Warren Buffet once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”  Today, a business is at risk of a situation that can jeopardize its reputation in just a few seconds with a click of a button. Imagine how this single click can maneuver a digital wildfire, spread across your industry and the public, grow and burn every bit of what you have worked hard for years. Not a good sight, right?

This is the dilemma organizations face today and yet, there are still too many companies that don’t have an existing management plan to protect and rebuild its reputation once a crisis strikes. In a world where everything spreads quickly, you should know that FAST is the name of the game. Here are tips on how you can manage a crisis in the digital age:

Assess the issue

When a situation affecting your organization, your stakeholder or the public takes place online –let’s say it’s a negative post about your service shared a hundred times on Facebook– the first thing you should do is get the FACTS. There are plenty of trolls out there and you want to make sure that what you are dealing with is/are ONLY the fact/s.