Facebook Detracts from Good Crisis Communications After Hurricane Ian

One of the things you have probably heard me say in my articles, on The BraudCast YouTube Channel, or on LinkedIn is how much I hate social media for effective crisis communications.

Twitter may be somewhat useful, YouTube may be somewhat useful, but Facebook is completely useless when it comes to communicating about a crisis. Let’s use a case study to analyze effective crisis communications after Hurricane Ian. Or in this case, ineffective crisis communications.

Pardon my french, but DUMB people head to Facebook to try and get live updates and announcements about storms and other crises. Check out the video above to look at some actual comments and questions that people post. A company, or specifically an electric company in this case, may put out information or make an update to Facebook to try to manage the expectations of their customers.

However, the audience and demographic on Facebook ask ridiculous questions that just create noise. None of the comments advance the knowledge of anyone involved. Watch the videos to see how these complaints impact the reputation and revenue of this specific electric company, and how they could impact your company in the future.

 

 

To set goals, talk about your needs, and formulate a budget for communicating before, during and after natural disasters and other crises, schedule a complimentary, confidential call with me https://calendly.com/braud/15min

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…” and founder of SituationHub crisis communications software.

More crisis communications articles:

15 Questions to Ask Before You Use Facebook for Crisis Communications

Can You Handle a Crisis When it Hits by Winging It?

Where is Your Crisis Communications Funnel Clogged?

 

Crisis Communications and the Volatile Customer on Social Media

We don’t often associate customer service with crisis communications. However, in the age of social media, a single unhappy customer can quickly damage a brand’s revenue and reputation.

Over the years in this blog, we have reviewed countless case studies of how customers on social media have leveled serious allegations against companies. Cancel culture is the latest variation of what we’ve long called “The Volatile Customer.”

Social media gives unhappy customers a platform to becoming more volatile in their criticism of your brand. Volatile doesn’t need to imply physical harm, because words and complaints and truths going viral can fan the flames of volatility. A great brand treats an upset customer with care before they reach the point of lashing out on social media. Good customer service turns your volatile customer into a brand ambassador. You want brand ambassadors.

A single, angry “volatile” Tweet or post on Facebook can go viral, creating the opportunity for more and more people see the post and chime in. They relate to the post. They share their own, bad, customer service experience with the brand. Soon, the conversation explodes. The criticism can’t be silenced.

In the world of crisis communications, some people will push this off as issues management. Others say it falls into customer service. Some think the social media team should handle this.

We suggest you treat every dissatisfied customer as a potentially volatile customer who can convert an unhappy customer experience into a monumental crisis. Your organization needs to have a team ready to handle this sort of situation. A proper crisis communications plan can be your guide in managing the expectations of your audience.

We’re putting this topic front and center in the coming years, because a volatile customer can do unlimited damage to revenue, reputation and brand. That’s why we’ve launched our newest keynote, “The Volatile Customer.”

If your team generally focuses on sales and customer service, they need to be aware that Cancel Culture is just one bad customer experience away.

To schedule a complimentary, confidential call with me to discuss your organization’s vulnerabilities to volatile customers on social media visit https://calendly.com/braud/15min

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

15 Questions to Ask Before You Use Facebook for Crisis Communications

Can You Handle a Crisis When it Hits by Winging It?

Crisis Management Lessons from Hurricane Katrina vs. COVID19

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

Is Social Media a Good Tool for Crisis Communications?

By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC 

When a crisis hits, should you be engaging on social media with your clients, customers, and stakeholders? Is it better to comment, provide updates, and feedback on social media or to stay silent? Is it the BEST crisis communications tool or just part of your communications toolbox?

As a crisis communications expert, I’m taking the pulse of two public relations professionals in the rural electric cooperative industry, to hear their experience with social media and how companies who have decided to use it, and who have decided not to use it have faired in the unique and individual crises they have faced.

To enjoy a full replay of this Master Class sponsored by SituationHub.com visit this link.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications: Master Class #1

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Avoid Social Media Scrutiny, Save Your Brand

By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC 

Think of social media as a compass. A compass has 360 degrees or points on it. If you face one direction, the opposite direction is 180 degrees from you.

In social media, any time you take a position on a topic, you can be assured that someone else has an opinion 180 degrees away from you – or the exact opposite opinion. And for that much, if we keep with the compass analogy, if you were to put 360 social media participants in a virtual space, you can bet that no two feel exactly the same. Each has a different opinion, ranging from just one or two degrees off to being 180 degrees away – or feeling exactly the opposite of someone else. You can see some of the digital impact of #blacklivesmatter, #metoo, and other social justice hashtags on social media here.

The media loves to report what people think on social media. Rather than conducting a scientific poll to measure public opinion, television reporters and producers turn to Facebook and Twitter to report how people feel about any issue. This replaces a previous disturbing, sad trend of the “man on the street interview.” This is where a television reporter hopelessly stands on a street corner trying to get sound bites from random people, to fill a hole in a new story.

Years ago, stories would have run on the news and people would have voiced their opinions at the office water cooler, at the corner bar, or at the beauty parlor.

Social media is a virtual office water cooler, corner bar and beauty parlor all connected to the world’s largest amplifier.

Add to it that search engines and hashtags allow the amplification to be searched and then amplified through the television news media, which means the television media will tell you what people think.

Sadly, and with a degree of bias, the media tell you what they think the prevailing thoughts are, even though my compass analogy tells you that whatever one person thinks about one issue, someone else thinks something slightly or very different. For example, for each person who believes people must wear masks in public to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, there is another person who believes they should not have to, or that the use of masks is not helpful to prevent the spread.

Social media is full of opinions. Many of us have heard a variety of quotes about opinions. They range from the mild, “Opinions are like Belly Buttons, everybody has one;” to the slightly more crude, “Opinions are like farts. Just because you have one doesn’t mean you have to let it out;” to the even more crude analogy I heard during my television news career, “Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one and thinks that everyone else’s stinks.” (Google “Opinion Quotes” to see countless more.)

The sad reality is the media, for nearly 20 years, has laid inflammatory opinions out for the public to hear, just to fuel a degree of outrage, so that people keep talking about what they heard on the news and where they heard it. News Talk Radio pioneered it and I’d say Rush Limbaugh turned it into an ugly ratings bonanza, copied by local talk radio, which has then been copied by Fox News and CNN each time they assemble a group of pundits who scream at each other with opposing views.

So how does this affect you if you are in PR and communications, working for a corporation, non-profit organization or government agency?

First, you must be more aware than ever that you will be judged harshly by critics for any and everything done by your organization, its executives, and its employees. Your efforts at good news publicity will be condemned by naysayers. Your future crises will become the focal point for public hostility in social media. I predict that someday in the not too distant future, companies will go out of business simply because of public pressure on social media.

Long term, your company could see serious damage to both reputation and revenue because of social media pressure. You could be forced to apologize for harmless acts or actions that capture the ire of social media.

In conclusion, every corporation, non-profit organization and government agency, and the executives and employees of each, face tougher scrutiny than ever. The time is now to rethink your media relations, social media and crisis communications strategies. What got no attention in the past will be more amplified than ever in the most costly ways.

Rethinking your media relations, social media, and crisis communications strategies can be extremely difficult and time-consuming, so these videos can walk you through it. View 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications here.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

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Photo by Thomas de LUZE on Unsplash

Is Social Media Your Best Communications Platform for Crisis Communications?

By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC 

Public relations professionals and public information officers (PIOs) love social media for crisis communications. Many PR professionals wanted to share their expert opinion on a previous blog I wrote when I asked, “Is Social Media Good for Crisis Communications?”

In a nutshell, the blog pointed out that Facebook and other social media platforms have changed their algorithms and they are intentionally showing your posts to fewer people. This means that

In a crisis, social media today doesn’t give you the reach it did five years ago.

-Gerard Braud

In a companion blog, I championed the use of Live Streaming features as a crisis communications tool. The algorithms do favor live broadcasts over a basic post.

We’ve had a bit of our own crisis on our blog, that our tech team is trying to fix. The ReCaptcha isn’t working and it is making it impossible for you to post your comments. We’re on it. But one of my colleagues went so far as to send me a nice email with his point of view regarding my blog post Is Social Media Good for Crisis Communications?  I am sharing his comments in this post.

I will say this about the use of social media for crisis communications – how you use it and how it benefits you depends upon two things:

  1. What type of organization do you represent?
  2. How big is your communications staff?

What Type of Organization Do You Represent?

If you communicate for an electric company or an electric cooperative and there is a power failure because of weather or a technical problem, you can bet your customers and members will go to Facebook on their phones to look for an update on the outage. Yes, you will find social media is good for crisis communications in this situation. And as I advocated in my live video blog, Live Stream on social media is a perfect way to manage the expectations of your customers before a serious weather event. But this does not absolve you of your obligation to post official information to your website newsroom.

If you are the public information officer for a police department or a government agency and you need to get information to members of your community, then yes, Facebook and Twitter are a great way to get information to the public. But this does not absolve you of your obligation to post official information to your website newsroom.

If you represent a corporation that doesn’t want to draw a lot of attention to your crisis, then no, Facebook and Twitter may not necessarily serve you well. But your newsroom on your website will always serve you well as home base for official information.

To be clear, every crisis communications plan I write includes directives on how and when to use social media in a crisis. However, the directives always include using social media to direct interested parties to your website newsroom.

How Big is Your Communications Staff?

Are you a one-person communication staff or do you have many people helping to communicate?

In crisis communications, your goal should be to share honest information with the media, your employees, and your stakeholders.

Your priority should NOT be to moderate comments on social media. Your PRIORITY should be to gather information, confirm information, and share information, then repeat the process again until the crisis has passed.

If you have a small communications staff, spending time moderating social media comments takes you away from your primary job.

For years I’ve advocated that social media is a tool and nothing more than one more communications channel. As I mentioned in my blog and as I’ve advocated for years, your website is the most secure place to post honest information. By using it consistently, you are able to train the media, your employees, and your stakeholders to trust that this is where they should go for OFFICIAL information.

In the comments below, Kerry Shearer will point out that many of the PIOs and government organizations he works with do not have the capability to post to a website and therefore social media and Live Streaming are their only option.  

I’ll agree that it is an option and that it is useful to PIOs, but if PIOs are professional communicators, then they need to demand the tools used by professional communicators. If a police officer requires a gun, bullets, and a patrol car to do his or her job, then a PIO requires access to their website to post news updates.

It’s 2019 and it is time to demand the tools you need. Stand up, stand your ground, and if you don’t have the tools you need to do your job, then move on to a place that respects you and will give you the tools you require. Yes – I know, that’s easier said than done. However, I’m a guy who has quit four jobs and moved on because I needed the right tools. I’ve always refused to remain in a job where an employer denied me the right to do my very best work. Not once have I regretted taking a stand and moving on to greener pastures of employment.

With that, here are comments from Kerry Shearer regarding Social Media for Crisis Communications:

Most of your posts are absolutely spot on.

I do disagree with the premise of this post, though — that social media is essentially a lost cause and agencies should run to their websites where no one can comment!

Many public agency websites are poorly designed, complicated to use, and not geared up to handle a stream of posts, pictures, and video that agencies SHOULD be doing.

When you bring in a team of PIOs from various agencies, they will not know the content management system or how to post. But everyone knows how to post to social media sites.

In fact, social media is THE place to be; that’s where the public is during a crisis. That’s where they are looking and talking.

If an agency is not there, their voice won’t be heard. In fact, it’s critical to be there FAST with holding statements when crisis breaks out to show you’re on top of the situation.

Jay failed to mention Facebook is now rolling out Local Alert functionality to all local agencies and emergency responders so agencies can hit a button and get in the newsfeed. This is huge. You know that FB has a bunch of reps assigned in regions across the country to work with government/public agencies to work out issues and take feature requests, right?

I worked on the PIO team in the City of Santa Rosa EOC for 11 days during northern California’s historic, devastating wildfires that leveled massive neighborhoods and businesses. We used video on FB to the hilt, turning most updates and advisories into a livestream or a fast-turnaround recording video shot and edited on a smartphone.

Combined with real-time social media inquiry response from PIO team, public reaction was super positive. And we got great input through our interactions that we turned into FAQ content.

We did FB live remotes from donation centers and the local assistance center. We livestreamed community meetings.

Most agencies are good at terse tweets devoid of humanity, but social video puts a “face” to the response, shows the public you’re in it with them, is easily sharable & media can use it.

In my experience teaching these techniques to public agencies and responders multiple times a month, the social side of crisis content creation should not be minimized or overlooked. It is actually a massive opportunity.

The fear of trolls should never be an excuse for not learning and implementing these techniques.

That’s my two cents!

–Kerry Shearer

Thank you Kerry for your observations. To be clear, my post never said social media is a lost cause. My observations are that social media gives you less reach than five years ago.

My position for fifteen years is that your website newsroom should be your home base for all accurate information about your crisis. Organizations that use social media for crisis communications should provide links back to their website newsroom.

Regarding PIOs who don’t have the skills to use a content management system, my observation is that it is a skill that can be taught and learned. A PIO’s job is to be a professional communicator and posting to a website is a professional skill I expect all professional communicators to have. A simple WordPress blog is only a hyperlink away on a government website that is out of date. Just add a link that says “News Room” and provide a redirect to an external web page that can be managed by the PIO.

  • Ultimately, social media has to be a right fit and not a forced fit.
  • Social media has to be a right fit for the type of organization you represent.
  • Social media has to be a right fit depending upon the size of your communications staff.

Your website newsroom is ALWAYS a right fit for crisis communications.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo by Anders Krøgh Jørgensen on Unsplash

Is Social Media Good for Crisis Communications?

By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

The rules are changing when it comes to using social media for crisis communications.

That is because the social media giants such as Facebook, are making it harder for your crisis notifications to show up in the news feed of your subscribers.

Jay Baer is one of the top experts in the use of social media. He recently told me that Facebook has pulled the football out from underneath you like Lucy pulls the football out from Charlie Brown just before he can kick it.

During one of his presentations, he showed a frightening graph of how since 2014, Facebook has been showing your posts to fewer of your followers and friends. They really want you to buy Facebook ads, but I’d never suggest you do that in a crisis.

You’ve likely noticed in your own social media use that you don’t see posts from as many of your friends as you did five years ago. Facebook has intentionally done this.

If you write a post and no one clicks like or comments, your post will die.

If someone clicks “like,” Facebook lets a few more people see it with each like.

If someone comments, Facebook shows it to even more people.

In other words, Facebook gives you more views with each interaction.

This means I have good news and bad news for you when it comes to crisis communications.

The good news is that if fewer people see your post about a crisis, that means fewer trolls can say ugly things about your organization.

The bad news is, if you have something important that you want people to see, fewer people will see your post.

Honestly, your website should be the main place where people read about your crisis. You own that real estate. You don’t own your space on social media. Jay Baer has always said that

You should never build your house on rented land.

Social media is rented land. On the other hand, you own your website and hopefully you have a robust newsroom where you share good and bad news alike.

When using social media in a crisis, you should never try to grab attention with a compelling headline. Rather, you should simply write, “We have an update to our event posted on our website.” Then add the link. Those who know about the crisis can learn more with one click.

Social media is a double edged sword.

Experience tells us that in a crisis, it may increase damage to your organization’s reputation and revenue.  However, many communicators think social media might enhance their corporate reputation because they are being transparent and open. The place to be transparent and open is on your website where no one can comment. Being open and transparent on social media only attracts trolls and negative comments. In a crisis, you are too busy with more important things than to try to moderate comments from trolls and nay sayers.

The reality is, a proper, honest post on your company website is as open and transparent as you can be. Use the land you own and not the land you rent.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

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HSE & Crisis Communication Best Practices

By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

Health, safety, and environmental (HSE) best practices are expanding beyond emergency management and disaster recovery. An increasing number of occupational safety experts are recognizing that their crisis management duties must now include best practices in crisis communications.

Many HSE experts work in smaller companies without a public relations professional, so CEO’s and managers are tasking their HSE experts with managing communications during a crisis event.

To learn more about the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communication, use this link to get access to a free 5-part video series that explores best practices in crisis communication. This series takes you into a deeper dive than we have time for here.

Among the things HSE professionals must be aware of is that your emergency response activities are often captured on social media by eyewitnesses. As of this writing, eyewitnesses can broadcast your emergency with Twitter’s Periscope, Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Instagram Live, and LinkedIn Live, as well as other emerging apps.

Not only are members of your community getting information from social media eyewitnesses, but so are the mainstream media who often republish and rebroadcast social media pictures and videos. We have some great crisis communication social media case studies in the 5-part video series.

Respectable companies are seeing their reputation and revenue destroyed because of negative publicity on both social media and mainstream media.

How do you deal with social media in a crisis?

You must adopt new best practices for crisis communications so that you can be communicating with the media, your employees, your customers, and your community faster than ever before. Faster crisis communications helps you control the narrative of the story. Fast and accurate crisis communications also ends speculation found on both social media and mainstream media.

How do you master fast and accurate crisis communications?

Step 2 of the 5 steps to effective crisis communications is to have a library of pre-written news releases that can be edited in record time and distributed to all audiences, including the media, your employees, your customers, and your community. Each of my clients receives a base set of 100 pre-written news releases with their crisis communications plan. Each news release is methodically written to have multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank options that allow the statement to be modified in about ten minutes.

Step 3 of the 5 steps to effective crisis communications is to have a crisis communications plan that sequentially guides the HSE professional through gathering facts about the incident, confirming it with the crisis management team, then using a pre-written news release to communicate with all of your stakeholders. A good crisis communication plan must take into account that the HSE team is not necessarily schooled in the best practices of public relations. Therefore, the best PR and crisis communication practices must be baked into the sequential instructions of the crisis communications plan.

HSE professionals are often becoming the spokesperson in a crisis. Hence, Step 4 in the 5 steps to effective crisis communications is to schedule crisis media training. A pre-written news release makes a perfect news conference script to read. Media training helps you learn to deliver the statement well. It also helps you respond to difficult questions.

To go deeper, register for the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications. If you are ready to move forward, phone us at 985-624-9976.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

Please Pick Me to be Your Media Trainer

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Are You a Social Media Hypocrite?

https-::pixabay.com:en:facebook-social-media-addiction-2387089:By, Gerard Braud

When it comes to social media and crisis communications, it’s all about analyzing how your particular audience uses social media. But before we talk about them, we should talk about you and your personal social media habits.

There are still companies that have no Facebook page, no Twitter, and no YouTube channel. Some companies have zero social media. Some companies have set up social media pages, but do not use them consistently. Some companies post frequently to one or more social media channels.

It’s time to cut to the point, especially for companies aggressively posting to social media. On a clear sunny day, when there is no crisis at hand, are you a social media hypocrite? Do you — or someone on your communications team — sit in your office each day updating your corporate social media sites expecting your audiences to follow you, when in fact you don’t personally follow any other companies?

At home, on your personal Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, do you personally follow your bank on social media? Do you follow your hospital? Do you follow your electric company?

As I was teaching my Social Media When “It” Hits the Fan workshop recently to a state-wide medical association, the audience was initially appalled that I asked if they were social media hypocrites. They then realized they were. Each has spent countless hours developing Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for their hospitals. Some had branched out into Pinterest and Instagram. Yet in reflection, they realized that they spend a lot of time posting information for their corporate social media accounts, with the belief their audiences and customers would read it, when in fact they didn’t follow their bank, doctor, oil company, etc.

The audience quickly realized that they were social media hypocrites. Many realized that they were social media and public relations sheep, setting up social media accounts because some so-called social media expert said that every company needs to be on social media or you will be left behind.

It’s also crucial that we talk about the age and social media habits of your audience to determine if social media is the right fit for your organization on a clear sunny day when there is no crisis, because this will affect whether you can reach them during a crisis.

In my research and experience, there is a large generational divide between those who use it and those who don’t, which we will address in greater detail later. The age and social media habits of your audience will help you decide when and if social media needs to be part of your crisis communication strategy. People in their mid-20’s pioneered social media behavior and made  Facebook popular. Now, as some grandparents join Facebook to keep track of their grandkids, younger participants are leaving because Facebook isn’t as cool anymore.

For the most part, it is safe to say that people under 35 are more active than those who are older. So as you decide if social media is right for you, keep this in mind. The best research on social media behavior can be viewed here.

When “it” hits the fan, you have to ask yourself, what does your audience need to know and how do you want them to behave? What is it that you want them to do? Sometimes you need to communicate safety information in the throes of a crisis. Perhaps you need to evacuate a community before a hurricane or issue advisories to your customers and employees before a bad weather event. Many times you may be communicating with your audiences because of an ugly rumor or the exposure of a scandal.

Whatever the crisis, whatever the situation may be, you need to know how to best reach your audience, and make sure you are not a social media hypocrite.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

3 Lessons the Melania Trump Coat Can Teach All Public Relations People

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

 

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Is Social Media Mandatory, Optional, or Useless in a Crisis?

https-::pixabay.com:en:mannequin-fashion-accessory-2566559:By Gerard Braud

Public relations professionals are appalled at the suggestion of taking a social media site dark and they tweet back to me the names of brands that they think could never go dark in a crisis. But that isn’t the question nor is it why I sparked the debate. The question is, what is right for YOUR brand or corporate social media page?

One size does not fit all in social media policy.

In this article, I will review some important highlights from a podcast I did with Shel Holtz exploring whether there is ever a right time to take your social media sites dark during a crisis. You can listen to the entire podcast here.

1) The entire world on social media is not your primary audience in a crisis. If the crisis garners coverage by the mainstream media, rapid communications to your employees with simultaneous rapid communications to the media should be done first.

In this excerpt I discuss why tried and true beats shiny and new when it comes to social media and crisis communications.

2) Just because you, as a corporate communications or public relations professional, wear out your thumbs scrolling through social media all day, doesn’t mean the rest of the world does. Study the demographics and digital habits of your audience, employees, and customers. There are many companies for which the executive staff, board members, and many of the employees still don’t use social media. E-mail is often more effective than a post on Facebook or a Tweet.

In this excerpt I discuss it further.

3) Be bold enough to consider whether your social media site should go dark because your crisis is being complicated by nasty comments by certified crazies. Many of you who subscribe to this blog are a communications and PR team of one. You have no one else on the PR staff. You should focus on the audiences that are most important and the communications channels that are most reliable. All companies should place high value on their secure website and direct e-mails to their employees and customers. Those loyal employees and customers will become your advocates and supporters on social media.

I discuss which types of brands could go dark without their audience noticing and which types of high profile brands would likely have to stay up and endure an assault of negative comments.

4) Monitoring social media in a crisis is crucial. But don’t waste time getting sucked into the vortex of trying to be a therapist who “listens” to everyone who has a comment. Don’t get sucked into the vortex of trying to respond to everyone, positive or negative. If possible, identify high-value negative stakeholders and comment that you will call them on the phone to have a human-to-human conversation. If you see that your platform is being overrun by the social media trolls, be aware of what they say, but know when to “ignore the mean kids on the playground” and focus on your core audience.

In this excerpt I discuss when you need to let the naysayers have their own discussion on their own social media site, rather than polluting your site.

In conclusion, remember that no two crises are the same and when it comes to social media, one size does not fit all.

This final excerpt looks at what you should do to prepare, long before your darkest day.

 

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

3 Lessons the Melania Trump Coat Can Teach All Public Relations People

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

 

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