Why companies need escalation policies for social media
Companies will inevitably have situations where they deal with negative feedback and critiques on social media sites. How companies choose to deal with that negative criticism is very critical to how they are perceived on social media sites. One policy I propose to companies is the use of an escalation policy, when dealing with negative criticism that could require careful handling.
For that to work, anyone a comment is escalated to needs to be able to keep cool in the face of criticism, have a good understanding of social media, and also be able to represent the company’s culture and perspectives. The escalation path can’t be too bureaucratic either, because responses need to be made quickly so that people can see a visible response.
At the same time the escalation policy should also make it clear what needs to be escalated and what doesn’t. If a person can easily resolve a situation with a response, there should be no reason to escalate it. Escalations should mainly deal with situations where its in question as to what kind of response should be made or how further communication should be continued.
Escalation policies make negative situations in social media more manageable if each person who maintains the social media for a company knows they can turn to other people for help in situations they may not have answers to.
Categories: Social Media
Tags: escalation, Social Media, social media policy, Taylor Ellwood
