Social Media Management for Restructuring & Insolvency
November 25, 2019
Social Media is an important area for many businesses and the management of it can often be fundamental to its promotion and performance. Where such reliance is placed on the social media management in order to ensure preservation in the value of a business in distress; the Opus Team are expert in the development and execution of strategies for handling the various social media channels to ensure that there is no leakage in value. This is essential to maintain the ability to allow the time required to implement a restructure of the business.
Additionally when engaged on an insolvency assignment, we are looking for the most efficient way to communicate externally with creditors, partners and other stakeholders whilst complying with our statutory responsibilities. Where we need to ensure we are sharing key information, in a timely fashion and with a controlled approach, embracing technology allows us to deliver that messaging.
As an agile restructuring & insolvency practice, we like to look at ways we can efficiently enhance our external communications in addition to the phone calls, emails and communications through messenger apps such as WhatsApp, that we already use. Making sure that we take over and manage the social media channels as well as the website from the time we are appointed on a case has not only created further efficiencies for us, but has also boosted communications with key stakeholders and improved the intelligence we gain from monitoring the digital traffic.
Communication with creditors
Understanding the stakeholders we are communicating with and their preferences for communication is key. For example, on a current cryptocurrency case, we have circa 8,000 creditors, based all over the World who are very technology-led. On our initial compiling of information, our marketing team identified the various social media channels being used, which ones had the most activity and identified those that highlighted any information that may be of use to the assignment. As well as obtaining immediate access to these channels, we ensured that the initial notice detailing that the company had gone into administration was communicated not only on the website but also across ALL relevant social media channels. By taking this approach we reached as many of the stakeholders as possible, quickly and efficiently, whilst we were still in the process of pulling together the distribution lists for the formal notices.
Communicating with speed also helps to us manage expectations for all who have been affected. We have found this to be very beneficial as we can efficiently communicate answers to many questions which tend to be similar in nature reducing the need for calls from concerned stakeholders that we have to manage after the initial press release is published. Our marketing team continues to monitor and communicate with creditors through the different social media channels whilst passing any questions through to the administration team. This provides an efficiency in delivery of information that provides a degree of comfort to the stakeholders who naturally are looking for swift answers to the questions they have.
For all formal communications with creditors, we continue to go through more traditional routes such as letters, emails and the use of our creditors portal. To help us track any emails that go out from our appointed IP’s to creditors, we employ an email marketing tool so that creditors have the option to unsubscribe from communications if they wish and we can track who has received the email, who has read it, who has unsubscribed and if any email addresses have bounced (not working), so we can follow up with that creditor by alternative means.
Social media management to gain company insight
Social media channels are a simple way for businesses to communicate with their stakeholders and gain exposure and market insights and this is no different in a restructuring or an insolvency case when we gain control of the existing channels . We have found this route has provided additional benefits to the assignment, through:
- Gaining intelligence on employees – understanding who does what within the business;
- Accumulating background information on what happened before the company enters into administration or liquidation;
- Identifying key people who may be able to assist with any investigations;
- Communication with key people who may hold vital information.
Social media management is a key part of our restructuring & insolvency process at Opus. As well as all the benefits we have mentioned here, we know it is a cost efficient and effective route to assist the assignment whilst supporting those in financial distress, identifying assets and maximising returns to creditors.