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Managing Expectations: 12 Crisis Communication Action Items for Winter Storms

By Gerard Braud

winter storm cleonCrisis Communications, a working Crisis Communication Plan as well as good media training skills will be critical in the next few days as bad weather moves across the United States.

Before the weather gets to you, now is the time to begin managing the expectations of your customers and employees. Many of you will experience power outages that may last up to two weeks. Let your customers and employees know this through effective communications today.

In your communications to them, be very clear about the pain, problems and predicaments they will face.

#1 Do Not Sugar Coat the News

Tell people exactly how bad things may get. Make sure your messaging is direct and simple. Deliver the headline, give a good synopsis, and then give the details. Write your communications the same way a reporter would write a news story. Don’t overload your communications with corporate jargon, acronyms and politically correct phrases that may confuse your audience.

#2 Do Not Hedge Your Bets With Optimism

You are better off to tell audiences what the worst will be and then be happy if the worst does not come to pass. It is easier to celebrate good news than to apologize for a situation that drags on and gets worse.

Click here to watch Gerard’s video on winter storms

Gerard Braud Winter Storm

Click image to watch video

#3 Be Ready to Use Every Means of Communications Available to You

Traditional media will be overwhelmed with many stories. If you want to get their attention and get coverage as a way to reach your audiences, do these things now:

  • Be ready to post updates to your primary website starting now.
  • Use iPad and iPhone video to record each update and post it to YouTube.
  • Send e-mails to employees with links to your website and video.
  • Post that same video to CNN iReports.
  • Add links to Facebook and Twitter that send your audiences to your website and your video.

#4 Media Training for Spokespeople

Anyone who records a video or does an interview with the media should have gone through extensive media training prior to this crisis. Additionally, do role-playing and practice with them before each interview in the coming days.

Cleon#5 Be Skype Ready

In a winter storm type crisis, media may ask you to do live interviews via Skype. Download Skype to your mobile devices now and practice using Skype. Additionally, all spokespeople on a Skype interview must be properly media trained in a Skype interview setting. Use my online tutorials to help you prepare spokespersons.

#6 Expect a Spike in Social Media Communications

Keep in mind that organizations that often have very little following on social media will see a spike in social media during power outages. As audiences have no computer access they will turn to their mobile devices. Your team needs to be prepared to monitor social media and reply to posts only when it is absolutely necessary. Too many replies to negative comments only lead to more negative comments and those comments keep re-posting more frequently in everyone’s news feed.

#7 Direct Tweets to Reporters

Increasingly, reporters respond quickly to Tweets. I find that in a weather crisis you can get a reporter’s attention faster with a Tweet than with an e-mail, phone call or text message.

#8 Be a Resource

Don’t confine your social media posts to only information about your organization. Post resource information that your audience needs, such as locations to shelters, information about emergency supplies, and any other creature comforts they need.

#9 Don’t Be Left in the Dark

Now is the time to review your list of emergency supplies and gather all of the devices you need to power your mobile devices. Devices like Mophies can charge your phones and tablets. Make sure you have batteries and flashlights. If you can, get a generator and ample supplies of gasoline. Gather extra food, water and blankets. Make sure you can heat your work environment.

#10 Rest When You Can

Rest and sleep well before the crisis. Work strategically in shifts during the crisis. Everyone doesn’t have to be awake all of the time. Naps are allowed in the middle of the day.

#11 Victory from Preparedness

Don’t judge your public relations skills by how well you were able to wing it during and after the crisis. Victory is measured by how much you did on a clear sunny day to prepare for your darkest day.

#12 Update Your Crisis Communication Plan

When this crisis is over, evaluate whether your crisis communication plan worked. It should be so thorough that nothing slips through the cracks, yet easy enough to read and follow during your crisis so that it tells you everything to do with a precise timetable for achieving each task. If it doesn’t meet these criteria, evaluate it during and after your crisis, then prepare for a substantial re-write or re-design as soon as this crisis is over.

3 Reasons Powerful People Say Dumb Things in Media Interviews

By Gerard Braud

Click to watch video

Click to watch video

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has done it. So has Lululemon founder Chip Wilson. So have presidential candidates like Herman Cain and Sarah Palin. Each is guilty of saying dumb things in media interviews.

Why do powerful people say dumb things in media interviews?

Here are 3 reasons…

First, powerful people fail to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to preparing for and training for their interviews. Most people who run for office or lead corporations are usually sent to a media training coach so they can learn to effectively communicate with the media. The media trainer should never be a spin doctor who teaches people to avoid answering questions, but rather a thoughtful coach who teaches the spokesperson to craft thoughtful, well worded answers that provide the appropriate amount of context, quotes, and supporting facts. The essence of the best answers requires having a good writer who can write articulate, quotable phrases in the voice of the spokesperson. The spokesperson is then responsible for internalizing these phrases for use in the interview.

One media training class is never enough. Media interviews require practice before each interview, just as an athlete would practice before each game.

Training, practicing and internalizing key phrases requires dedicated time, and many powerful people fail to allocate time, thinking they can do fine without additional practice.

That leads us to reason number two, which is arrogance and overconfidence by the powerful person.

Powerful people have often had some success in the past with spontaneously saying the right thing in the right moment. Politicians have often been told early in their careers that they were good public speakers. However, the stakes get higher each day as a person’s public profile rises. Often, reporters begin to dig a little deeper and question the congruency between what a person has said in the past and their actions in the present.

The increased scrutiny generates harder questions, which requires even more practice and more time spent internalizing powerful, quotable phrases. Yet the arrogant and over confident spokesperson fails to recognize that what got them to this level will not get them to the next level. In other words, a good public speaker needs to become a great professional speaker. Many are never motivated to become as great as they should be.

This brings us to reason number three, which is the spokesperson’s failure to correlate the monetary and reputational impact of what they say and the massive damage that happens when they say dumb things. One of the worst examples I’ve ever seen is a spokesperson who said the wrong thing and derailed a $700-million industrial project.

Toronto Media Training BraudJust look at the spokespeople we sited above. Rob Ford’s dumb statements have lead his city council to begin stripping him of his power. It is unknown whether his reputational damage will cause him to lose his job come election time. Chip Wilson has seen an outcry on social media as former customers abandon Lululemon yoga wear, all because of a careless adlib on Bloomberg TV.  Herman Cain tried to run for president, knowing sexual harassment allegations were part of his past, yet failed to be prepared with a well-written response. Instead, when he was asked if he had ever been accused of sexual harassment, he responded, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?” His campaign contributions dried up and his bid for President ended. Sarah Palin may be able to bring a crowd to their feet in a public rally of supporters, but in media interviews my opinion is she is consistently one of the worst spokespeople I have ever seen. Her failed interview with Katie Couric during her bid for Vice President derailed the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain. Many would say her verbal blunders have kept her from advancing her political career. Her statements may be acceptable to a certain loyal audience, but constant blunders erode her loyal support and empower her detractors.

Chip Wilson BloombergPowerful people become powerful because they have certain skills or characteristics that propel them forward. The most powerful people are those who can recognize their own weaknesses and either hire people to do those jobs for them, or they hire coaches who will honestly critique their weakness and develop a process to improve in those areas.

Talking to the media is hard. It requires you to think like a reporter and organize your thoughts like a journalist is taught to write a news report. It requires you to know how to punch home a headline, how to begin and end with a great synopsis sentence, how to pepper the interview with well planned quotes, and how to give a few supporting facts without over loading the interview with irrelevant details. A journalist spends four years in college learning this system and practices it daily with each report they write.

No spokesperson should be foolish, arrogant or over confident enough to try to match their amateur status with that of a professional, anymore than they should think that one trip to the putt-putt course makes them ready to play golf in the PGA.

 

Lesson 11: Test Your Security Team During Your Crisis Communications Drill

By Gerard Braud

CrisisDrillGerardBraudWhile working with crisis communications clients, I provide a “first critical statement” template.  This template is intended to be read to the media, emailed to employees, and posted to the web in the first hour of a crisis when little is known about the emerging crisis. Some companies that operate facilities that have no spokespeople on site, but that have a security guard at the front gate. I’ve suggested that the template is simple enough that a security guard could go through low-level media training and be taught to deliver the message if media showed up at the front gate.

Amazingly and predictably, executives, in a semi-confidential and ultra condescending way, will say, “Have you met those people? They can’t be trusted with that!”

My response is, “Well, you gave ’em a gun.”

While some security companies employ highly trained security professionals, others employ people with skills equal to a day laborer. Some are taught to simply check badges and passes at a guard gate. Many have little education, poor verbal skills, and they come to work with a power attitude they developed when a badge was bestowed upon them.

Regardless of their skill level, three things are true:

1) If a crisis happens, chances are they will encounter the media and may be the first person the media approaches with cameras and questions.

2) If there is a chance for a real life media encounter, then they need to be an active part of your crisis communications drill.

3) They can be media trained to deliver the first critical statement. I’ve done it successfully many times.

As you plan your crisis communications drill scenario, let your mock media team know that testing the security team is an important part of the drill. Your mock media team should be reasonably assertive without being aggressive with the security personnel.

crisisdrillgerardbraud2The goal is to record on video tape what the guards do and say. Guards generally all do the same thing. Some instinctively say, “No comment.” Others verbally and forcefully tell the mock media that they cannot be on the site or that they will be arrested, even when the mock media are standing safely and legally on the public right of way. Many security guards feel a need to put their hands on the camera lens to block the view of the camera. Some try to physically push and escort mock reporters away.

It is somewhat comical from my standpoint because they do all the things they’ve ever seen other guards do in any bad television situation.

Security guards often are the proverbial worst first impression. What they say can and will be used against them in the court of public opinion.

Such behavior sends a message to the public that the company has done something wrong and that they have something to hide.

Remember, if a drill is your opportunity to mess up in private, so behaviors can be addressed and corrected, challenging the security team in your drill is important.

Furthermore, a low-level media training class needs to be created to teach these guards how they appear to the public when they act inappropriately with the media. They must be taught to politely instruct the media where to park. Next guards must be taught how to ask the media for credentials and a business card so the appropriate media contact in the company can be called. The guards also need to be taught a verbal script. This may be, “How can I help you?” “If you’ll provide me with your media credentials and a business card I’ll be glad to call someone who can speak with you.”

Entergy drill Gerard Braud 1When the guards are asked casual questions by either real or mock reporters, they need to respond, “My responsibilities are confined to maintaining security at this entrance, but I’m sure someone from the company will be able to answer all of your questions shortly, so if you will, please bare with me while I tend to may assigned duties, you should be hearing from someone soon.”

It wouldn’t hurt to have a printed statement at the entrance for the guard to hand out.

You only get one chance to make a good first impression. Make sure your security guards make a good first impression and that they are included in every crisis communications drill.

 

Lesson 1: Why Have a Crisis Communications Drill?

By Gerard Braud 

Entergy Drill Gerard braudWould you rather screw up in public or screw up in private? That’s really what a crisis communications drill is all about. On a clear sunny day you have the ability to practice for how you will respond and behave on your darkest day.

A crisis communications drill is designed to allow you to test your crisis communications plan and your crisis communications team.  It tests how you co-exist and interact with your incident command plan, your risk management plan, and crisis management team.

In this series of articles, you will learn some of the sneaky things I like to do when I facilitate a crisis communications drill for my clients. Hopefully you will be inspired to be as sneaky in the drills you conduct.

The concept of messing up in private is foreign to many organizations. Often the people who lead companies think they can magically wing it on the day of the crisis.  They think their public relations and communication team will magically make a crisis go away with a few news releases written in the heat of the moment.

Denial among leaders and an unwillingness to invest time and money to prepare for a crisis is frustrating to many in public relations. It is frustrating to me on a daily basis as I observe the same mistakes made in a crises and news events.

Yet, many PR people have discovered, as I have, that one crisis communications drill each year can produce amazing results.

A hard hitting, anxiety filled, realistic drill puts the fear of God into executives. They get a healthy dose of reality. If the reality check shows their weakness, they are more willing to help you budget time and money for important crisis communications tools and training. They may provide funding for a properly written crisis communication plan, budget for annual media training, and for an annual crisis communications drill.

Let’s face it – the annual holiday party will cost much more than all three of these.

Tomorrow, we’ll examine the most important words you can say during a drill.

Washington Navy Yard Shooting: How the Daily Show Portrayed the Media’s Coverage

By Gerard Braud

Daily Show Jon Stewart Gerard BraudWithin the office here, I ranted at the media relentlessly about the horrible live coverage of the tragic events unfolding at the Washington Navy Yard. Only my assistant Shannon had to hear my rants.

Fortunately, comedian Jon Stewart has the resource and video tape evidence to call out the media for the idiotic way they covered this event. Here is the  link to the show, and believe me it is worth watching every minute of it.

On a daily basis I beg corporations and government agencies to write a proper crisis communications plan, which has features that allow spokespeople to give small amounts of information at regular intervals. It starts with the First Critical Statement, which I’ll give you below. This is a psychological feature of the plans I write because it wards off the stupidity, rumors, speculation and unprofessionalism displayed on Monday, especially by CNN, but by many local stations as well.

Your assignments for the day:

1) Watch this daily show clip.

2) Call me for a free chat about your crisis communications plan and whether it is perfect or if it could use some improvement. My number is 985-624-9976.

3) Download copy of my First Critical Statement with this link.

To download it for free, enter the coupon code CRISISCOMPLAN

An e-mail will be sent instantly. Make sure it doesn’t go to your spam filter by authorizing my e-mail address gerard@braudcommunications.com.

 

 

 

Tutorial #14: Framing and the Rule of Thirds for Your Web Videos

Tutorial #14 By Gerard Braud, iReporter Evangelist

(Editor’s note: In 2013, CNN selected me as one of their top iReporters, out of more than 11,000 reporters. This is part of a series of articles that share how to be a good iReporter and how to make CNN iReports a vital part of your crisis communication and media relations strategy.)

Click image to watch video

Click image to watch video

Think about your vacation photos and videos. When you are in the image, do you see just a little of you and a lot of other stuff around you? Is your head in the middle of the picture, with your body at the bottom, and a bunch of sky above your head?

If so, you are likely not framing your images properly.

Photographers and videographers generally practice what is known as the rule of thirds. Photographers, especially when framing an individual in a photo or video, leave no space for sky above your head. Your hair or forehead fills the top of the frame. Your nose generally fills the center third. Your chin and neck would then fill the bottom third.

While this addresses the horizontal elements of your image, you must also consider the vertical portions of what you have framed. Often, you fill the left or right third of the frame, leaving the other two-thirds as positive space to your left or right.

Much of the poor framing we see today is the result of an entire generation of people using digital cameras. Because the yellow focus square in the viewfinder is in the middle of the viewfinder, most people stand far away from the person in the photo, then frame their head in the focus square. This is horrible. Stop doing it.

Step forward and get closer to the person whose photo you wish to take, then frame it as I have described above.

This is best understood by watching today’s tutorial video.

As with all of these video skills, you must practice in order to get it right. So after viewing the tutorial, take out your smart phone or tablet and record a video. You can also go home to your computer and look at some of your old photos. You’ll likely see that you’ve been framing pictures incorrectly for a long time… but soon you’ll be doing it right every time.

This link will take you to my tutorials on the CNN iReporter website. I hope you take the time to view, study, and share all 23 videos and articles

This link will take you to the index for all of the articles and videos.

If you, like many others, think this information would be valuable as a workshop at a conference or corporate meeting, please call me at 985-624-9976. You can also download a PDF that outlines the program, Social Media iReports.pdf so you can share it with your meeting planner or training manager.