What it does
Monitors social media mentions and sentiment via Hootsuite, automatically alerting the leadership team via SMS and Slack when potential PR crisis indicators are detected (negative spike, viral criticism, sensitive keywords).
Why I recommend it
PR crises escalate fast on social media – minutes matter. Automated detection and immediate leadership alerts enable rapid response before issues go viral, protecting brand reputation and customer trust.
Expected benefits
- Sub-10-minute crisis awareness
- Prevented brand damage from slow response
- 24/7 monitoring without manual watching
- Clear escalation path for social team
How it works
Hootsuite monitors brand mentions continuously -> analyse sentiment and volume spikes -> detect crisis keywords (lawsuit, discrimination, safety, recall) -> if threshold crossed (3x normal negative mentions or sensitive keyword) -> send urgent SMS/Slack to leadership with summary and links.
Quick start
Set up Hootsuite streams for brand mentions. Manually review sentiment daily for a week to establish baseline. Identify what would constitute a “crisis” (volume spike, specific keywords). Then automate alerts for those conditions.
Level-up version
Use AI to analyse sentiment nuance beyond simple positive/negative. Include influencer amplification risk (high-follower accounts). Suggest response templates based on crisis type. Auto-create war room Slack channel. Track response time and outcome metrics.
Tools you can use
Social monitoring: Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Brandwatch
Alerts: Twilio SMS, Slack, PagerDuty
Sentiment: Hootsuite Insights, custom AI analysis
Crisis management: dedicated Slack channels
Automation: Zapier, Make, n8n
Also works with
Social platforms: Mention, Brand24, Talkwalker
Communication: Microsoft Teams, emergency phone tree
PR: Muck Rack, Cision for media monitoring
Technical implementation solution
- No-code: Hootsuite streams filtered for brand mentions -> export hourly to Google Sheets -> Zapier analyses volume and keywords -> if spike or crisis keyword -> send SMS via Twilio + Slack message to #crisis channel.
- API-based: Hootsuite API fetch mentions every 5 min -> sentiment analysis via AI -> compare to baseline -> if anomaly detected or crisis keywords found -> send formatted alert via Twilio + Slack -> include top negative posts and suggested actions.
Where it gets tricky
Defining crisis thresholds that catch real issues without false alarms, distinguishing coordinated attacks from organic criticism, handling off-hours alerts appropriately, and ensuring leadership actually responds to alerts.
