Crisis Communications in the New 2.0 World

Bonnie Harris writes for the Wax Marketing blog on marketing and PR. The following is one of her posts.

“Hopefully you haven’t had a crisis that made you pull your hair out but chances are, if you stay in business it will come sooner or later. Communicating during crisis is a big topic – but content is scarce on this one so I’m going to write about it in at least a couple posts. For this one I’ll define crisis in the PR 2.0 world, give you an example of a couple bad responses to crisis – and a few ideas for devising your own crisis plan. Would love to hear any stories about crisis you’ve got as well.

In PR speak a crisis is any “public challenge to your reputation”. Mostly  we think of crisis in terms of big scale events, like the Motrin Moms, but really,  a crisis happens anytime something could damage your personal or professional brand  long term.  It can be as simple as a negative comment on a public forum – or it could be a lot worse. Case in point – Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity released a report recently showing that food marketers spend a lot more money  advertising the least nutritious cereals to kids. The story was picked up by Time, Good Morning America, ABC News and is now extending well into the massive (and uber-powerful) online network of mommy bloggers, foodies and other online pundits. What has been the food companies’ response so far? Mainly a statement from their PR departments claiming that these are nutritious cereals – and some side notes on studies that show kids who eat breakfast are healthier. No comments were made specifically addressing the study nor did they engage in social media to answer some of these questions. As a result this story continues to expand across the longer lived media without any sound bytes from the food companies.

What this shows is that crisis communications in the PR 2.0 world has to include customer engagement and actual conversations. You can’t just release statements. You have to TALK to  customers…and to any influencers. My tactic for General Mills would have been quite different. Instead of a statement, I would have empowered my team to engage right away with  solid facts and real information that provided a balanced perspective to the Yale study.  And I would have asked my customers what they thought…and if it was a problem how we could fix it. The food companies did try…but sorry, saying that they’ve reduced the content of Fruit Loops from 3 1/2 teaspoons of sugar per serving to 3 per serving doesn’t really fit the bill.

Another example of ’so so’ communication  happened completely within social media – to me.  I am a publicist but also write for a couple online and print publications. Many of us cross that line these days, but apparently Peter Shankman of HelpaReporter.com is not aware of that fact. Although ProfNet has allowed me to submit queries for sources for years, HARO refuses. I tweeted my disgruntledness and immediately got a “talk to me” from our friend @skydiver. But once he heard my complaint he more or less told me “too bad” and to go back to ProfNet.  Now, he gets points for addressing  this little “mini” crisis right away- but  Shankman dropped it after obviously determining that my goodwill was not worth saving. Who knows if that will ever affect him – but I remember and will not speak highly of HARO for that reason.  That may at some point come back to bite him,  if there are several folks with the same feeling.

I guess my point in all this is that a crisis may seem huge or may not seem like a crisis at all. But in order to know, you’ve got to understand that ANY negative influence may be damaging. I’ll write more about having a proper plan in place, but to begin with, have these basic questions ready to help guide you toward doing the right thing.

1. What is the problem?

2. How much influence will this problem, person or organization have that could damage us?

3. Who can we empower to address this problem?

4. How will we measure whether we’ve accurately resolved the problem?

5. How will we monitor its long term effects?

I’d love to hear more examples of crisis communications, both good and bad. In particular, did anyone have something blow up they thought they’d resolved?”

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