We've seen so many well known companies fall short when it comes to handling a crisis. In order to maintain a calm sense of control in a crisis - there has to be a plan set in place. Every company, big or small, needs to have a plan if something goes wrong publicly. A Crisis Management Plan will become your manual to handling any issue - large or small. Here is a starting point: Survive the Unthinkable Through Crisis Planning.

Guest post from our Junior Developer: Jordan Barhorst 

Everyone is at risk of being hacked. There is no fool-proof way to prevent your accounts from being accessed by individuals who should not have your information. The best way to protect your account is to create a strategy and always be aware of the information that is sent out from those accounts. When it comes to social media - word spreads fast. If you are hacked, it is almost guaranteed that everyone will know about it, see the information that is posted and possibly respond to it before you can even halt the posting. This is an unfortunate occurrence but don't fret - you can fix this. As long as you move quickly and have a crisis management plan in place. 

What is a crisis management plan? Every large organization or business should have one. [Check out our blog on crisis management plans and how to start one.]

First, establish a password that is not easily "guessed". Rather than using a common word or name, use a phrase. Maybe add in a number of punctuation to make it more unique. You could have several different types of hackers; what many would call 'professional hackers', disgruntled ex-employees or activist groups who may disagree with what you stand for and take action. Make sure you are prepared for any form of hacking. 

When it comes to social media and contests - they BLOW UP. What do I mean by this? Log on to Facebook and search around for a little while. You are bound to find a few contests on some of your favorite brands' pages. The best way to get the news out about a contest online is to use social media. Facebook and Twitter are the main platforms to find contests on. With Twitter you can use a hashtag to track the submissions and Facebook you can use a specific page. 

It seems to be that Google+ pages are becoming more important to businesses. Since the creation of Google+, the number of business pages has grown and there seems to be more businesses gravitating towards the new social hub. Some social media experts made comments early on that Google was "trying too hard to be like Facebook" and wanting to trump the social media giant with a new wave of socializing. Today, Google+ is a great way for people to find your business via Google Places AND another SEO result! 

While attempting to merge two Facebook pages for a client, we came across a major issue - the pages cannot be merged the way we wanted them to be. We created a page for their new location, wanted to maintain the same audience from the previous business since the two were coming together as one. After requesting the pages to be merged, we noticed that there are more rules for the merging of two like pages. Facebook provides a simple "merging pages" page, but there is no indication that further approval would need to be taken. 

Social media is a constantly growing platform. As soon as a new social app or site catches attention, it spreads like wildfire - the whole point of social media. The newest fad is Vine. What is Vine? Twitter launched the video-sharing app, Vine, designed to allow users to create a short film of 6 seconds. Each short video runs on a loop, functioning much like an Instagram feed, showing friends and their videos.

Having trouble keeping the conversation going with your followers on Twitter? You might not be tweeting at the right time or starting the conversation off with the right tools. Twitter is different than Facebook when it comes to keeping a conversation going. Throughout the day it seems that more people are on Facebook than on Twitter, especially during the week. Arm yourself with the right tools and statistics to keep a conversation going and tweet out relevant information your followers will want to retweet. 

A tab app is used on Facebook and can be used to create a contest, event, add your Twitter feed or add photos. These tab apps can be found to the left of your profile picture underneath the cover photo. Here is an example of the tab apps pulled down to show the full layout on the new Timeline layout: