In social media, a buzz word is “authenticity.” In simple terms, authenticity means being genuine, which we all know is important. But in social media, authenticity is everything.

You have to be transparent, honest, and genuine in any situation. Authenticity is easy when things are going well, but then what happens when someone posts a less-than-positive comment about your organisation, its services or your employees on their blog, Facebook page or Twitter account? Or what if a major event, such as a confidentiality breach, or a staff mistake puts you in a precarious position?  The key to a successful crisis-management strategy is what you do next…

Respond:  This is a measured and self-controlled action that tells your audience that you’re in control and able to work towards the best solution.
React: This behaviour tells your audience that you’re not in control and that you were not prepared for a negative situation.

While your first instinct may be to go into defense mode, don’t – this would be your reaction. A reaction, like “we’re sorry for any inconveniences we may have caused” doesn’t say you are doing anything to address the problem or concern. But directly apologizing and asking questions such as “how can we help?” will show you are responding, listening and intend to address it.

This is especially important when the rest of your audience is waiting to see what happens and waiting to judge you based on your response.

Just as important is the timeliness. Before the Internet, timeliness had a whole different meaning and was related to the print cycle of a newspaper. But now that information can be put on the Internet instantaneously, it’s even more important to address problems quickly. If you don’t discover a problem for 48 hours, it’s impossible to know how far the news spread, whether it’s as simple as an unhappy client or as serious as a breach of protocol.

Good news travels fast, but bad news travels faster. This is particularly important to keep in mind when you have a blog or Twitter or Facebook account. So how will you handle it?

Will you try to ignore it and hope it goes away, possibly making the problem worse, or will you respond with honesty and sincerity and do your best to remedy the situation? The good news is that you can prepare yourself and avoid potential disasters by setting a policy for how to respond to negative comments. Discuss details, such as “What will I say when a negative comment appears on my blog?” and “Who will monitor and respond to comments on Twitter, Facebook and other blogs?”

Remember this: you can’t prevent negative comments , but you can prevent them from spreading by paying attention and responding in an authentic, patient and timely manner. It’s important to trust your audience so that they will trust you and you do this by responding and not reacting.

If you continually strive to manage your organisation and your communication with integrity and authenticity, dealing with difficult people and situations will be far easier and short-lived.  Good, honest communication is founded on good, honest business principles.

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