This is the second in a series of four on how to use social media strategies to prevent a crisis, manage a crisis, and recover from a crisis. Read part one here.

The majority of social media crises can be prevented. According to Altimeter, as many as 76 percent. The majority of causes in crises can be directly related to social media: inappropriate content, community censorship, lack of fact checking, inappropriate online response, and failure to respond quickly.

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This is the first in a four-part series on how to use social media to prevent a crisis, manage a crisis, and recover from a crisis.

In 2011, research by Jeremiah Owyang and Altimeter concluded that as many as 76 percent of the crises they studied could have been prevented or diminished by proper preparation. The report detailed how social media readiness gives companies a decisive advantage in everything from operations to sales, and can even help the bottom line in a crisis.

One of the most neglected pieces of crisis prevention today is social media strategy. Crisis managers talk about how to plan for a crisis and use social media in a crisis, but not much is said about how to prevent a crisis using social media. In the e-book Listen, Engage, Respond, the process for building a social media strategy to prevent a crisis is outlined. In its simplest terms, the key to building a crisis shield with social media is loyalty (or advocacy) strategies. The good news is that loyalty strategies will not only help prevent a crisis, they’ll also help you sell more widgets, provide better customer service, improve employee morale, and bolster many other business operations. But before we dig into loyalty strategies, we need some background.

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I recently wrote a piece called “The Five Biggest Social Media Privacy Mistakes” and promised to tackle some more, so here goes the next five. This information comes from our Practice Safe Social workshops. We are constantly on the lookout for new privacy traps.

Given that 66% of adults using Facebook are unaware that Facebook even has privacy settings, knowing how to protect yourself is critical (tweet this now).

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