TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

25 Aug 2016 · 2 min

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2:13

A short live-stream segment by TJ Walker answering a Udemy student's question about how companies should handle public-relations crises on Facebook. Walker advises against censoring critical posts; recommends prompt, humanized responses (ideally video statements or live video from the CEO/spokesperson), acknowledgment of the problem, explanation of corrective actions, and apology when appropriate.

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This question comes in from one of my students on the Udemy platform. Abigail writes in and asks, after a crisis has hit a company, how can the company address the public if that company has a Facebook page where many people may be voicing their opinions, frustrations and hurt. For starters, don't try to censor your own Facebook page. If people have written about legitimate inconveniences, problems with your product or service, you had better put it up there. Because if you start deleting that, they're really going to hate you and they're going to trash you in a lot of other platforms. Any place else where they can rate your company, they're going to go out of their way to trash you. So you're not helping matters. So number one, leave it up there. My biggest piece of advice is if it's a big crisis, something that's a big problem, let's say product tampering. People have been harmed by one of your products that they've ingested, people injured. You need to have your CEO address each and every concern in a video. Put it on Facebook now. You may even want to do live Facebook and have an answer. Then the replay of that video right there. Address the concerns. If you're a huge multinational corporation, you may have hundreds of thousands or millions of people who are only deal with you through your Facebook page. You've got to deal with them in the environment where they want to be dealt with. So have your spokesperson address the concerns. Let people know you're listening to them. You understand it's a problem. You acknowledge that it's happening and tell them exactly what you are doing to make things better. If appropriate, ask for forgiveness or an apology. Whatever you do, don't delete and don't ignore it. Don't let it fester. You got to be quick. I wouldn't just put text, I wouldn't just put a press release. I wouldn't put a statement. You need a real human being in 2016 talking to your customers and that will, if not make them all happy, at least satisfy them that someone's actually listening.