Discourse of misinformation often casts social media as a driver of falsehoods, a den of unbeatable falsehoods and tinfoil hats. But actually, some research has shown the opposite, with social media assisting the dissemination of the facts. This study of Chinese local governments showed that social media can also reduce misreporting when public scrutiny is high.
How can you make your social media channels truly your own?
How can you use them to strengthen your reputation?
…And when a crisis hits, how can you stay in control of such a volatile space?
Apart from the (sadly not obvious enough to many) truth – that every organisation should prioritise social media, understand how it works and is used by your audience, and resource it appropriately with senior enough professionals before a crisis – there are strategic tactics that can help you do this.
One of the best and most impactful ways is to refine, refresh and redefine how your brand voice speaks to your audience through the crisis.
Creating community management brand personas
Marketers build personas to identify audience segments; craft tailored messages and choose the most effective channels and timing for engagement. Personas can also guide product positioning, customer journeys, and content personalisation, helping marketers predict behaviour and create experiences that feel relevant, persuasive, and human.
When it comes to online community management, creating a strong brand persona – in this case, we call them community management personas or voices – to anchor your tone and approach is the most effective way to establish a consistent, engaging voice. Which is essential in a crisis.
Reactive social media personas can guide you through uncertainty by providing clarity on how your brand should respond – calmly, consistently, and in line with its values – even under pressure.
Just as every brand is different, there are myriad ways to implement this tactic.
You can:
Build a community management persona with a sliding scale of formality
Reactive social media that goes viral is often quite informal. Think Wendy’s or Duolingo. But customers and clients often react really badly when an informal tone of voice is used in brand interactions – this is especially true when there is a crisis.
Building a community management persona that within its personality can be both rough and smooth, strict and gentle, kind and have authority means that you can deal with tricky interactions without sounding like another brand.
In the past, we’ve built brands a community management persona based on the persona of a favourite school teacher, and a sports coach. These community management personas have guided organisations through good times and bad because they have range.
Bench an unsuitable community management voice in times of crisis
Sometimes your usual community management voice doesn’t have the range to handle a crisis. When that happens, you need to bench your regular approach and build a dedicated community management persona to guide you through.
A bubbly tone that usually delights your fans can sound silly. A casual tone that usually reflects your customer’s speech can seem uncaring. In a crisis, both can damage trust fast.
So instead, create a new persona that can take the lead – one that still feels like part of your brand family, sings from the same hymn book, or works in the same office, but has the emotional range and authority to respond appropriately under pressure.
This persona should be calm, clear, and grounded in your brand values. Their job is to protect your reputation without erasing your personality.
When the crisis is over, they can retire.
The reactive needs to become your proactive
Building a community management persona has a bigger impact than most people realise. It doesn’t just shape how you respond in the moment. It gives you a framework for how your brand thinks, feels, and shows up when things get hard. But that’s only half the job. What happens in your reactive spaces should always inform what you say next.
If you’re seeing the same questions pop up again and again, or the same worries surface from your audience, don’t just keep replying in the comments – be reactive by being proactive. Create a new post that addresses those themes head-on. Fold those insights into your broader comms and let them seep into your key messages, FAQs, and campaign planning.
This is the only way to manage your social media channels without losing credibility: by letting your community shape how you communicate, not just how you respond.
