Crisis communication resources to help you protect your revenue, reputation, and brand.
Effective crisis communications when “it” hits the fan.
Welcome to Our Crisis Communication Blog
Our blog is filled with deep resources to help with your crisis communication needs. Whether you are writing a crisis communication plan, seeking the best media training tips, or digging for case studies on crisis situations, you’ll find it here. Our goal is to give you all of the public relations resources you need to protect your revenue, reputation, and brand.
For those of you who love DIY and taking on a challenge, we’ve worked really hard to give you a good road map to follow. However, sometimes the fastest option is to bring in a pro. If that’s the case, we’re fully vaccinated and we’re ready to meet your needs, anywhere and anytime.
{Editor’s note: In 2013, CNN selected me as one of their top iReporters, out of more than 11,000 iReporters. This is part of a series of articles about how you can be a good iReporter and how to make CNN iReports a vital part of your crisis communication and media relations strategy.}
You are welcome to use any brand of phone or tablet you like, as long as you can
1) Take video of yourself with it
2) Upload that video to the Internet.
Getting to the internet means you either need a reliable Wi-Fi signal or a good G3 or G4 signal on your device.
Raw video, also known in the news business as B-roll, is one type of image you can send to iReports. They also accept still photos. However, my favorite approach is to do a traditional television news style reporter standup. Standup is the TV term for the reporter walking and talking on camera.
Some early generations of smart phones only allow you to use your phone screen as a video view-finder while you take a picture or video of something in front of you. Ideally, you want a smart phone or tablet that has a two-way camera — the one that allows you to hold your tablet or phone at arms length while you see yourself on the screen.
Your goal in the standup should be to make it short – usually 38 seconds. The short length makes it easy and fast to upload. Sometimes longer videos will not upload because of a lack of bandwidth, especially during a crisis or during bad weather. When doing a standup, your goal should also be to walk, talk and provide information in a quotable nugget, just as you will learn if you have ever been through a media training class. Because of this technology and demand, I’ve changed the way I teach media training classes to teach spokespeople how to walk and talk and deliver great information in a quick nugget. As you deliver your standup, you must also speak in a conversational tone and not in a stiff, rehearsed sounding voice.
Because my goal is to convert my iReports into Live interviews, I also have the right software. Skype on my iPhone and iPad, connected to the web, becomes my source for broadcasting Live. This means that you need to set up a Skype account on a clear sunny day, before you ever actually need it. Just like any other technology, you have to practice using it in order to get it right when you need it quickly in a crisis.
When I report Live for CNN, I’m asked to call one of their many Skype numbers. When I report Live for The Weather Channel, they phone my Skype number.
The iPad is my favorite out of my 2 devices, because I love the size of the screen and the quality of the camera. However, it is heavier and harder to hold. Some iPad cases make it easier. Several companies also make iPad tripod devices. While a tripod provides a steady image, the downside is that you are unable to walk and talk to tell your story. In rainy conditions, the iPhone is easier to keep dry. You can use a baggie with a hole cut in it for the camera.
In our next article, you will learn what types of stories get the best attention.
If you have questions, tweet me @gbraud or send an e-mail to gerard@braudcommunications.com
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{Editor’s note: In 2013, CNN selected me as one of their top iReporters, out of more than 11,000 iReporters. This is part of a series of articles about how you can be a good iReporter and how to make CNN iReports a vital part of your crisis communication and media relations strategy.}
CNN iReports should be added to the crisis communications, media relations and social media tool kit of every corporation, government agency, and non-profit organization in the world. Should your organization experience a significant crisis that gets significant media coverage, iReports are your direct path to adding perspective and official information about your breaking news story.
Just as most of you have established an account at Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, you should have an account pre-established at www.cnn.com/ireport so it is ready to use if you need it. Unlike other social media sites, you will use this one less often.
The set up process is fast and simple. If you have created any online profile in the past you can figure it out and complete the task in 5-10 minutes.
Some leaders and executives may question whether the company needs an iReport account. My philosophy is that if you experience a newsworthy crisis, you have two options. You can either have your story told by an unofficial eyewitness on the street that has an iReport account or you can provide better video, more factual details, and dispel rumors.
Shortly after your video is filed, a team of CNN iReport producers will watch your video. if they like it, they label it as vetted by CNN. The link is then shared with producers for the various CNN news programs. If those producers like it, they may place all or part of the video on the air in their news program. If your video proves that you have great visuals, a compelling perspective and compelling information, expect to get a phone call from CNN producers, asking you to do a live report via Skype, using your computer, smart phone or tablet.
(And if you haven’t yet done so, please click here to vote for my iReports in the iReporter of the year category. You can vote once every 24 hours and your friends and social media buddies can vote too.)
About the author: Gerard Braud has been nominated as iReporter of the Year for his In Depth coverage of Hurricane Isaac in 2012. During the hurricane his home was surrounded by 7 feet of water and he had no electricity for 5 days. Yet before, during and after the storm, he continued to file Live reports using only his iPhone and Skype. His day job is traveling the world teaching effective communications, media training and crisis communications workshops at conferences and in private corporate settings.
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(Editor’s note: In 2013, CNN selected me as one of their top iReporters, out of more than 11,000 iReporters. This is part of a series of articles about how you can be a good iReporter and how to make CNN iReports a vital part of your crisis communication and media relations strategy.)
It is important to evacuate when an approaching hurricane is going to be a bad one. Staying in your home in destructive winds and killer flooding is dumb. Hurricane Isaac was not a strong storm and mandatory evacuations were not called. So, I decided to stay in my home on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain in Mandeville, LA, which is 30 minutes north of New Orleans. The storm winds at the eye of the hurricane were just over 75 miles per hour, making it barely a Category 1 hurricane. The eye was forecast to pass 50 miles to the west of me, which meant the winds would not be destructive where I was. The path would push water from the Gulf of Mexico into Lake Pontchartrain, resulting in localized flooding from storm surge.
As an experienced storm chaser, my goal was to document the hurricane, from the preparation stage, through the flooding, then through the aftermath and cleanup.
My home is a small cottage, raised on steel 10-foot pilings, with steel beams. Below my house is a carport and storage area that is 5 feet above sea level. That places the floor of my living quarters 15 feet above sea level and makes for a great perch to view mother nature. The storage area is constructed with mandatory breakaway walls, which will wash away in a storm, and they did.
Two days before the hurricane I began to document the flurry of activities and preparations in the community. There were long lines at the gas stations until every pump ran dry. I documented empty grocery store shelves, as water and canned goods were snatched up. At the hardware store I documented long lines as people purchased electrical generators and filled propane tanks.
On Tuesday, August 28, 2012, the evening before the storm made landfall, I filed an iReport that showed a calm lake, a green parkway and the green grass in my yard. I explained to viewers that the next day the entire area would be underwater, which all came to pass and made for a great follow up report. That was the iReport that lead CNN Headline News (HLN) producers to ask me to do a live report on Evening Express as the hurricane made landfall on August 29. By then, electrical power had gone out and I was broadcasting live using my iPhone 4, a G3 phone signal, and Skype
The big surprise with Hurricane Isaac was that the storm stalled and stayed in the same place for nearly 2 days, all the while causing the floodwaters to get higher. A fast moving storm would have come and gone in 12 hours. This one would cause flooding from Tuesday until Sunday.
By the time we hit the air live on Evening Express on the evening of August 29, there were whitecaps rolling down my driveway. After dark I did a live report for the Dr. Drew Show. Shortly after I signed off with Dr. Drew around 9 p.m., I began to hear strange creaking noises in the house. Occasionally there were unnerving vibrations. When I turned on the faucet there was no water. This wasn’t good. #understatement. I grabbed a flashlight and walked downstairs, where I could see that the breakaway walls in the storage areas on my carport began to wash out. As they did, debris in the waves broke the water supply, leaving me without running water. Then I realized that near the water pipes were natural gas lines. #causeforconcern
I phoned a neighbor and asked if I could sleep at his house just in case mine had a gas leak. I shut off all of my pilot lights, blew out all of my hurricane lanterns and candles, grabbed my life vest and paddled my canoe to his house. By this time, the water was so deep I simply paddled over my fence.
Overnight, the eye of the storm began to move again. The morning of August 30th I paddled home to find there was no gas leak, so I filed more iReports showing the damage as the water level dropped some.
I was surprised at how much debris had washed into my yard. Then nature revealed unwanted guests. First, there were 10 alligators swimming in my yard. As it got warm, dead nutria, a large swamp rat the size of a large muskrat, began popping up out of the water. I counted 50 carcasses. As the water drained off further, it revealed a blanket of swamp grass 12-24 inches deep, filled with thousands of snakes. I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie. Such anomalies mean just one thing: file more iReports and do more live reports for Evening Express and Dr. Drew.
For me, the beauty of iReports is the ability of ordinary people to take their stories right to the world’s leading news network. News happens fast and there isn’t always a professional news crew present to capture it. A citizen with an iPhone can capture and report the news even when no news crews are around.
You should each have an iReport. If you are a Public Information Officer (PIO), Emergency Manager, or public relations expert for a company, government agency or non-profit, you should certainly have an iReport account. In the next few articles you will learn how to establish your account, as well as how to produce news worthy videos.
Final notes
#1 Thank you for voting and sharing the voting link in your social media
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(Editor’s note: In 2013, CNN selected me as one of their top iReporters, out of more than 11,000 iReporters. This is part of a series of articles about how you can be a good iReporter and how to make CNN iReports a vital part of your crisis communication and media relations strategy.)
Over the next few days you will learn the background story of how I was selected by CNN. If you come back to this blog daily, you will learn secrets about how and why you should also be crazy about iReports and using smart phones and tablets to broadcast to the world.
CNN is recognizing me for a series of reports I filed about Hurricane Isaac 2012.
With 7 feet of floodwater surrounding my home and no electricity for 5 days during Hurricane Isaac, I was able to broadcast live to CNN using only my iPhone, G3 and Skype. Amid the rain, heat, waves, snakes, alligators, debris and dead animal carcasses, I kept broadcasting.
Because of the reports I filed from August 26-September 2, 2012, CNN producers chose my reports out of all the reports filed by 11,000 iReporters in 2012, to be recognized for continuing coverage of breaking news. The reports were seen both on the CNN iReport website and they were broadcasted by CNN and HLN to viewers around the world.
These reports took viewers into places that even CNN news crews couldn’t reach with their million dollar satellite trucks and $60,000 HD cameras.
Wow. #crazyflattered #makesmymomproud #thisisfriggincool. It is so cool to be nominated by CNN.
Hopefully the experiences you will read about here will help you understand why you should be a part of iReports. You will also learn step-by-step how to do what I do.
I have been a CNN iReport evangelist since the program began. During 4 major weather events my iReports have been broadcast on CNN and on multiple occasions have lead to live broadcasts.
The first time was when I witnessed a funnel cloud during Hurricane Gilbert. I simply uploaded a short iReport with no narration to CNN. CNN showed it, then my phone rang. A friend in California called to warn me there were tornadoes near me and he had just seen it on CNN. Ha. Funny how that worked.
On December 11, 2010 we had an unusual 5-inch snow fall in the town I live in, near New Orleans. I had not sent out Christmas cards yet, so with my point and shoot camera I made a short news video about the snow, then wished everyone Merry Christmas. I uploaded the video to iReports. Their producers vetted the report and confirmed it was real. They edited off my Christmas greeting, then used the rest of the video all day long to run before every weather report. That was really cool.
CNN asked me to do a live report via Skype, but that got canceled because of breaking news. That was the day the body of Caylee Anthony was found in the woods, leading to the murder trial of the child’s mother, Casey Anthony.
In August of 2011, Tropical Storm Lee came through New Orleans and my little town of Mandeville, LA. A week before, I had moved into a new house on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. The storm surge filled my yard with 5 feet of water. Using my iPad and WiFi, I shot a 90 second news report, then uploaded it to iReports. Within minutes, producers were asking me to do live reports. With an iPad as my broadcast camera and WiFi as my broadcast channel, I was on the air for 2 days.
These 3 events set the stage for Hurricane Isaac in August 2012 and the series of reports for which I was nominated. You will learn more details in our next article.
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(Writer’s note: Please take 15 seconds of your time to vote for me to win a CNN I-report award for my in-depth storytelling and reporting on Hurricane Isaac. With your vote, I can win the Community Choice Award. Your first vote is greatly appreciated, but to make an even bigger impact you can vote everyday until May 6th. Click here to Vote. )
If you experience a crisis that results in the mainstream media wanting to cover your story, your highest priority crisis communications outlet should be talking to the media. In the vast majority of cases, you should want to have a live human being talking before the media, and not relying on a simple printed statement, e-mail or even social media post.
It works like this: If your crisis is big enough to command media attention one of two things will happen; the media will spontaneously show up at your door or you need to call a news conference and address the media about your crisis.
In a sudden crisis, such as a fire and explosion, or a school shooting, panic and chaos are likely to follow. The fastest way to settle panic and chaos is to calm emotions with a spokesperson that has command of his or her emotions, command of his or her words, and can demonstrate some degree of competence and control.
Many organizations think a written statement is sufficient. It is better than nothing, but those are cold words. A spoken statement is better than a written statement of cold words is. Audio of the written words creates warm words. Audio allows you to convey emotion. Best of all is a person with warm words appearing in person or captured on tender video. The look on a person’s face conveys more emotions than his or her words alone.
In the case studies I have mentioned in previous articles, including at Virginia Tech, at the University of South Florida, at Dominos Pizza, a human being before the media or on video could have made a huge difference in the first hour of the crisis.
The size of your communications department comes into play, as you determine whether you have enough people to record a podcast or web video. If you select podcasting and web video, keep in mind that sites like YouTube limit the length of what you post.
Add to your to-do list time to reflect upon what your technical capabilities are for using social media in the form of podcasting and web video.
Next on my priority list after the spoken word, is posting your information to your website… the website that you control. Next, a series of mass e-mails must be sent to various groups of stakeholders. These stakeholders will include the media, employees, and then groups specific to your organization, such as customers, parents, students, patient families, government officials, etc. If e-mail is down, you will have to contact some of those people by phone as a Plan B. If phones are down, you will have to have a Plan C.
Add to your to-do list the need to make sure you have those lists made on a clear sunny day. Have the e-mail addresses in group folders for fast e-mail notifications. Also, have a full written, printed version in your plan.
It should be noted that I have a strong belief that all audiences are equal and that you need to reach all audiences simultaneously, or as close to simultaneously as possible. When I first started writing crisis communications plans in 1996, my top priority audience was the media because, at the time, the media were the messengers to the masses. Back then, if a company needed to talk with their employees, the easiest way to do so was to put them in front of a television. Technology has changed that drastically.
There are so many ways to talk directly to your employees and key stakeholders. This means that in many respects you can circumvent the media and how the media might interpret the information before sharing it with your audience. Technology at your disposal includes e-mail and websites, plus reverse 911 phone call capabilities, plus text messaging and more.
One problem that many organizations face is that their IT, or Information Technology departments, severely limit who has the ability to update the corporate website. This can be a fatal flaw if you do not have the ability to update your website.
I recently heard a speaker with a public relations firm present a case study lauding how she and her client so masterfully used Facebook and Twitter to reach out to their community during a crisis. When I asked how they used their own website, their answer was, “well, we didn’t have the ability to use our website, so we had to use Facebook and Twitter.” Whoa?! Really? What that tells me is that both the PR person and the communicator at the company did not have a crisis communications plan in place. Instead, they selected to wing it. It says to me that these are people who failed to plan. When you fail to plan, plan to fail.
Add to your to-do list the need for a meeting with your IT department to make sure you have access to a portion of your website so that you can control the content of information regarding your crisis.
In a previous article I discussed how a WordPress blog template is your best tool for fast web updates.
Controlling the flow of information on your website and getting it posted quickly requires a number of things. Previously I mentioned that every one of my plans has dozens of pre-written crisis communications templates. Each one of those templates can be:
a) given to your spokesperson to read to media on site
b) given to a spokesperson from human resources to read to employees if an employee meeting is called
c) can be posted in its entirety to your website
d) can be e-mailed to your key audiences, while still including a link in the e-mail that brings everyone back to your website
To speed the process of posting to your website, you can create what is often called dark pages. These are web pages that are written and coded and sit unpublished. When you need them, you simply hit publish and the information is up for the world to see. This is also covered in more detail in my previous article about using WordPress.
Many major organizations do a poor job of being ready to use their websites. I find airlines to be among the worst. On September 11, 2001, neither American nor United Airlines were ready to use their website for crisis communications. In January 2009, during the miracle on the Hudson landing by US Airways, the company was still more focused on selling tickets on their website than informing the world about their crisis. The US Airways website, to their credit, had a hyperlink on their home page, which I recommend. The link took you to a page in the corporate newsroom with more information, which I also recommend. However, on subsequent visits to the home page, the hyperlink would disappear. If you tried to navigate with the back button to the home page, the home page defaulted to a ticket reservations page. Overall, it was a frustrating experience trying to get first hand information about the unfolding event. If you frustrate your visitors, they will get their information from other sources, which may be less reliable, yet more accessible than your site.
Add to your to-do list the need to convert your pre-written templates into dark pages that are ready to be used quickly.
As mentioned in previous articles, a blog is easy to use and gets high rankings in search engines. It allows you to store many unpublished pages, which are just one click away from being published. Also, search engines place a high value on your blog because a blog is treated as though it is the most current news on the web. Furthermore, the title you place on your blog is quickly picked up by search engines. Hence, if my crisis is food tampering at Dominos, my blog headine would be Dominos Pizza – Food Tampering – Employee Hoax. Simply think of the words that your audience would put in a search engine and use those words in your headline. Don’t sanitize the words in the headlines because the search engines need to see the words that the web searching audience would use.
Additionally, a blog gives you the ability to open the conversation through the comment section of the blog, if you’d like. There are other benefits that you can achieve by using a blog on a regular basis. Industry bloggers and trade publications will follow your blog and use it daily, as well as on the day of the crisis. Add to your to-do list to have an official blog. Many corporations still are of the opinion that a blog is a bad thing because they don’t want to hear the nasty things customers say about them.
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On any given day customers could be protesting over electric rates. Workers could be under attack for disconnecting service. Board members could be scrutinized for per diems, travel or expenses. Add to that the growing influence of negative social media comments and big city media covering more co-op controversies, and you have a storm brewing. That storm demands effective communications from all executives, board members, and co-op public relations teams.
Here are three steps every cooperative should take:
There is no excuse, in this modern age of media, for any executive, board member or public relations person to mess up when talking to the media. But it still happens.
Many rural people tend to be friendly, honest and sometimes too chatty. Unfortunately many executives, board members and public relations people mistake the gift of gab for the ability to be an effective communicator with the media. Many board members mistakenly believe the respect they get from their status in their communities will transfer to respect from the media. That isn’t true. The fact is many of the habits you have in everyday conversation have to be avoided when talking with a reporter.
Don’t worry, there is hope. The secret is to set aside one day every year to sit down in front of a television camera with a media training coach to practice realistic interview scenarios.
Since most reporters really do not fully understand the history and inner workings of cooperatives, your media training must adopt the newest innovations in training. Never settle for training that provides only bullet points as talking points. This outdated method leads to bad ad-libs and ugly quotes.
Modern training requires a library of pre-written quotes, learned and internalized by each executive, board member and spokesperson. When written properly, internalized, and practiced, these verbatim sentences provide context, information and strong quotes. These are all elements reporters need in their story. Also, when written in a conversational sentence structure, these sentences are easy to work into everyday conversations by leaders and employees alike.
Consider that many executives who are interviewed complain that they are taken out of context and misquoted. A well-worded, pre-planned opening sentence delivered by the spokesperson can serve as a pre-amble statement that provides context to your cooperative’s goals and purpose. This forever eliminates the issue of being taken out of context.
With annual media training you will be a good spokesperson for good news, as well as when you have to speak to the media during a crisis.
The worst time to deal with a crisis is during the crisis. The best time is on a clear sunny day.
During good times, your cooperative must conduct a vulnerability assessment to identify all potential crises.
You must write a crisis communications plan that chronologically tells you every step you must take to effectively communicate during the crisis.
You must write a preliminary fill-in-the-blank statement to use in the first hour of your crisis when facts are still being determined.
You must create a more detailed news release style statement for each potential crisis that you identified in your vulnerability assessment.
If you identify 100 potential crises, then you need to write 100 potential news releases, using evergreen facts, fill in the blanks and multiple-choice options. This is best done through a facilitated writing retreat with your communications team.
A classic mistake cooperatives make is to prepare communications only for natural disasters, power outages and worker injuries. A modern crisis communications plan must also cover smoldering crises such as executive misbehavior, discrimination, financial mismanagement, per diems, and even crises involving social media.
When pre-written on a clear sunny day, these documents are ready for quick release to the media, employees, customers, the Internet and other key audiences. This process is not easy and is time consuming, but it pays huge dividends during your crisis. Many organizations experience a crisis, then in the midst of it, look at a blank word document and try to spontaneously draft a statement. The statement then goes through unprecedented scrutiny and rewrites, resulting in massive delays. In the modern age of fast communications, this is lunacy. You should never put off until tomorrow what you can write today.
Writing your Crisis Communications Plan is the perfect way to get all employees, executives, and board members on the same page. On a clear sunny day you can all agree on the policies and procedures that need to be followed for effective crisis communications. Make sure your plan goes beyond standard operating procedures. Also, make sure it doesn’t rely on only the expertise of your public relations team. The plan must be so thorough that nothing in the process is forgotten, yet easy enough to understand and follow that it can be executed by anyone who can read.
Too many cooperatives make the mistake of thinking their executives can wing it in a crisis. They think a gift of gab equates to being a great spokesperson. They also think that knowledge of the business equips them to manage a crisis and the communications for that crisis.
The secret to getting it right on your darkest day is to set aside time on a clear sunny day to hold a crisis drill. During your drill your emergency managers can run a table-top exercise. Your communications team and executives act out a real-time exercise, complete with news conferences, using role players to portray the media.
When done correctly, a drill exposes bad decision-making, bad behavior and outright incompetence among responders, spokespeople and those in leadership roles. Conversely, annual drills teach your team members how to effectively work together during a crisis. Team members are taught to achieve effective communications while also working to end the crisis.
As your facilitator prepares your drill scenario, make sure you include realistic elements of social media, since social media can spread good and bad news faster and further than the reach of traditional media.
Conclusion
As more cities sprawl into rural areas, they bring more homes and electric customers into your cooperative territory. The sprawl also brings more media attention and more scrutiny of your operations.
The best way to prepare for the increased attention you will get, is to plan on a clear sunny day and never to wait for the dark clouds to roll in.
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About the author: Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC has helped organizations on 5 continents communicate more effectively with the media, employees and customers in good times and bad. He facilitates writing retreats and workshops to help cooperatives write and complete their crisis communications plans in just 2 days. He also trains cooperative board members and leaders on how to become effective spokespeople.
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As you read this, please be so kind as to also click this link to vote for me as CNN’s iReporter of the Year… I’m one of 36 finalists and your 30 seconds of support is greatly appreciated.
Some early generations of smart phones only allow you to use your phone screen as a video view-finder while you take a picture or video of something in front of you. Ideally, you want a smart phone or tablet that has a two-way camera — the one that allows you to hold your tablet or phone at arms length while you see yourself on the screen.
The iPad is my favorite out of my 2 devices, because I love the size of the screen and the quality of the camera. However, it is heavier and harder to hold. Some iPad cases make it easier. Several companies also make iPad tripod devices. While a tripod provides a steady image, the downside is that you are unable to walk and talk to tell your story. In rainy conditions, the iPhone is easier to keep dry. You can use a baggie with a hole cut in it for the camera.
