting of scheduled content on all channels.

ALERT: Advise senior management that the above action has been taken, and our intention to do the below steps next. We will operate under the assumption that senior management will be too busy to reply directly.

POST: If this is an incident involving you directly, and in the absence of direction from senior management, we will independently act this way:

On your Twitter channel, post text similar to “We are aware of the situation at __________ and will share more here when we can.” on Twitter.

Pin the Twitter post.

When directed by senior management, we will periodically post updates on Twitter.

On your Facebook page, post text similar to “We are aware of the situation and will share more on our Twitter account at https://twitter.com/yourchannel when we can.”

Pin the Facebook post.

We will not post on Facebook again until the crisis is over.

We will not post on Instagram, Snapchat, or other social channels.

AUDIT: We will then undertake a full review of all upcoming scheduled posts across all channels to ensure no posts with topics that might be considered insensitive get published once the content has resumed.

PREPARE: At your direction, we will prepare resumption posts and content for senior management to review. (“Our hearts are with our friends at Westjet today,” etc.) We will not post until approved by management.

Requests for Information

We will not respond to requests for specific information from the public, other than to tell those on channels other than Twitter to watch the Twitter channel for updates.

Refer large-organization media requests (e.g., CBC, Globe and Mail, CNN, etc.) to senior client management, through private/direct message. We will not refer small-organization media requests (e.g., freelance reporters, advocacy-based channels, etc.). Don’t share any email addresses or names publicly.

Advocacy Hashtag Use

Unless the incident is close to home, we do not recommend the use of advocacy hashtags on our channel such as #BostonStrong or #PrayersForParis but will evaluate this with senior management on a case-specific basis.

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