What to Post on Social Media During a Crisis or Closure

Bizer · 2026-10-01

Post the facts customers need to act, update them on a schedule, and stop everything else.

That is the whole rule. A hurricane closing the shop, a burst pipe, a product recall, a family emergency, a viral complaint: the details differ, but the customer's questions are the same. Are you open? Is my order safe? How do I reach you? When will you know more?

What should the first post say?

Write it in the first hour, even if you know little. Four parts, plain words:

1. What is happening, in one sentence. "We are closed today, Tuesday, because of flooding on Main Street."
2. What it means for the customer. "Appointments today will be rescheduled. Orders placed this week are safe and will ship when we reopen."
3. How to reach you. A phone number or a monitored inbox. Not the shop phone if nobody is at the shop.
4. When you will update next. "We will post again at 5 p.m." Then do it, even if the update is "no change".

Pin it to the top of your Facebook Page so it is the first thing anyone sees.

Ready.gov's business guidance on crisis communications, from FEMA, makes the same point from the other direction: customers want to know how they are affected, and you reach them through every channel you have, a sign on the door, a message on the phone line, your website, social media, an email auto-reply.

Which settings should I change, not just post about?

Posts scroll away. Settings stay. As of September 2026:

• Facebook: Meta has offered "Temporary service changes" in a Page's hours settings since 2020, letting you mark the business temporarily closed or open with service changes such as delivery or pickup. When Meta launched the feature, it said these changes could appear on the Page, in its preview, and in search.
• Google Business Profile: Google's help center says to mark the business temporarily closed if you will be closed for more than seven days, and to use special hours for a shorter closure. See Google's article on marking a business closed.

Do both. A customer is more likely to see your Google hours than your latest post. Forgetting to switch "temporarily closed" off when you reopen is the most common follow-up mistake. Put a reminder in your phone the day you turn it on.

What should I stop posting?

Everything scheduled. Go into your scheduler today and pause every queued post. A cheerful "Happy Friday, come see us" going out during a flood, or during a week your business is in the news for the wrong reason, does more damage than silence. This is the single most costly mistake, and it is entirely preventable.

Also stop:

• Selling into the crisis. A "storm sale" while neighbors are still pumping out houses reads badly in a small town. If you have something people genuinely need, generators, tarps, hot food, say plainly that you have it and what it costs.
• Speculating. If you do not know when the power company will restore service, say you do not know.
• Arguing in comments. Answer one angry comment once, calmly, and take it to a private message or a phone call.

What if the crisis is about my business?

A complaint that went viral, a health inspection, an employee who did something on camera. The same rule holds, with more weight on one point: say what you are doing, not how you feel. "We are sorry" is fine. "We have closed for the day, retrained staff, and the inspector returns Thursday" is better. People forgive a business that fixes things faster than one that apologizes beautifully.

Do not delete critical comments to make the problem look smaller. People screenshot, and the deleted comment becomes the next story. Hide only what is abusive or spam.

If there is any chance of a lawsuit, an injury, or a regulator, call your lawyer or insurance agent before you post anything beyond the basic facts.

What about helping other people?

In 2017 Facebook let organizations and some businesses post offers of help in its Community Help feature during disasters, inside a hub it called Crisis Response. Meta's current help center, as of September 2026, does not say how much of that still works the same way, so do not plan around it.

What does work, anywhere: if you can help, say exactly what you are offering, where, and until when. A restaurant posting "free plates at 2 p.m. at our Grand Caillou Road location until they run out" is useful. "We are here for our community" is not.

What is uncertain?

How long it takes Facebook and Google to show a status change varies, and neither publishes a guaranteed time, so post the closure as well as setting it. And every crisis has a part no checklist covers. When in doubt, the honest, boring post is the right one.

Write a template now, before you need it, with blanks for the date, reason, and phone number. Writing the first post during the emergency is how typos and wrong numbers get out.