Playbook: 7-step Reddit crisis workflow

The 7-step Reddit crisis playbook

This playbook walks your team through handling a Reddit crisis from first alert to documented outcome. Each step includes owner, timeline, and success criteria.

1. Detect — First alert to War Room

Owner: Monitoring lead, brand manager, or on-call incident coordinator

Timeline: 0–15 minutes from thread creation

What happens:

• Your monitoring system (manual or automated) flags a thread that crosses escalation criteria.
• The incident owner creates a War Room in Defusely, adding the Reddit URL.
• The platform fetches the thread, counts comments and votes, and pulls top comments for context.

Checklist:

• Thread URL is correct and accessible
• War Room is created in the right brand account
• Relevant team members are invited (product, comms, legal if needed)
• Initial severity estimate is logged (pending AI analysis)

Success looks like: Within 15 minutes of a thread reaching escalation criteria, there’s a War Room open and the team is aware.

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2. Assess — AI analysis and severity scoring

Owner: Defusely AI + incident owner review

Timeline: 15–30 minutes from War Room creation

What happens:

• Defusely AI analyzes the thread and generates:
  • Severity score (0–5 scale)
  • Incident summary with key grievances
  • Defuse options with pros/cons for each
  • Recommended strategic posture
  • Viral risk assessment
• The incident owner reviews the AI output and confirms severity is accurate. Adjust if the AI missed context.

Checklist:

• AI summary captures the core issue
• Severity score aligns with business impact (adjust if needed)
• At least three defuse options are visible
• Recommended option is defensible
• Viral risk is assessed (low/medium/high/extreme)

Success looks like: By 30 minutes, your team agrees on what this incident is and how risky it is.

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3. Contain — Gather context and stakeholders

Owner: Incident owner + assignee

Timeline: 30–60 minutes from assessment

What happens:

• The incident owner reviews top Reddit comments to catch edge cases or unknowns.
• They gather stakeholders: product (to explain technical issues), comms (for strategy), legal (for risk), support (for customer impact).
• Critical questions are answered:
  • Is the complaint legitimate or misinformation?
  • How many customers are affected?
  • Is there a known fix or ongoing investigation?
  • What’s the regulatory or investor risk?
• Team leads mark containment checklist items as they gather intelligence.

Checklist:

• Product has reviewed the thread and confirmed facts
• Customer impact is estimated (e.g., “10 customers affected” vs “unknown”)
• Internal status is clear (bug confirmed, fix in progress, misunderstanding, etc.)
• Legal has flagged any compliance risks
• Stakeholders are aligned on issue severity vs. severity score

Success looks like: By 60 minutes, you have a complete picture of what’s wrong and what’s at stake.

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4. Decide — Set response strategy and ownership

Owner: Incident owner + executive stakeholder if high severity

Timeline: 60–90 minutes from assessment

What happens:

• The team chooses a response strategy:
  • Engage: Direct support offer, often for product issues or service failures.
  • Correct: Factual reply with source links or evidence if misinformation is spreading.
  • Monitor: No public response yet, watch for escalation.
  • Escalate: Elevate to executive statement (CEO or CTO) if reputational or regulatory impact is high.
  • Executive statement + community escalation: Combine a direct statement with support outreach.
• Assign the draft owner (who will write the response).
• Set approval routing (comms lead → legal → exec if needed).
• Document the “why” behind strategy choice for post-mortem reference.

Checklist:

• Strategy is documented and agreed by all stakeholders
• Draft owner is assigned and ready
• Approval chain is clear (who approves, in what order)
• Legal review is scheduled if needed
• Executive communication plan is set (if escalating)

Success looks like: By 90 minutes, you have a clear decision, an owner, and an approval path. Everyone knows what happens next.

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5. Craft — Draft and approve response

Owner: Assigned draft author + approvers

Timeline: 90–180 minutes from decision (or up to 24 hours for complex issues)

What happens:

• The draft owner writes a response in Reddit-native tone. No corporate jargon. Lead with the answer. Acknowledge the problem directly.
• The draft is routed through approvers:
  • Comms lead reviews tone and messaging.
  • Legal reviews for risk and regulatory compliance.
  • Product lead (if it’s a technical issue) validates accuracy.
  • Executive (if it’s a major incident) approves the statement.
• Each approver can request changes. The draft history tracks all iterations.
• Drafts are approved or marked for revision. No “approved with concerns” — either approved or not.

Checklist:

• First draft is submitted within 30 minutes of decision
• Draft tone is Reddit-native (not corporate-sounding)
• Draft addresses the core grievance directly
• Legal signoff is obtained (if required)
• Product validation is logged (if technical)
• Executive approval is documented (if applicable)
• Response time from decision to final approval is under 90 minutes

Success looks like: By 180 minutes max, you have an approved response ready to post. For routine issues, this happens in 90 minutes. For complex issues (regulatory concern, executive statement), 24 hours is acceptable.

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6. Coordinate — Post and monitor response

Owner: Incident owner + response team

Timeline: 180 minutes to 24 hours post-assessment

What happens:

• The approved response is posted to Reddit (either immediately or at an optimal time).
• The team monitors the response. Comments often flow in quickly.
• Response author (or comms lead) engages with follow-up comments:
  • Answer clarifying questions.
  • Offer direct support for product issues.
  • Redirect to official channels if needed.
  • Monitor for secondary attacks or misinterpretation.
• As the thread stabilizes (comment velocity drops), move to monitoring mode.

Checklist:

• Response is posted and visible on Reddit
• First 10 comments are read and any urgent clarifications are replied to
• Engagement strategy is set (active response vs. monitoring)
• Team is rotating monitoring duty if it’s a high-velocity thread
• Escalation criteria are clear (if sentiment shifts again, escalate)

Success looks like: By 24 hours, your response is posted, you’ve engaged with initial reactions, and the thread sentiment has stabilized or improved.

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7. Post-mortem — Document and learn

Owner: Incident owner + core response team

Timeline: 24–48 hours after resolution (thread archived or engagement drops to near-zero)

What happens:

• The team completes a structured post-mortem:
  • What happened: Summary of the incident, root cause, and impact.
  • What worked: Response speed, strategy choice, stakeholder alignment, tone of the reply.
  • What to change: Process gaps, approval delays, better detection needed, or product changes needed.
• The post-mortem is stored in Defusely and accessible to future teams.
• An incident timeline report is exported for executive records and compliance.

Checklist:

• Post-mortem is completed within 48 hours of resolution
• Root cause is identified (product bug, support failure, misinformation, etc.)
• Response effectiveness is assessed (did sentiment improve? did damage spread?)
• Process improvements are listed
• Timeline report is exported and stored
• Team learnings are shared in a quick standup or memo

Success looks like: By 48 hours post-resolution, the incident is fully documented. The next time a similar issue emerges, your team references the post-mortem and responds 50% faster.

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Escalation criteria and response time targets

Auto-escalate to leadership if:

• Severity score is 4+ (High or Critical)
• Thread velocity exceeds 1,000 comments in 24 hours
• Incident spreads to multiple communities or mainstream news
• Regulatory or legal risk is present
• Customer safety issue or credible allegation of unethical practice

Response time targets:

• Critical (4–5): Acknowledge within 30 min, full response within 2 hours
• High (3): Acknowledge within 2 hours, full response within 4 hours
• Elevated (2): Response within 12 hours
• Watch only (1): Monitor, respond only if escalation occurs

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Team roles and responsibilities

Incident Owner (usually brand manager or comms lead):

• Creates War Room, manages workflow, coordinates team
• Makes final decisions on strategy and response

Product/Technical Lead:

• Validates incident facts, confirms bugs or misunderstandings
• Estimates time to fix and communicates technical constraints

Comms/PR Lead:

• Drafts responses, ensures tone and messaging align with brand
• Routes approvals, ensures narrative consistency

Legal/Compliance (if applicable):

• Reviews high-stakes responses for regulatory risk
• Flags compliance concerns early in process

Executive Stakeholder (if severity 3+):

• Aware of incident and response strategy
• Reviews and approves high-visibility responses

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Communication templates outline

Templates should be customized per-incident but provide guardrails:

• Empathetic acknowledgment: “We see your concern. Here’s what we’re doing.”
• Factual correction: “We understand the confusion. Here’s the correct information.”
• Support escalation: “This shouldn’t have happened. We want to help.”
• Executive statement: Brief, direct, from leadership, with action committed.
• Community engagement: Casual, authentic tone from engineers or product leads.

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Key metrics to track

• Detection to creation time: Minutes from thread reaching criteria to War Room created
• Assessment time: Minutes from creation to severity scored and AI analysis complete
• Decision time: Minutes from assessment to response strategy set
• Approval time: Minutes from decision to final approval
• Post time: Minutes from approval to response posted
• Total response time: Threshold to post (target: under 2 hours for High/Critical)
• Response effectiveness: Did sentiment improve? Did engagement spike or stabilize?
• Post-mortem completion: % of incidents with documented post-mortem within 48 hours

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Get started with the playbook

Start your 7-day free trial of Defusely to run through the playbook with your first War Room. Create an incident, experience AI assessment, draft and approve a response, post it, and complete the post-mortem. The playbook will feel natural within your second incident. No credit card required.