Changing Ways

Until recently, large corporations with a prestige in certain niches used to avoid using the term "PR." They'd use "corporate communications" or "marcom" to describe the management function of initiating activities directed at building relationships with their different publics. They found PR to be something to avoid, or as something to simply use to promote news, rather than as a proactive, positive tool.

This quote, from an article by Ronn Torossian that was published in our latest Crisis Manager newsletter, describes the old school attitude that was held by many banks and other large corporations. As Ronn, president and CEO of 5WPR, states in his article, these attitudes are changing, and as a result organizations formerly seen as stodgy or uncommunicative are experiencing great success through solid media relations and flexible reputation management strategies.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Crisis Leadership

An organization's leadership plays a huge role in crisis management. We saw this first hand with the BP oil spill, a mess that only got worse as CEO Tony Hayward continued to deliver damaging quotes to the press. In an article for our Crisis Manager newsletter, Spanish PR pro Carlos Victor Costa describes the challenges that face BP's new leader, Bob Dudley. A quote:

• Overcoming the "disaster of communication" (term used by a company employee interviewed by The Financial Times) that constituted the public relations activities of BP during this crisis. What could be positioned as a genuine effort to repair the damage in a very adverse operational environment, comparable to conducting brain surgery in the dark, ended as an assault to the company´s  reputation, a reason for scorn and dark humor directed at BP. After the Deepwater Horizon crisis, the newly appointed BP CEO will have to give a new face to a company with its brand image tarnished by the incompetence and lack of credibility fostered by his predecessor.

Whether you like it or not, in a major crisis your leadership becomes the public face of the company. To your stakeholders, any careless words or action from leadership is taken as the official position of the organization, making it extremely dangerous to have an unprepared CEO.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

New Crisis Manager

Another new Crisis Manager newsletter is up on the BCM website! This week we feature articles from two different PR experts about issues that many crisis management professionals face. First up, a piece by Spanish PR pro Carlos Victor Costa that describes valuable lessons learned from the BP spill regarding leadership's role in crises. Following that, we have an article by Ronn Torossian, CEO of 5WPR, that's all about changing corporate perspectives regarding PR.

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The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Social Guidelines

While the steps and theory involved in using social media for crisis management are a frequent topic on this blog, it is just as important to control who is interacting with your stakeholders and in what manner. In a recent article for the Social Media Examiner, Cindy King offered a spot-on list of guidelines for a successful social media team:

On one hand, the people interacting on behalf of your company must:

•  Be knowledgeable of various legal terms and what they mean in your business environment, such as defamation, endorsements, intellectual property, and any form of wrongful disclosure
•  Be aware of global implications of your online communication
•  Avoid inappropriate comments about competitors or others online

On the other hand, they must also:

•  Remain positive
•  Be helpful and add value
•  Be transparent

And in addition to this, they are entrusted with cultivating relationships and building community on your social media profiles.

The better your social media team is, the more goodwill it creates. Although the tone of discussions may vary between organizations, these guidelines are a good start for any business and across all platforms.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Ready to Engage

As news headlines show us on an almost daily basis, many companies still neglect to prepare detailed and workable crisis plans, hindering their ability to react when disaster rears its ugly head. If your organization believes itself ready to actively engage in crisis management, go through this list of questions from former Presidential communications director Anita Dunn, published in a PR Week article:

When crisis hits, who sent the first tweet you must respond to?

How quickly will your response website be launched?

Who is your public face in the first 24 minutes, let alone the 24 hours, of the crisis and when was he or she last media-trained?

How will you communicate with employees to stop false rumors and leaks - and how quickly?

There is no time to search for the answers to these questions after a crisis has broken. At that point most any delay in communication will lead to further reputation damage, warranted or not. Proper planning, though, sets up the right moves in advance, holding them ready until a crisis breaks.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Social Solutions

In recent years social media has played a huge role in disaster crisis management. From Katrina and Haiti to the BP spill, social media platforms are being put to work facilitating communication and tracking all kinds of information. Why are these platforms so attractive? This quote from a Computer World article explains:

Crisis responders are attracted to social media because they are:

Pervasive. Facebook has over 500 million subscribers worldwide, with 1 billion projected by 2013.

Inexpensive. It is nearly always more cost-effective (and quicker) to build systems on an existing platform. Social media apps are relatively easy to develop, allowing relief organizations to spend their time and money meeting victims' needs rather than building complex IT infrastructures.

Flexible. Social media platforms were designed to facilitate customization and extension. This allows an app to be repurposed for multiple disasters. The Ushahidi application, developed to track violence in Kenya, was adapted to track volunteers, supplies and shelters following the Haiti earthquake and was also modified for use in the response to the BP oil spill. The Red Cross' "Safe and Well" survivor registration Web site, which was designed to help reconnect friends and families after Hurricane Katrina, was recently updated to include a direct feed to Facebook and Twitter. In addition, people away from their homes during a disaster can visit the American Red Cross Flickr site to see disaster photos and determine whether their neighborhoods sustained damage.

Mostly created and powered by not-for-profit organizations and volunteer groups like CrisisCommons, these social solutions are extremely cost effective and simple enough for anyone with access to a cellular device to use. Available to even those with limited finances or in regions where regular land lines are damaged and inoperable, we expect social media to continue playing an increasingly large role in crises to come.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Twitter Delivers the News

The Twitter stream alerted the news media to yesterday’s unfolding crisis at the Discovery building, reports Paul Farhi in today Washington Post.  In a piece that notes that “Tweet stream alerts news media to the unfolding crisis,” Farhi reports that “for the raw speed and real-time eyewitness accounts, it’s now virtually impossible for the mainstream media to keep pace with the likes of Twitter.  The service enables anyone equipped with a smart-phone to tell the world what he or she sees in 140-character bursts.

This quote from a Capitol Communicator news article is yet more evidence pointing to the fact that Twitter has become a valid news platform. In fact, the ability for regular citizens to become eyewitness reporters or assist with crisis management in extraordinary situations has pushed Twitter far beyond what any mainstream media source is capable of. Providing not only the ability to conduct two-way conversations, but also opening a public forum for repetition and discussion of happenings and ideas, Twitter will continue to be at the forefront of breaking news and crises.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Preparing for Disaster

Donald Schmidt has 30 years of experience preparing for crises, and with Hurricane Earl still creating storms along the East coast we thought it was good timing to run an article by him regarding disaster preparedness in the latest Crisis Manager newsletter. A sampling:

Hazard mitigation can substantially reduce the damage caused by hurricanes. Property insurer FM Global compared the loss history of its policyholders that implemented its lossHurricane Evacuation Route Sign prevention recommendations with those with outstanding recommendations to complete. FM found that those policyholders that fully implemented its preparedness recommendations had on average 75% to 85% lower dollar losses than those policyholders that did not implement such measures.

Crisis management is not just for businesses, but individuals and families as well. By preparing for disasters before they occur you can greatly reduce the risks to life and limb, property, and your pocketbook.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

You Need Social Media

Social media has become a "must have" in today's business world, but fears about opening the floodgates for negative viral buzz still hold some back from participating. In an article for this week's Crisis Manager newsletter, online marketing and branding expert Cindy Ratzlaff explains why staying out of the conversation will only create larger problems. A quote:

If a company stays away from social media so as to avoid negative online feedback they will accomplish two things:

They will be unaware of problems that might have been easily resolved but when left alone may become much bigger problems.

They will be miss a valuable opportunity to fix minor problems and turn cranky customers into happy evangelizers.

Crisis management is made much easier when you can monitor and respond to the concerns of stakeholders in the places they go to vent them. Of yet more benefit is that these responses are public in social media, meaning that others see your (hopefully) good customer service, fostering further good will for your brand.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

New Crisis Manager

This week's Crisis Manager features articles from two authors new to the pages of our newsletter. First up is an article by online branding and marketing expert Cindy Ratzlaff, named one of the top 30 Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter by Forbes, that explains how to defuse the fear social media  that many organizations still hold on to. The second is a piece full of advice regarding disaster preparedness from Donald Schmidt, CEO of Preparedness LLC, that, although directed at those in the path of hurricanes, applies just as well to other major disasters.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/