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Disaster Preparedness

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:

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:

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

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