Crisis Communications on the Social Web

Crisis Communications for the Social Web October 28, 2008

Trust in Online
41 percent trust Internet news according to (HarrisInteractive)
From Searchers: Do you trust your search engine with your information? No say 62% (hakia)
44% of searchers regularly use just one engine, and another 48% use just two or three (Pew/Internet)
Marketshare (ComScore):
Google 61%
Yahoo 20%
Microsoft 8%

09 f9 11 02 Song by Keith Burgmun, www.dinosaurlightning.com License: http://www.archive.org/details/OhNineEffNine

Not Only Do Posts Occur, They Create Conversations & Memes

Time Moves Quickly on the Internet

Crisis PR: Time Is of the Essence
Traditional crisis tenets apply
Like crisis, messaging must not stray from facts
Timely reactions are critical to stymie crisis
Big blogs, social network users prompt immediate reaction
Never overpromise (coal miners)!
Even small blogs, social network users should be responded to w/in 24 hours
Media “crowdsources” stories from blogs, socnets

Influence As Pictured by Simon Collister

jetBlue Crisis

“ This Target ad is senselessly subversive on so many levels that it begs pointing out this article in the U.K. Telegraph headlined, Girls Being Brainwashed to Be Promiscuous featuring Carol Platt Liebau’s new book about how our sex-obsessed culture damages girls.”
Amy Jussel, Founder Executive Director, Shaping Youth

Off Target
Target’s e-mail response:
“ Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.”

Have a Plan, Items in Place
Worst case scenarios such as downed plane, terrorist attack, etc:
Have messaging in place
Communication guidelines in place
In some cases, prepared statements
Emotions involved get shared socially across the Internet, making it a community loss: It’s about them
Prepare to provide regular updates on a public schedule, even if there is no update

Advance Work
Pre-select and train your social media team
Have an in-bound blogger relations contact
Make sure there are monitoring and fielding processes in place
Do the executives understand the immediacy of online? Preordained executive contacts necessary
Similarly, having legal buy-in beforehand is critical

Social Media Tools for Crisis
Launching a blog before crisis
Blog dark site for major issues that involve human lives
Social network accounts: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
Integrate social activities into traditional media room

CRITICAL: Don’t Forget to Be Human
Yes, communicate facts, etc, but it is Social Media
Genuine emotions
Authentic tone
Real conversations
Transparency does not mean give away the house, dirty laundry
Central Park Sheep Meadow by New York808 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/newyork808/181896227/

Admitting Fault
Key to Dell Hell turnaround: Listening
Acknowledging
Doing something about it
If you can’t or shouldn’t fix it, acknowledge remarks
Use your social tools
Don’t apologize and do it again: Change!

Southwest Airlines Seating Policy

Dell Learns to Listen
From Hell
To Heaven

Diacetyl Crisis Image by Sage - http://tinyurl.com/3jptva

Where the Wild Things Are

Negative Comments and Trolls
Identify through search, previous incidents
Don’t answer every post
>20 authority are musts
Avoid attention seekers
Don’t feed the trolls!
Blog: State your facts, link back

Questions?
Additional reading: http://tinyurl.com/4g8bug
Contact:
Geoff Livingston
703-894-5460
[email_address]
Twitter: geoffliving

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Crisis Communications on the Social Web

by Geoff Livingston on Oct 28, 2008

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Crisis Communications on the Social Web — Presentation Transcript