Social Media Disaster Toolkit

Before a Crisis

Social media offers a lot of free ways to communicate and engage with customers during an emergency. So, it’s a good idea to get your online presence up and running before disaster strikes. Here are a few tips to help you communicate with your customers via social media before, during and after a crisis occurs.

Get Set Up:

Build a social media presence on the sites that your clients use the most – whether that’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn or some combination of options. Find out how to create a business page for these social sites below:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/business/pages/set-up
Twitter: https://business.twitter.com/en/basics/create-a-twitter-business-profile.html
Instagram: https://help.instagram.com/502981923235522?helpref=page_content
Pinterest: https://business.pinterest.com/
LinkedIn: https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/linkedin-pages/best-practices

Use Social to Market Your Business:

Once set up, be sure to post on social media regularly to stay at top of mind. Here are a few articles with advice to get you started:

Promoting your business with storytelling: https://pro.homeadvisor.com/r/how-to-promote-your-business-with-storytelling/
Making the most of your social media: https://pro.homeadvisor.com/r/get-the-most-out-of-social-media/
Social media for contractors: https://pro.homeadvisor.com/article.show.Social-Media-and-the-Contractor.17159.html
Online marketing mistakes to avoid: https://pro.homeadvisor.com/r/online-marketing-rookie-mistakes-to-avoid/

Who to Follow:

Follow former and current customers to make it easy for them to find your business page. You’ll also want to follow pages that traditionally share important disaster updates like:

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
The World Health Organization (WHO)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
The U.S. Department of State
State and local government pages
And others that may have pertinent crisis information relevant to your business

You may also choose to follow Angi’s social pages to stay up-to-date with how our business is handling a situation.

During a Crisis

During a disaster, you should use your social media pages keep customers informed about how your business is handling things. While your response to a crisis will vary based on the circumstances, some things customers may want to hear include:

If your business is still operational, and what hours you are operating
How to contact you or a member of your team
What location you are working from, in case this has changed as a result of the disaster
How often they can expect to see social updates in the coming days
Whether or not the disaster will affect any ongoing projects
Discounts you may be offering
Any disaster relief efforts your business is taking part in

Your customers will likely want to know this information quickly, so try to send out a statement addressing the situation as soon as possible.

After a Crisis

As life starts returning to normal, you may want to take this opportunity to thank your customers for staying loyal to your business during a difficult time. This is also a good time to:

Check in on past customers to see if they were affected by the crisis, and offer to help if able
Explain any changes happening to your business (like returning to regular operating hours after a disaster)
Return to regular posting