Customer Roundtable: Managing Social Media in Turbulent Time

Transcript

Chapters

Who is speaking

Jennifer Gutman Hannah Shain Colin Day Shanie Zimerman Erica Stoltenberg

Webinar overview

Oktopost’s Jennifer Gutman hosts a customer panel with Hannah Shain (Upland Software), Erica Stoltenberg (Cvent), Shanie Zimerman, and Colin Day (Oktopost) to unpack how each company activated Oktopost’s “crisis mode” during 2020’s Blackout Tuesday and the early COVID-19 pandemic, covering how to communicate a pause internally and externally, rebuild social strategy in phases, and stay empathetic rather than tone-deaf during a prolonged crisis.

Define what “crisis” means for your organization in advance. It doesn’t have to be catastrophic; some companies even use crisis mode routinely, like pausing all social during public company reporting periods.
When activating crisis mode, be transparent internally first: a clear, empathetic explanation to employees of why publishing is paused, even before the follow-up strategy is finalized, reduces panic and confusion.
Rebuilding after a crisis often happens in phases: several panelists described first cutting content sharply to focus on customer support, then shifting to new formats like virtual events, before finally re-establishing a fuller content cadence built around new customer needs.
Employee advocacy became more valuable during the crisis: refreshing outdated advocacy content and leaning on employees to share authentic, timely material helped some companies get relevant messaging out faster than competitors.

Your speakers

Jennifer Gutman

Director of Customer Marketing, Oktopost

Jennifer Gutman is Director of Product and Customer Marketing at Oktopost, where she has spent the past decade building the company's social media and employee advocacy ecosystem — from the product itself to training customers on how to scale their programs. She hosts the "Radically Transparent" podcast, featuring marketing leaders from companies like Intel, Google, Adobe, WalkMe, and Microsoft, and leads workshops and the Oktopost Academy to help B2B social media managers grow into strategic leaders within their organizations.

Hannah Shain

Demand Generation, Upland Software

Hannah Shain is Founder and Principal Marketing Strategist at Rooted Collective, a marketing studio for small brick-and-mortar businesses, based in Brooklyn, New York. With 15 years of marketing experience, most recently as a VP of Marketing, she now runs the studio solo, using AI systems she designed and supervises to handle production work.

Colin Day

Managing Director, EMEA and APAC, Oktopost

Colin Day is Managing Director of EMEA and VP of Business Development at Oktopost, with over 35 years of experience in MarTech and FinTech. His career includes 18 years at FIS and founding Magnetic North Associates, driving go-to-market strategy, scaling global businesses, and building high-impact partnerships.

Shanie Zimerman

Head of Strategic Partners, Oktopost

Shanie Zimerman is a Client Relationship Manager based in the New York City area, with over 10 years of experience in the high-tech and startup space. She takes a people-centric approach to customer and partner success, building relationships that create value across the organization.

Erica Stoltenberg

Corporate Communications Manager, Cvent

Erica Stoltenberg is Director of Corporate Communications at Cvent, based in Austin, Texas. Her background spans luxury hospitality, marketing, public relations, and social media, with a focus on employee engagement, guest relations, and brand awareness.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Oktopost's "crisis mode," and what does it actually do?

Crisis mode is a feature within Oktopost's social response management suite that immediately pauses all scheduled corporate and employee advocacy social posts across every connected channel, giving a team time to reassess messaging before anything new goes out.

How should you communicate a crisis mode activation to employees?

Keep the initial notification brief but empathetic, then follow up quickly with more detail explaining why the pause happened and what employees should expect next. Being transparent early reduces panic, even if the full go-forward strategy isn't finalized yet.

How did companies rebuild their social strategy after pausing content?

Most described a phased approach: first cutting content sharply to focus entirely on urgent customer support, then shifting formats and topics to match new customer needs such as virtual events, and only later re-establishing a fuller, adjusted content cadence.

Is it appropriate to send physical gifts or swag to customers' and employees' home addresses during a crisis?

Panelists were split, but leaned toward doing so when the gesture is genuinely relevant and thoughtful, such as books, flowers, or branded backdrops for video calls, rather than generic promotional items that could feel like an inappropriate sales pitch.

What role did employee advocacy play in recovering from the crisis?

Refreshing outdated advocacy content with new, relevant, empathetic messaging let some companies get timely content to market faster than competitors, and the crisis itself helped more employees personally discover the value of sharing on social media.

Customer Roundtable: Managing Social Media in Turbulent Times