How to write a crisis communications plan? That is a PR question asked daily by corporate communicators.
How about I show you how to write a crisis communications plan? How about we do it together? How about we take my 20 years of crisis communication plan templates and customize them so they work perfectly for your employer? How about when we finish, I will have revealed every one of my crisis communications plan secrets in just two days and you will have a crisis communications plan that works in every possible crisis you could face?
This is your invitation to a Crisis Communications Plan Writing Program. This is not your ordinary crisis communication workshop where you learn crisis communication theory. This is a program where the goal and end result is to write and complete your crisis communication plan.
Before we go any further, I want to be clear about what you get. The photo on the right shows 2 documents. The document on the left is what the average crisis communication plan looks like. It is about 6 pages. The document in the 3 inch binder is the crisis communications plan I have created and the plan you will be taking home at the end of 2 days.
The program will be in my hometown of New Orleans this summer. I’ll repeat the program twice in one week. If you can’t attend on the dates that are scheduled, just call me and I will arrange to bring the program either to your town or directly to your company, non-profit organization or government agency.
On July 14-15, 2014, the program is open to all types of businesses. On July 17-18, 2014, the program is open just to Rural Electric Cooperatives.
The deliverables include:
1) A full assessment of the vulnerabilities that could lead to a crisis for your employer.
2) Customization and completion of a world-class crisis communications plan that will work in any type of crisis you face. The plan is approximately 50 pages long and contains all of my proprietary crisis communications plan features.
3) A library of more than 60 pre-written news releases and instructions on how to write additional news releases so your library is customized for your specific needs.
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Is there a catch? Not really. In exchange for me turning over my life’s work for the past 20 years to you I ask only one thing. I ask that you don’t give it away or share it with anyone who has not paid to use it. To participate, your company will sign a licensing agreement – just like you do for software and other intellectual property. The license says that your company gets to have a license to use the intellectual property forever, but I retain ownership to the intellectual property. This is not a work for hire project, which would cost you about $100,000 and take a year of collaboration. The program and licensing agreement are designed this way because it makes it a far less expensive option for you.
Okay, you say, so what is the price?
For you and two of your colleagues to attend this program – that’s correct – I want you to bring a team of people to work on this – The base price $7,995 for a lifetime corporate license. However, savings of $1,000 to $2,000 per organization may be available as the size of the class grows, which is why it benefits you to sign up and invite friends from other companies to join you. I’ll tell you more about it all if you phone me at 985-624-9976.
The price really isn’t for you to attend the program. The fee is really for the license. For all practical purposes, the customization program is essentially free for you to attend if you purchase one of the licenses.
Will you join me? Call me at 985-624-9976 so we can discuss it.
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.png00gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2014-06-11 13:00:202021-05-20 05:33:36How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan?
As we examine the leadership gap, the generation gap, and shiny new object syndrome, let’s note that in many cases, in the world of crisis communications, social media can be a greater source of bad than good.
The fact that a citizen can post a picture of a plane crash before the airline knows about it is not good. The fact that a student is broadcasting a shooting to CNN before you even know about it is not good. The fact that your employees are part of a social media gossip loop before you send official communications to them is not good. Now, let us add to the discussion the fact that sometimes, social media is your crisis.
Case in point, Easter Day, April 16, 2009. Two employees at a Domino’s Pizza outlet were bored and started to shoot a video of themselves. One captured the other putting cheese in his nose, before placing the cheese on a pizza he was making. They then uploaded the video to YouTube.
It was an astute blogger who had a Google Alert for the word Domino’s that first saw the video. The blogger called Domino’s headquarters. The folks at Domino’s were not amused and not pleased, and they took steps internally to identify the employees and the store. But Domino’s did not anticipate that this video would become a viral wonder. They underestimated the YouTube audience. So here, we see multiple failings. There is the classic leadership gap, there is decision paralysis, and there is the generation gap.
Earlier in this collection of articles I told you that a cardinal rule of every crisis communications plan that I write is a mandate to communicate within one hour or less of the crisis going public. Obviously Domino’s did not have such a plan, because the one hour mark would have been reached one hour after they heard from the blogger. In many crises, at that one hour mark, depending upon the severity of the crisis, you would speak to any media who have arrived at your site; you would publish something to the web; and you would communicate with employees, via the web, via e-mail, and in severe situations, with an in person meeting.
In the world of decision paralysis, one of the problems is the fear that if the company says something, they may turn a nothing story into a bigger story than it should be. Hence, many companies, often on the advice of both attorneys and the communications department, say nothing. I have never subscribed to that rule and never will. I have successfully defused events that could have become major stories and lead to major lawsuits by bringing the story directly to traditional media. I believe that being pro-active and communicating bad news on your own is your best defense.
Add to your to-do list the need to have a discussion with your leadership and your legal department. In that discussion, you need to ask them under which circumstances they would suggest saying nothing. It needs to ultimately conclude with a decision to speak and disclose your potential crisis in almost every situation.
The system that I have created, using pre-written communications templates, has resolved that situation for all of my clients. This is due to the fact that lawyers get to see exactly what we plan to say, giving them time to approve all of the statements – sometimes months or years in advance.
The Domino’s case presents a to unique opportunity to respond in-kind, meaning respond to a YouTube video with a YouTube video and do it within one hour. Let me explain the magic of this approach. Domino’s eventually responded with a YouTube video, which we will discuss further in a moment. However, inside sources tell me that the general discussion within the organization was that for a company as big as Domino’s, if the story wasn’t on the front page of U.S.A. Today, then there was nothing to worry about.
Wrong! The offending video was posted late Sunday and by Tuesday evening, more than 250,000 people… more than a quarter of a million people had watched the video. By noon Wednesday, just 18 hours later, the video had more than 1 Million views on YouTube. The company learned the word Domino’s was being typed into more search engines than the word Paris Hilton. Domino’s was still thinking that out of 307 million people in the United States, only 1 million had seen the video, which was minimal in the big picture. I At 1 million hits the video got the attention of mainstream media and became a story among all major media outlets across the U.S.
So, what would you do? My answer is I would have had a YouTube video on YouTube within one hour of learning of the event, even if I didn’t know all of the facts. Why? Let me explain.
Rule 1. Respond within one hour or less, but in the case of social media we add a new rule.
Rule 2. Respond in-kind, meaning answer a YouTube video with a YouTube video. If, when you post your video, you use the same key words as the offending video, you can achieve nearly equal search engine optimization. That means that every time someone types the word Domino’s in a search engine, the corporate response would show up nearly as often as the offending video.
Domino’s eventually posted a message from the CEO to the web and they claim it was posted 48 hours after the offending video was posted. Furthermore, they claim this was ground breaking. For the record, I’ve been a corporate Vice President and I council executives on a regular basis as a crisis communications expert. I can imagine what was going on inside the company. Many executives were on Easter vacation and they were attempting to tackle the problem by long distance. People were busy trying to prosecute the employees. People were busy wordsmithing messages; people were massaging words. That’s always such bull.
Just as I shot a 15 second video in my snowy front yard and posted it as an i-Report for CNN with less than an hour’s work, I could shoot a very brief on camera message that says,
“Hi, I’m Gerard Braud with Domino’s Pizza. There is a YouTube video circulating around with two people who identify themselves as Domino’s employees. In the video, they’re doing some pretty nasty stuff in the store. Chances are if you’re watching this, you’re looking for the other video. Let me just say that we’re in the process of identifying the people in the video so we can get to the bottom of this. Our focus now is to find out exactly what’s going on and how we can keep it from happening again. Stay tuned for an update.”
That’s it. That’s all that was needed. I don’t need to see a CEO. Some crisis communications trainers believe you should always send out “the top dog first.” I say bull. Usually the first person I push out the door as a spokesperson is a public relations spokesperson. I’ll send the CEO out later if the situation is severe enough, but in many cases a high level manager makes a good spokesperson, if he or she as been through proper media training.
Add to your to-do list the need to have a discussion with your team and your leadership to establish an understanding of who should be your first spokesperson in a crisis, and how many people you feel should undergo media training so they can serve as subject matter experts in the subsequent hour of your crisis.
I am a big believer that the CEO needs to be busy managing the crisis, especially in the early hours of the crisis, while others serve as the spokesperson. Only in the most extreme cases do I make the CEO the spokesperson, and even then, I generally roll out lower level experts first.
Now, back to the video from the Domino’s CEO. Yes, eventually it was posted. The CEO did a poor job of reading from cue cards off camera. No teleprompter, he made no eye contact with the camera and no, he isn’t someone who can ad lib well. Add to that, the statement was worded as an angry rant and by the time it was recorded, the CEO was an angry person. It was bad, it was too little and it was too late.
The Domino’s head of PR claims in an article published by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), that what Domino’s did was unprecedented and ground breaking. I disagree on several points. I’ve used YouTube videos many times before his crisis, and I’ll share some of those examples for you a bit later. I also live by the rule to communicate in one hour or less… not the Domino’s rule of one week or less. This isn’t rocket science, but it is about writing a crisis communications plan that works, using that plan, communicating in one hour or less, and involving leaders in crisis communications drills annually. Annual drills condition them to the idea that you must communicate quickly and that the CEO doesn’t have to be the primary spokesperson.
One final note on this topic – Every crisis communications plan that I write contains dozens of pre-written templates and your plan should too. Every item the leaders identify in the vulnerability assessment should have a companion, pre-written communications template. On a clear sunny day, when there is no anxiety and you have clarity of thought, you can write 75%-95% of what you would say on the day of the crisis. In the case of a restaurant chain, you would have a document that describes food tampering. When the crisis hits, you’re not looking at a blank piece of paper. Rather, you are looking at a well-worded document that has already been vetted by the leaders and the legal department. You are looking at the same type of template that your leaders would have seen and used when you conducted your crisis communications drill. Spokespeople would be looking at and reading from the very same document they used during their media training class. This system gives everyone the confidence needed to communicate quickly in a crisis.
With that, get your to-do list out. If your crisis communications plan does not contain dozens of pre-written statements for all of the possible crises you could face, then you need to create such templates. If your plan does have templates, you need to schedule a quarterly review to determine if new templates need to be written.
If you don’t know how to write such templates, contact me and we can schedule a writing retreat for your team so that you can quickly fill your plan with the templates you will need.
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.png00gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2014-05-23 03:00:522021-05-20 21:18:27Social Media for Crisis Communications: Social Media as the Cause of Your Crisis
When a crisis happens, people go to the Internet looking for information about your crisis. If your company, government agency or non-profit organization is experiencing a crisis, you want to control the flow of official information through effective crisis communicationand a good Crisis Communications Plan. (See How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan.)
This means that when people search the Internet for information about your crisis, you hope they find your official webpage before reading the web pages of the media, bloggers and the web’s anonymous naysayers.
Social media can help you with this. But before we go further, you must make sure that in everything you write about your crisis, you call it what it is and not attempt to disguise it with PR-BS or sanitized terms concocted by your CEO or lawyers.
A fire is a fire; it isn’t the “event of warmth that caused the facility to no longer exist,” or some other crazy phrase someone invents. A shooting is a shooting; it isn’t the “incident that involved a metallic projectile expelled from a metal tube,” or some other nonsense. You may laugh, but in my business, I see it every day.
When writing effective messages for crisis communications, you must put on your Google hat. In other words, when someone does a search on Google for information about your crisis, which words are they going to type into their search engine? Those are the words you need to be using in all of your postings to official websites and to your official social media channels.
Google and the other search engines use complicated, secretive algorithms to make up what we know as search engine optimization (SEO). This is what allows someone to type a word into the search engine and get information on that topic. And while the major search engines keep changing their algorithms to prevent you from outright manipulation of the search engines, there are certain things we know about how they work and how you can increase the likelihood of ranking high in a search during your crisis.
Here are five great things to know about SEO in a Crisis.
1) It starts by using the right words. As mentioned above, call the event what it is and don’t use sanitized terms. Next, use those words in the title of your website post, as well as in the opening sentence of your online news releases. Repeat the phrase several times throughout everything you write.
For some, this immediately raises the question: Are you breaking the old PR rule that you should never repeat the negative?
The answer is that you can straddle the fence. You can call the event, “Shooting at XYX Company This Morning.” That is what it is and it is what people will call it. You are, however, avoiding super negative phrases, such as, “The Horrific Tragic Shooting that has Brought XYZ Company to its Knees.”
Some will ask, should you avoid using words like crisis or tragedy? Are you better off calling it an incident? That is really a decision that should preliminarily be made while writing your Crisis Communications Plan and the various communications documents that will live in the addendum of the plan. (For more on this, review our previous articles on How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan.) If you have that discussion on a clear sunny day, you can likely pick the best word, then reconsider it once more on the day of the event.
A recent case in point is the Sandy Hook Elementary Tragedy in which 26 people were shot and killed, most of whom were children. This is indeed tragic. A communicator, CEO, or lawyer would be foolish to attempt to sanitize this, as though calling this “an unfortunate event” would or could minimize the impact of the truth.
Let a compassionate heart and common sense be your guide.
2) The search engines love deep sites. A deep site is one that has an abundance of content, which most corporate sites do. However, a deep site that is updated more frequently, is perceived by the search engines to be of higher value. Many corporate sites are static sites with sales and marketing information, with very few updates.
This means that during your crisis, you are competing with deep sites from the news media, which unlike your corporate site, are updated constantly with breaking news.
This means that your official site, the host of your official information, is competing with the news media to be ranked highest when someone tries to get information about our crisis.
How do you compete with them for SEO?
One secret is to write and blog frequently. Blog updates that are part of your official corporate site are the best way to make your already deep site appear to be current, with new information on a regular basis.
Your corporate newsroom should be formatted as a blog site, which is perceived by the search engines, as high value, new information.
This brings us to tip number 3
3) Search engines love Word Press blog sites. I can’t tell you why, but it is true, especially if you have an advanced template with extra code that lets the search engines know you’ve added new content and used the right words.
Most corporate, non-profit and government websites are built with HTML or some proprietary template designed to provide security and firewall protection. But your needs as a communicator may be competing with IT’s need for security.
Together, you’ll need to work out a compromise. Many Word Press templates have advanced security features that satisfy your IT department.
Additionally, Word Press is fast and easy to use. It doesn’t require help from IT or a web designer. It is the ultimate content management system. You can easily add images, audio and videos, as well as links. Plus, if you have followed my earlier advice to create a huge addendum of pre-written crisis statements, these templates can be placed in Word Press on a clear sunny day and saved as unpublished pages. Essentially, this becomes your dark site. Just make sure the people who have access to the site are training not to accidentally post a dark page.
4) YouTube videos should be a high priority for you during a crisis, because when it comes to search engines, YouTube is now second, only to Google.
Throughout these articles I rave about YouTube, and this is just one more reason. Of course, this requires you to properly name each video you post, using the words that people will put into the search engine. Just as we discussed earlier, you must name the video using the same key words that people are searching for and not attempt to sanitize the words.
I especially like the way the iPad and iPhone allows you to shoot a short video and upload it directly to YouTube. I also like the way YouTube allows you to directly send a message to Twitter that says you have a new video for the world to see.
5) SEO also increases for your primary website when you add links to that site via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and your other social media channels.
The Internet is indeed a web and it tracks all paths that lead to other paths.
Keep in mind, stronger SEO evolves when you use social media on a regular basis. SEO improves through regular links to your primary website, and especially when those links go to your blog or newsroom, that you update on a regular basis.
One final note about your official webpage. It is seldom necessary to take down your company’s primary web page during a crisis. During your vulnerability assessment, when writing your Crisis Communications Plan, you should evaluate when that should happen, if ever.
One thing you should add to your primary website, so it is seen every day on your homepage is a big, easy to find button that says, “Latest News.” You should place this in the upper right corner, in or near the header of the homepage. You’ll need to discuss this with your web designer to make it look good, without distracting from your branding. However, I really hate when I have to look for a tiny link or go through a pull down menu in order to find your newsroom, to get the latest information when a crisis is unfolding.
A button that says “Latest News” can take your visitors directly to your newsroom on a clear sunny day, and serve as a one-click button that takes them to your newsroom on your darkest day. If visitors can get to your newsroom in a single click, you make it less likely that you ever need to take down your homepage. This is especially important if your homepage is a commerce site and commerce is still required to keep the company alive, while you deal with the crisis at hand.
So, your to-do list today is a long one. Determine how you will accomplish all of the tasks I’ve outline for you here today. If you have questions, please call me at 985-624-9976.
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.png00gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2014-05-20 03:00:472021-05-20 21:52:06Social Media for Crisis Communications: Why Social Media is Great in a Crisis for Search Engine Optimization
Sometimes your company, government agency or non-profit organization experiences a crisis that is isolated just to your organization. Sometimes, your organization is part of a much bigger crisis, and while you have serious crisis issues to communicate, you are not the biggest part of the story.
Social media is a terrific way to communicate to your core audiences when you are a small part of a much bigger story. This is especially true in events such as a widespread power outage, a pandemic, or a natural disaster.
When Super Storm Sandy hit New Jersey and New York in late October 2012, there was both the big crisis of the storm, as well as all of the smaller crises of each community, each government agency, each non-profit organization and every company in the region.
Based on article seven about building social media relationships before a crisis, article eight about the media listening to social media during a crisis and article nine about using technology to broadcast live during a crisis, you have the pieces you need to understand how you can get both media attention and the attention of your core audience during a crisis.
Out of all of the times to use social media during a crisis, this tops the list.
First you begin by making sure your organization has created your basic social media channels, including the big three, YouTube, Facebook & Twitter. Many of you reading this will admit that your organizations do not currently have these channels because you don’t know if they would benefit your organization and you haven’t decided how you might monetize social media.
Well, if you want to use them in a crisis, you need to establish them on a clear sunny day.
Admittedly, you may not have a lot to say on a normal day and you may not get a lot of followers on a normal day. But during a crisis, especially a natural disaster, people can easily access the big three social media channels through their smart phones.
Next, make sure you add your CNN i-Report channel. If your local media requires you to pre-register to post photos and videos to their sites, pre-register there as well.
Again, especially prior to a predictable weather crisis, you have the ability to more aggressively begin managing the expectations of your core audience. You can use your conventional communications channels to let them know that during the event, you will be doing frequent updates through YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. People who may never use these sites to connect with you on clear sunny day, will use them during the crisis.
You will also get the power of people sharing key links.
If, during the crisis, the media are spread thin and unable to give coverage to your situation, you can circumvent the media and take your message directly to the people who need to hear it the most.
Here is an example: Imagine you are a small rural town on the Jersey Shore during Super Storm Sandy. While the media are showing images of downtown New York or the Atlantic City Boardwalk, you could have a team of people out with smart phones or iPads posting pictures of damaged houses. The team could post the address of the house, so an evacuated homeowner can quickly learn the status of not only their town, but their specific home.
Imagine riding down the street and shooting a short video of one city block, as I’ve done in this video from Rockaway, New York, in an area damaged by Sandy. If evacuations were still underway, residents of this street could all watch this video on YouTube to get a preliminary assessment of their home and the challenge they face ahead.
In my own personal situation following Hurricane Katrina, it was nearly impossible to get information about my small town of Mandeville, LA, because all of the news coverage was about the flooding in New Orleans. It was days before I was able to reach someone who was able to drive down my street and assess my home. They were able to tell me that I had 25 fallen trees, but that none had fallen directly on my house. They were able to tell me that the overhead electrical wires to my home were down and that my meter pan had been ripped off of the side of my house. With that knowledge, I knew to buy all of the necessary parts I needed to repair my electrical system while I was still in my safe evacuation zone, since no stores were open and those electrical parts would not be available once I returned to Mandeville.
If that scenario happened today and my town had channels on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, people could be posting photos and videos on a block by block basis. That would be effective crisis communications. Keep in mind, this required a dedicated team of people to manage the crisis communications. This is not necessarily something that will be done by the police or other emergency responders, although it could be done by them with planning on a clear, sunny day.
One other benefit of social media is that it is fast to use, so you may be able to do more frequent, faster updates than you could on your own corporate website.
I must add, social media is also a great tool for managing the expectations of your audience. For example, an electric company can be communicating how long power will be out and how customers should deal with their loss of creature comforts. Con Edison Power used their social media channels effectively following Super Storm Sandy.
A huge problem, however, with electric companies, is that they want to brag about how many homes have been reconnected after a storm. The backlash comes when the few without power take to social media to bash the electric company for not getting power to their home.
On your to-do list today is to set up your social media channels, if you don’t already have them established. If you have them established, make sure your public relations team has access to them. Often, social media sites are run by the marketing team, which may have a much different goal than the PR team… and the marketing team often maintains tight control over the login and passwords.
Tomorrow, we’ll discuss how to achieve great search engine optimization in a crisis by using social media.
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.png00gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2014-05-19 03:00:492021-05-20 21:55:27Social Media for Crisis Communications: Crisis Communications and Social Media When You are a Little Part of a Big Story
Let’s look at several case studies to understand the impact of social media when “it” hits the fan.
Social media allows us to communicate in a crisis; social media fails on us during a crisis; social media can cause a crisis.
Where do we start? Think of social media first as a place to Listen and not to talk. Look in the mirror. You will notice the good Lord gave you 2 ears and one mouth. You should use them in that proportion.
Now let us look at social media case studies of crises that involved natural disasters. In the case of Haiti, immediately following the January 2010 earthquake, Twitter was providing a platform for discussions. Facebook was providing a social media channel for discussions that are more in depth. But the conversations were incomplete because many of the people closest to the situation could not talk with us or receive our messages because they were without electricity. Their cell phone batteries were dead and the cell phones that had power were competing for limited band width and likely unable to get a signal. This should be a big red flag that social media and electronic communications have their limitations in many crises.
The Fukushima disaster and Japanese tsunami in March 2011 was another event that unfolded on social media. Some people claimed they learned about the actual earthquake on Twitter, before the shock waves even reached them. Whether this is true or another internet myth, the reality is it could have happened and could happen for other events in the future.
One social media trap is that verifying information is often difficult. It is not wise to repeat unverified sources, even though people on social media do it all the time. This means our listening requires extra attention. In the case of Twitter, we can sort our listening by hash tags by simply following a trending word with the # sign in front of it. Among the great dangers on Twitter is when wrong information is re-tweeted. On Twitter you will often see the letters “RT” before a message, signifying it has been re-tweeted by followers of the original message.
And while social media allows you to listen, often technology fails you, preventing you from both listening and talking.
Twitter, again, is constantly vulnerable to overload. Have you ever tried to use Twitter, only to get a screen that displays a giant whale being lifted by tiny birds? The message says Twitter has exceeded its capacity.
Think about it? In a crisis, internet and telephone use goes up exponentially. At the time you need it most, it may fail you, impeding your ability to listen as well as talk. This is a warning sign that says your Crisis Communications Plan should not be built with a heavy foundation of social media. Your plan should be more heavily rooted in more traditional communications means, with a component of social media as a lower priority option, based on where technology stands today in 2013. This may change in the future, and you must be vigilant to stay abreast of trends and technology so you can rethink this as needed in the future.
To prove the point of technology’s weakness and failure, examine how often it fails not in a crisis, but in a simple, regional moment of joy. When my hometown New Orleans Saints football team won the NFC Championship on January 24, 2010, all cell phone and land based phone lines in New Orleans and our region were jammed and calls could not be made. Even text messages could not go through. This lasted for nearly one hour after the end of the game. For that reason, you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. This is a clear example that if you live by technology you will die by technology. In the world of crisis communications you may have many tools at your disposal, but you must have a Plan B and a Plan C. If one set of tools fail, what can you use next?
You, as a professional communicator, representing a company, government agency or not-for-profit organization, must consider carefully how much trust you want to put into social media as a part of your crisis communications tool box.
You must also be aware that your potential opponents may be out maneuvering and out communicating you, using these same tools, in certain types or crisis events.
In 2009 we saw a different type of crisis and crisis communication as the Arab Spring unfolded. The initial government opposition in Egypt started on Facebook. As outrage spread on Facebook, it eventually spilled into the streets as protests. Eventually in Egypt and other countries, social media played a major role as protesters in the Middle East were using Twitter to communicate where police attacks were taking place and where protesters could find safe houses during street riots. For the most part, the government leaders were not savvy enough to understand the power of social media. Private Facebook postings to friends and direct tweets to colleagues gave protestors a clear communications advantage as this crisis unfolded. Eventually, some of the open chatter of protesters on Twitter allowed their opponents, the government, to listen in on the conversation to eavesdrop.
And while the protesters were technically using Twitter as a communications tool, their needs are likely very different than the communications needs of your company.
As we stop for today, add to your to-do list the need to set aside 10 minutes to evaluate how you might use social media to listen during certain types of crises. Also, evaluate to what degree you might use it as an outbound communications tool to talk during a crisis.
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.png00gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2014-05-15 01:00:072021-05-20 21:58:07Social Media for Crisis Communications: The Social Media Listening Post in Crisis Communication
As we talk about social media for crisis communication, we have to consider whether your audience uses social media and how they use it. But before we talk about them, we should talk about you and your personal social media habits.
Some companies have no Facebook page, no Twitter, and no YouTube channel. Some companies have no social media. Some companies have set up social media pages, but use them sparingly or not at all. Some companies aggressively post to one or more social media channels.
Let’s cut to the chase, 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?
While teaching my Social Media When “It” Hits the Fan workshop recently to a state-wide medical association, the audience was initially appalled that 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 on 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. They 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.
Next, we should 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.
It has been my experience that 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.
We can say, with a degree of safety, 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 comes from the experts at PEW Research.
As of December 2012:
15% of online adults say they use Pinterest
13% of online adults say they use Instagram
6% of online adults say they use Tumblr
67% of online adults say they use Facebook
16% of online adults say they use Twitter
• 20% of online adults say they use LinkedIn as of August 2012.
Before further exploring the age and habits of your audiences, we all need to agree on a few things about crisis communications and crisis communication plans.
When “it” hits the fan, you have to consider, what does your audience need to know and how do you want them to behave? What is it that you want them to do? Perhaps you need to evacuate a community before a hurricane or issue advisories to your customers and employees before a bad weather event. Sometimes you need to communicate safety information in the throes of a crisis. Many times you may be communicating with your audiences because of an ugly rumor or the exposure of a scandal.
Your assignment now is to stop here for the day and to make a list. First revisit yesterday’s list to identify your potential audiences by age and their likelihood of using social media. Second on the list is to identify the types of crises that your company or organization may face. Third on the list is to assess how you want your audiences to behave in various crises. Based on what you place on this list, we can better determine what communications channels are the right fit in each type of situation. Allow yourself 15-30 minutes to evaluate these questions.
Tomorrow, we’ll examine what a great Crisis Communication Plan should be, so that we can determine the best way to incorporate social media into your strategy for effective communications.
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It is a challenge for public relations and crisis communication. In every workshop I teach, people ask, “How should a public relations team, company, non-profit or government agency best use social media for crisis communication?” They ask it from New Orleans to New York and everywhere in between.
I respond by asking, “When ‘it’ hits the fan, and you need good crisis communications, is social media right for the company or organization you work for?”
In the nearly 2 dozen blog entries I will offer you in March, I’ll give you quick observations each day. Your job will be discernment. Your assignment is to discern what is right for you, your PR team, your company or organization, and your audiences.
You are invited back each day to spend a few quick minutes absorbing the perspective shared here, then decide what is the RIGHT fit. (Good ‘ol option B is to just pick up the phone and call me at 985-624-9976 and we’ll talk it out now.)
Too often public relations communicators are like sheep in the social media world, following the flock, taking the advice of consultants who tell you that you MUST use social media. I say bull! I’d rather see you as a lone wolf charting your own course of action than to see you as a sheep.
Make no secret about it, I have a love – hate relationship with social media. In certain situations it is the right fit and in certain situations it is a wrong fit.
But before we get into the specifics of social media, we need to agree upon the rules of engagement “When ‘It’ Hits the Fan.” As we go through the various steps we’re going to outline for you, I’m going to give you a specific list of action items to place on your to-do list.
First, let’s agree that in a crisis, the organization you work for has an obligation to talk with several key audiences, which include employees, the media and your other stakeholders, which could be your community, families of employees, government leaders, etc. If you work for a school, the audience extends to students and parents. If you work for a hospital, the audience extends to patients and their families. A retail company needs to talk with customers. A non-profit organization needs to talk to contributors. Each type of company or organization has a unique set of audiences.
That being said, today’s assignment is for you to make a clear list of audiences you must communicate with in various types of crises, so you can decide how you can best reach them and how they want to get information.
Put this on your to-do list as step one… make a list of audiences, how to reach them, and how they want to be reached. Set aside 5-15 minutes and do this right now.
Tomorrow we’ll talk more in-depth about your audiences and whether social media is an effective way to communicate with them in a crisis.
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Many public relations people call their Crisis Communications Team a Crisis Team. The problem is, many other people in the same organization also claim to have a Crisis Team.
We have word confusion. Every company should have these teams:
1. Crisis Management Team
2. Crisis Communications Team
3. Incident Command Team or Emergency Response Team
4. Risk Management Team or Business Continuity Team
A proper crisis response structure would work as follows:
The Crisis Management Team would be lead by the CEO or his/her designee. This team includes members of the Crisis Communications Team, the Incident Command Team or Emergency Response Team, and the Risk Management Team or Business Continuity Team. One or two other key people would be on this team. The overall job of this team is to manage and end the crisis.
The Crisis Communications Team is responsible for spreading the world that a crisis has occurred and what is being done to resolve the situation and return to normal. This team communicates with the media, employees, customers and other key stakeholder groups.
The Incident Command Team or Emergency Response Team responds to the crisis. Their job is to end the emergency and return things to normal.
The Risk Management Team or Business Continuity Team keeps the company running, keeps the supply chains open, and keeps the company profitable.
In the world of public relations, something may be a crisis which will trigger the Crisis Communications Plan and Crisis Communications Team. In this case, the Emergency Response is not needed and Business Continuity is not needed. A sexual harassment case would be an example. By my definition, a crisis is anything that affects reputation and/or revenue. Sometimes it is a sudden crisis, such as a fire and explosion. Other times it is a smoldering crisis that is not an emergency, but could harm reputation and/or revenue.
To avoid confusion, call the teams by their proper terms and never call them a Crisis Team.
Are your teams named correctly?
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Many public relations people who need a Crisis Communications Plan search for the words “crisis plan.” This leads to problems.
Sometimes, as soon as you type the word “crisis,” your browser will auto fill with these options:
Crisis Plan Template
Crisis Plan Free Template
Crisis Management Plan
Crisis Communications Plan (with an “s”)
Crisis Communication Plan (with no “s”)
Crisis Expert
Crisis Communications Expert (with an “s”)
Crisis Communication Expert (with no “s”)
School Crisis Plan
Crisis Intervention Plan
The list goes on. Try it.
In public relations we face a problem with terminology. Did you know that people in the business continuity world, the emergency response world, and the public relations world all generically use the term Crisis Plan, yet each document is very different?
I guess this is what most people think a Crisis Communications Plan is because they find it on the web and it is free. I think of this as only a list of standard operating procedures, yet it is far short of what I prescribe as a Crisis Communications Plan.
For a short time my website was #2, behind this site. However, I slipped in the SEO after a website server glitch.
Bottom line – if you are in PR, please call your document a Crisis Communications Plan. If you are in business continuity, please call your plan a “risk management plan” or a “business continuity plan.” If you are in emergency response, please call your plan either an “emergency operations plan, emergency management plan or an incident command plan.”
Every organization should have all three plans.
Do you have all three plans where you work?
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By Gerard Braud Consider this: scheduling your crisis may be the wave of the future. Rather than being ambushed and surprised by a sudden crisis, which forces you into crisis communication, considerBy Gerard Braud
Consider this: scheduling your crisis may be the wave of the future. Rather than being ambushed and surprised by a sudden crisis, which forces you into crisis communication, consider the model used by many of your leaders who ignore my plea to plan for the worst.
Here is how it works. Many public relations people have e-mailed me to say that they cannot conduct media training or crisis communication training with their executives because the executives do not have time. Often these public relations people are asking for only a single day for media training. Sometimes they are asking for two days to write a crisis communications plan. Regardless of which communication training you ask for, there are always too many other projects more important than preparing to effectively communicate in a crisis. Hence, if an executive does not have time to schedule the training for the skills that would be mandatory in order to protect the profits and reputation of their company during a crisis, it only makes sense to declare that no crises should take place unless it is scheduled.
So next time you want to schedule media training or crisis communication training and you are told there is no time on the schedule because we have too many higher priority projects, just ask your executives when they would like to schedule their crisis?
Sure, it has been said that, “If you fail to plan, than plan to fail.” But under this new crisis communication model, we could simply say, “Plan to fail.”
If you’ve ever been told there is no time on the schedule for communication training, please share this article with the person who told you that, then send their reaction to me.
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