Crisis Communication in 140 Characters or Less

Short messages, long reach

Twitter by its nature helps facilitate mass discussion, and the evolution of hashtags means that it's even possible to (mostly) keep these discussions organized and on-topic. My favorite part of this is that it enables professionals around the world, who might otherwise have no contact with each other, to meet and discuss ideas.

The Philadelphia PRSA recently hosted one such chat on the topic of crisis communication and was kind enough to post the transcript. Some excerpts:

@KatieCipolla
Q1: Who should be involved in developing a #crisiscomm plan?#PRSAPHL

@annebuchanan
Q1. For the planning portion, anyone at the company who might encounter a crisis can contribute something. #PRSAPHL

@BeccasPRWorld
Q1: Isn't too many heads in the board room an issue during the decision making process? #PRSAPHL

@AbbieF
@PRSAPhilly @beccasprworld re: too many at the table.consider committees, other small work groups that can report into lgr effort. #PRSAPHL

While hashtags keep discussions organized, you do need a modicum of familiarity with Twitter in order to participate in or filter useful information from chats of this size.

If you have a hard time filtering out commentary posts to find actual answers, or can't quite figure out what all these abbreviated words are supposed to be, it's time to get better acquainted with the Web (or grab the nearest teenager, they're great translators!).

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

SEO Works

It's not voodoo - SEO pays by preventing crises

My dear mother forwarded me an email today with the subject line, “Target Says "Veterans do not meet our area of giving."  It was one of those emails that had been flashed around the world and the string was filled with vows to never shop again at Target.

According to the email, “Recently we asked the local TARGET store to be a proud sponsor of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall during our spring recognition event. We received the following reply from the local TARGET management:  ‘Veterans do not meet our area of giving. We only donate to the arts, social action groups, gay & lesbian causes, and education.’ ”

Five things entered my mind at that moment:  1) I’m a veteran. 2)  I shop at Target. 3) I recall Target made headlines last Christmas for not allowing the Salvation Army to chime bells outside their store fronts. 4) Such an act of affronting veterans is a sure path to a PR crisis that even a large corporation couldn’t possibly botch.  5) I don’t believe everything I read on the Interweb.

So I did a quick search, which demonstrated to me that both PR and SEO have a role in modern crisis communications.

A search for “target” and “veterans” and saw five links disproving the contention made in that email.  The first three links were to venerable Web-myth-busting sites Snopes and Urban Legends.  Links four and five were to Target’s own site dedicated to veterans, which featured a brief stating that Target was named a “2011 Top 20 Military Friendly Company” by head-hunting giant Orion.

This story, from a Sword and the Script blog post, is a perfect example of why it pays to invest in search engine optimization (SEO) as part of your PR or crisis management campaigns. While having a site dedicated to veterans is not only a service to those who serve our country, but also a solid PR move, it could easily be lost in the shuffle if Target had not spent time and money improving search engine positioning for all of its pages.

It's important to note that you don't have to be a massive organization like Target to take advantage of SEO. To make things very basic, your position in Google results has a direct correlation to how often other pages link to your homepage. You can actually get this started for free by linking to your own page via a blog and sharing links among peers or others in the same niche, but don't expect instant results. It takes consistent effort, updates, and networking to land yourself on the front page.

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

Changing Defintions

Take control with wordplay

Whether you're a Fortune 500 company or a garage startup, at some point your business is likely to come under fire, whether it be from opponents or the media. These attacks often focus on one particular word or phrase which is damaging to your reputation, and can be very hard to respond to without enforcing the negative definition that's been created.

The good news is that it's possible to flip the situation on its head. It's not all that easy though - redefining your opponent's primary attack point takes careful planning and even more careful wording.

Brad Phillips, Mr. Media Training, provided a great example in a PRDaily article, along with some helpful insight:

One of the best examples of this type of media jujutsu came last year, when Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour briefly flirted with a presidential bid. He knew his past as a tobacco lobbyist would come back to haunt him, so he was prepared when a reporter asked him about his former profession:

    “I will tell you this: The next president of the United States on January 21, 2013, is going to start lobbying. He’s going to be lobbying Congress; he’s going to be lobbying other countries. He’s going to be lobbying the business community. He’s going to be lobbying the labor unions, and the governors, because that’s what presidents do, and I feel like it’s an advantage for me to have the chance to do that.”

By redefining negative words as positive ones, you’re able to argue your case from an assertive position—not a defensive one. When executed properly, adopting the language of your opponents’ most loaded charge can neutralize their strongest argument.

Crisis Management 101 teaches us to never use negative words in reference to ourselves. If it's a word you're stuck with, then stop, think, and change definitions.

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

News International Back in the Fire

Trouble isn't over for Murdoch and Co.

The downfall of The News of the World was one of the biggest crisis management mishaps this year, and thanks to emerging information we're finding the entire circus may not be over yet. A quote, from the Guardian UK:

Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and their former editor Andy Coulson all face embarrassing new allegations of dishonesty and cover-up after the publication of an explosive letter written by the News of the World's disgraced royal correspondent, Clive Goodman.

In the letter, which was written four years ago but published only on Tuesday, Goodman claims that phone hacking was "widely discussed" at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with "the full knowledge and support" of other senior journalists, whom he named.

The Murdoch's main defense was to pile all blame on Goodman, but with his letter naming names in a big way, it looks like the case will be getting a closer look. Scotland Yard is already involved, and I would be shocked if we didn't see senior News International staffers in front of parliment in the very near future.

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

Be Humble

Stay humble in your celebrations

Using crisis management to cope with negative events is a common topic on this blog, and of course it's an essential part of business. What gets less attention is exactly what you're supposed to do when you have good news to share. In a recent blog post, business consultant Mark Denham had some tips to help you do exactly that:

1. Celebrate your good fortune!  Don’t assume that the world knows every time something good happens to your organization, you have to let them know.  You want your good news to get as much attention as possible.
2. Don’t take all of the credit.  Recognize everyone who played a role in the achievement.  Modesty goes a long way in the public eye.  Recognize both the efforts of individuals as well as teams so that everyone knows it took a lot of work on several different levels to succeed.
3. Let people know that you still have work to do.  One success should never constitute a stopping point.  There are countless other victories waiting for your arrival.  the most successful organizations are always looking ahead toward their next goal and are planning the efforts it will take to achieve it.

As Denham says, it's fine to take pride in your good work, and even to crow about it. That pride needs to be accompanied by a double dose of humility, though, or else it becomes dangerous and potentially destructive. No company is perfect, and letting the public know that you're aware, although seemingly counter-intuitive to many, will actually strengthen stakeholder perceptions of your organization.

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

PR/Marketing

Changes in technology have shifted priorities

Public relations and marketing have always served similar functions, but in decidedly different arenas. In their evolutions, though, the two disciplines have grown increasingly closer, resulting in some organizations naming one person to hold both CMO and CCO roles. One example is American Airline's Roger Frizzell, who spoke on the subject in an AdAge interview. A quote:

American's Mr. Frizzell said the airline's decision to bring both functions under one person was based on the idea that communications don't happen in a vacuum. He said the integration of the two, whether forced or natural, is happening for every marketer and it's due mainly to the advent and acceptance of social media and heightened social consciousness of Americans on environmental, governance and diversity issues. "When you're talking corporate reputation now you're talking marketing," Mr. Frizzell said. "As advertising budgets shrink and the economy gets tighter, you have to rethink your ad spend and PR can maximize that ad spend. In some cases it should compliment creative work and replace it in others."

Having a strong reputation means that much of your customer base is drawn in by word of mouth, as opposed to risking your dollars on an advertising campaign that may or may not catch the public's attention.

This is encouraged even further by social media, because word of mouth no longer means a chain of one to one communication. The comments of a single happy customer can reach the eyes of thousands, instantly producing a reputation boost.

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

Bad Crisis Management from Pizza Hut

Weak response hurts pizza giant's reputation

Early this month, Ken Wieczerza went to reheat a piece of his Pizza Hut from the night before, only to (allegedly) find a used, bloody bandage. Obviously dismayed, Wieczerza claims to have sought a private resolution, but was forced public by Pizza Hut's own inadequate communication.

This quote from The Consumerist describes the situation as it stands:

"I'm not out to hurt the restaurant, the manager or the employees and that's why I waited so long to take it to this level after I tried to keep it low-key and private," he (Wieczerza) said. "I explained all I wanted was to bill the company for blood work and tests to make sure that whoever wore this bandage didn't have hepatitis or AIDS or some other disease."
.
While Pizza Hut officials stayed mum when pressed by the Union Times, a company spokesman told local station News 10 that they "take these matters very seriously and we are conducting a thorough investigation of the incident."

Now, they're challenging the veracity of Wieczerza's claims, saying the dough is inconsistent with that used by Pizza Hut. He says they've never even seen the pizza yet.

"We didn't show anybody from Pizza Hut the pizza or the bandage and they basically called us liars," Wieczerza said. "I finally said enough is enough."

It's just plain bad crisis management for the Hut to attempt to cast doubt on the accuser, especially when he's been very forthcoming with the evidence for any media source that wished to view it.

Regardless of what actually happened, anyone reading the articles in The Consumerist, the Union Times, or any of the myriad other online publications that have picked up the story, is very likely to have already found Pizza Hut guilty in their own mind.

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

Kudos to KFC's Crisis Management

Extra crispy crisis management brings success

Another food fiasco occurred last month, with YouTube at the center once again. A worker at a KFC Malaysia location was filmed tampering with food and fired, but weeks later KFC officials were shocked to see the video pop up on YouTube and quickly begin to go viral. Learning from the very similar situation Dominos endured last year, KFC's response was both faster and more effective.

This quote, from an MRM-London blog post by Michael Taggart, describes KFC's crisis management:

The first thing KFC did was set up an area within their Facebook page entitled “KFC responds”, ensuring they could take control of the crisis by preventing it from stifling other important communications activities.

The page contains an FAQ anticipating all the questions that were likely to come up and, in a real sign KFC had learnt from the mistakes of Domino’s (or watched our film!), they uploaded two videos featuring the chain’s Director of Restaurant Operations, Mohammed Alwi, and made them available on YouTube. We said one of the biggest mistakes Domino’s made was to respond to a viral YouTube video with a press release. If YouTube is where the action is, we said, then it makes sense to respond using film.

The film contains an apology and goes on to describe the steps that have already been taken in order to help reassure customers that this sort of issue won’t reoccur. They explain how (a) cameras have been installed in kitchens of all KFC outlets in Malaysia, (b) all kitchen preparation staff are now going to be directly supervised and (c) the firm is providing hygiene training for staff.

So, let's break it down. KFC took its response right back to the arena where the crisis was created, in this case social media, specifically Facebook and YouTube. Check. In that, a head honcho put a human face on the organization, catching more attention while softening up anonymous critics. Check. Finally, the video explained, in detail, exactly how the problem will be prevented in the future. Check.

Three for three KFC. Excellent crisis management, kudos to you!

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

Covering All the Bases

Creative thinking makes for stronger crisis planning

Some crises, natural disasters for instance, are almost a given. There is no way someone is going to overlook the fact that California is known for earthquakes, or that their company headquarters is located smack dab in the middle of Tornado Alley. Others are far less likely, and require thinking to go outside the box in order to be prepared for crisis management. In a recent blog post, the Burns & McDonnell World team spoke on this issue:

When developing a plan for potential crises, the staff working on the project must develop a creative thought process. They must anticipate a variety of problems that may arise, whether financial, structural or environmental, and brainstorm potential solutions to avert or respond to each type of crisis. Of course, the employees working on the plans have to work within the letter of the law, but they must address the multiple aspects of a crisis that need to be handled, such as public relations, containment and, perhaps, cleanup.


Of course, crises rarely ever happen according to the book (it wouldn’t be a crisis if it did), so a business needs its employees to be prepared for whatever comes their way. When a staff is accustomed to thinking outside of the box for crisis planning, employees are likely dynamic enough to adapt to any challenge the company faces. They become equally strong during periods of healthy growth and times of crisis.

The constant evolution of communication and, in recent years, technology, has made flexibility a necessity, not an option. Even with thorough planning, circumstances will come up that you were unprepared for. In those cases you can start with a standard crisis response plan, but it's the brains inside the organization that will see you through.

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