Consider this: a short film of a controversial movie star is e-mailed to you. She is seen in what could be yet another compromising situation, which a lot of recipients suspect is a sequel to the “kissing scandal” that has hogged the tabloids for weeks. Upon further scrutiny, it turns out to be a teaser for new advertising material for a beauty brand being endorsed by the hot actress.
Then there is footage of the game portion of a widely watched noontime TV show uploaded on a popular website. It shows what is allegedly a game of cheating. This web presence starts a confrontation of sorts between two popular comedic hosts, allowing the tabloids to feast on the ensuing conflict, making government officials and agencies dip their fingers into the crisis pie, and making people ask, “Who’s wrong, who’s right?”
Of course there is a popular entertainment portal that writes about the latest in showbiz happenings — good news or bad, blind items and all things that can titillate a reader’s imagination. Without a doubt, your star can be made brighter or your hot celebrity status can flicker depending on how you are projected on this site.
The way we communicate is being radically altered by the rapidly spreading power of the new media. This is particularly evident during a crisis, when the spread of information crops up on a daily — and at some point hour-by-hour — basis.
As PR case reports will tell us, crises can originate or be perpetuated online. This pushes communicators to incorporate social media into their existing media-monitoring efforts, and drives them to incorporate a solid online communication strategy into their plans. It is now a must-have element of any crisis plan, as problems can go from “minor” to “disaster” in the blink of an eye.
The case of Apple Computers in the USA is a clear example. On May 16, 2007, it suffered a provisional but abrupt drop in its stock price when an e-mail sent within its employee network announced that the release of the Apple iPhone and the Leopard operating system would be delayed. Within hours, the Engadget blog picked up the story, and the stock price dropped by US$4 million.
Engadget attempted to call Apple for a comment before it posted its story, but could not reach the public relations person by cell phone or in the office, as this happened before business hours. After the story ran, Apple did get in touch with Ryan Block, the Engadget blogger, who then posted an update, which enabled the Apple stock to regain much of its previous market cap by the end of the day. However, this example offers a lesson on how quickly and powerfully the new online channels of communication can bring a company to its knees.
One of the greatest impacts of the Internet on communication has been its effect on the length of the news cycle. Before online communication spread its powerful wings, crisis response teams had hours, if not days, to develop key messages, write public statements, deal with the media, hold press meetings and roundtables and ensure that their message made the evening news.
Those “much easier” days (as if crisis situations are ever easy!) are fundamentally over, as the news cycle has been brought down to mere minutes. Thus, the time to create a response is almost non-existent and strong planning becomes a must. Crisis communicators are encouraged to prepare way ahead of time, listen actively, anticipate reactions and cut up a strategy in advance. These are implements that will come really handy, and will be critical in taking a closer watch of the new media terrain and the new media gears that can be functional in a crisis.
The rapid developments in technology are tailor-made for a crisis response planner and should be used to advantage. As social media consultant Brian Oberkirch observed, “The crisis starts way before the crisis starts.” This is particularly true in the lightning-fast world of online communications, where a single rabble-rousing posting can multiply by a thousand- or a million-fold an off-putting story about your company, your name or brand in seconds. The time to deal with a crisis is before it swells, by having your presence felt in the blogosphere early and repeatedly.
The job entails monitoring, reading and understanding blog talk about your company as well as setting up a CEO blog or other social media that engages and connects with the public directly. Your stakeholders need easy access to information during a crisis, and a blog is an ideal platform. Social media allows for messages that are not sifted, convenient, and talk directly to your defined audiences — all vital building blocks when reaching out to a disturbed — and maybe angry and disappointed — public in times of crisis.
As you all know, blogs are simple to set up. It’s advisable to do it now, and not when you are already drowning in adversity. Start your blog early, and develop familiarity and perhaps establish a relationship with other similarly minded bloggers. They can be by your side when and if a crisis happens. Their presence and soothing calls will make things easier for you as you go through a period of crisis.
Blogs, however, are not your only means of spreading a message online. Short messaging services (or SMS, more commonly known as text messaging) and applications like Twitter (which can send short blog posts to e-mails, RSS readers and phone text-messaging services instantly) can be important communication tools in a crisis, particularly when other lines of communication may be disabled.
Kami Watson Huyse, APR, a top-ranked public relations blogger, recommends 10 message channels to use in a crisis.
1. Form relationships with key online blogs and forums that cover your industry before a crisis occurs and be available to these bloggers.
2. Create an online communication center in addition to a bricks-and-mortar crisis command center. Running this on a blog platform gives the public relations team full control of communication by allowing messages to be posted as quickly as they are created — no IT department required.
3. Push out messages via Short Message Service (SMS), which is instant text messaging via mobile phones. This will allow employees to check in after a disaster.
4. Set up redundancy in the servers to handle the increased load that a crisis will certainly spawn.
5. Set up a mechanism for sending e-mail blasts to key stakeholders.
6. Harness the power of social networking sites and maintain profiles there for instant communication.
7. Make your information viral by making it easy for those visiting your site to use it in their own blogs and social media platforms.
8. Use YouTube or Veoh to distribute official video responses. You can then easily use a little code to embed them in your own site and cut down on bandwidth, a leading cause of site failure in a crisis.
9. Set up a grassroots crisis team, which extends beyond the war-room team, who are issued pager-enabled cell phones and are trained in spreading messages via word of mouth if necessary.
10. Send out messages via phone by employing a service to deliver recorded calls to cell and home phone numbers.
Huyse added, “Most of these techniques take advanced planning and contracts with outside vendors, but they are well worth the cost and trouble if lives and businesses are saved.” The above tips will indeed be helpful in difficult and challenging times, but for sure these capabilities can also be useful in normal, non-crisis situations to improve overall communication with your various publics.
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E-mail bongo@vasia.com or bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments, questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating.