Contrary to its positioning amongst the professional communication and broader business environments, issues management is not always inextricably integrated into crisis communication. In fact, its strongest characteristic is strengthening an organisation’s reputation so it is less likely to be negatively impacted on by a crisis.

Issues management is, therefore, both an inherent component of all effective PR and a discrete approach (and even tool) that can be applied in specific situations.

You can almost tear issues management into two themes:

• Uh oh – here comes a proverbial %#@*storm down the funnel; let’s circle the wagons and try to resolve the issue or minimise the damage before we get started into crisis mode
• Party time! – choosing from a range of marketing communication and/or public relations tools (preferably as part of a broader strategy) to create strong, positive, mutually beneficial relationships with stakeholders.

Defusing the bomb: proactive reactive PR

‘Proactive reactive PR’? Okay, alright, I know it sounds like spin. But it ain’t.

This notion is founded on your issues management process identifying that there is trouble up ahead. You might find this out through your Google alerts, through your community consultation process, through employees that have enough savvy to let you know about an issue they have come across.

Hopefully, you haven’t found out about it through your media monitoring. By then the horse has probably bolted (i.e. bye bye issues management; hello crisis comms!).

Being proactively reactive means you have identified the issue and are going to do something about it before it impacts negatively on your reputation to any significant degree. The two main responses are to communicate with your stakeholders, or actually do something about what has caused the stakeholder consternation.

Too often public relations professionals will satisfy themselves with sticking to the former (i.e. meetings, consultation, letters to those concerned etc). The more strategic and braver professional will actually seek to attack the second potential response:

• do something about what has caused the stakeholder consternation.

In most cases only this response can actually make a long-lasting impact on the relationship between an organisation and its stakeholders. This response is at the heart of two-way symmetrical communication, the primary theory that underpins and drives best practice public relations.

There are exceptions to this, of course. Sometimes the issue that has been identified may actually simply be (simply? Well, on a comparative scale, yes, just simply) a communication-related problem.

Party time for PR pros

I get the feeling that a lot of PR pros have the view that doing consumer media relations, holding big events, sponsoring fun family days and the like are simply fluffy PR activities. They aren’t ‘serious’.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As part of an holistic, integrated communication strategy all of these activities are thinking about the following:

• Who are the stakeholders/target audiences of most concern/importance to an organisation?
• What are the issues of most concern/relevance/importance to these stakeholders?
• What is the timeframe we have in making an impact on knowledge/perceptions/behaviour towards the organisation in regard to these issues?
• What are the communication mechanisms that will enable the organisation to get information on the relevant issues to the stakeholders most expeditiously and in the most influential manner (i.e. a short presentation by an organisation employee before a sponsored school event with local parents in attendance may be a more influential, targeted and quicker way to go than getting a story in a national newspaper on the issue)?
• What or who will influence the stakeholders? For instance, is there a 3^rd party advocate for the organisation relevant to the issue at hand that can communicate to stakeholders in an influential manner?

There are more questions than these (I’m thinking budget for one!), but these five elements are very important.

So the following can all be extremely ‘serious’ and much important communication activities than government lobbying, media relations and crisis management:

• Sponsoring a school fete
• Presenting to the local ladies View Club or Rotary Club
• Putting together a curriculum-relevant schools resource.

But let’s not forget the most import issues management/avoidance approach of all is: behave/operate in line with your stakeholders’ expectations.

The basics of PR

PR pros should never forget that we can change the world through a strategic application of our skill set. We can lobby internally to change the way an organisation operates:

• The processes it uses to manufacture products (i.e. no sweatshops)
• The products it produces (i.e. reduced fat/sugar in products)
• The way in which it responds with stakeholder concerns (i.e. engages and/or evolves and does not obfuscate or avoid).

Communication itself can only do so much. It cannot, in itself, change an organisation or the fruits of its labours. But it can help clarify, enlighten and facilitate engagement.

Perceptions are reality. It is our responsibility to our organisations and to society in general to be honest and ethical in the way we go about our jobs.

Now THAT is issues management.

What do you think about my proposition that issues management is an integrated part of ALL strategic PR activity? Is that the way you look at it? What examples of where you have applied this thinking that had an impressive impact can you think of? And what about the ‘proactive reactive’ model of PR? Also, can you tell me where PR activity has changed the way an organisation operates?

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

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This is a guest post by Tony Jaques*, an issue and crisis management specialist with extensive corporate experience. He has been widely published in academic and business journals and is a thought leader in his field.

As managers take a new approach to deciding when to launch a product recall, public relations professionals need to reassess how they are communicated. And how to avoid meaningless phrases like ‘abundance of caution’ which hinder organisations from communicating clearly, and effectively positioning themselves, with their stakeholders.

Two recent American recalls suggest companies are raising the bar (or perhaps that should be lowering the bar) when brand protection seems to outweigh the possibility of harm to the public.

Shrek drinking glasses

In early June food giant McDonald’s announced a recall of more than 13 million souvenir glasses in the United States and Canada produced to mark the launch of the new Shrek movie. The recall followed discovery of toxic cadmium in paint used to decorate the glasses. The level of cadmium was within all federal and state legal safety limits, but above new guidelines being developed by the US Consumer product Safety Commission.

As a result, McDonald’s that announced the voluntary recall was determined “in an abundance of caution.” Meanwhile the local producer of the glasses insisted the glasses were safe and, rather unhelpfully, described the recall as “an internal decision by McDonald’s”.

Spaghetti and meatballs

Two weeks later, Campbell’s Soup announced it would recall nearly 15 million pounds of canned spaghetti and meatballs because of “possible under-processing” (whatever that means). The company said there was no information that any under-processed product had reached their mainly American consumers, whilst the US Agriculture Department said it had received no reports of illnesses from consumption of the products.

But Campbell’s announced the recall “in an abundance of caution”.

Now it must be said that the Shrek glasses incident arose just two weeks after a high profile recall of Chinese-made Mylie Cyrus-branded jewellery with high cadmium levels way above the legal limit. Similarly, the Campbell’s spaghetti incident came right on the heels of successive health scares involving e-coli and then salmonella in lettuce.

PR needs to work more effectively

It is important to stress that no-one would question for a moment the need to protect the public against legitimate risk. But maybe corporate communicators need to find a better way to explain when companies are seemingly taking an ultra-cautious approach.

There is no doubt that public expectation about corporate performance is changing when it comes to protecting health and the environment. At the same time the rise of 24/7 news coverage and social media has increased the speed and the corporate risk of consumer backlash.

For example, the Tylenol recall of 1982 is often still held up as a ‘gold standard’ of how to manage a product recall. But in that notorious case – back in the days before the development of the internet and the blogosphere – the company took almost a week to announce a recall, despite seven people dying from consuming deliberately poisoned headache tablets.

Any company today which allowed such a delay would not be praised, but would more likely be pilloried by the media and crucified by the online armchair experts for being slow and unresponsive.

However, given the current speed and brand exposure of product failure – or perceived product failure –corporate communicators need to find much better ways to explain to a sceptical public why products have been recalled, especially in cases where the risk is minimal or virtually non-existent.

Now this is Tony Jaques

Finding a better way

The McDonald’s Shrek voluntary recall announcement was well written and provides a good example of how it should be done. But the news media ignored most of their careful wording and lazily latched on to that idea of ‘abundance of caution’.

But what the heck is an abundance of caution? While some lawyer may think those are useful words, it is really one of those silly formula phrases which have no real meaning – like ’full and frank discussion.’

Corporate communicators need to encourage management not to hide behind clichés, but to speak openly to the public.

My suggestion is: “We are not required to recall this product, but we believe it is the right thing to do.” I am open to any other suggestions or improvements.

What are your thoughts on Tony’s proposition that fear of stakeholder retribution is prompting companies to communicate illogically? What are better approaches companies can apply in situations such as he has identified? What attitudes/mindsets are best for companies to take in situations such as this?

*Dr Tony Jaques is Managing Director of the Melbourne consultancy Issue Outcomes P/L which specialises in issue and crisis management and risk communication. He also publishes the regular online issue and crisis newsletter, Managing Outcomes, which anyone can subscribe to, and can be contacted at tjaques@issueoutcomes.com.au

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David Park is the author of a change manifesto for corporate affairs managers, Reputation Renegades, which is a free, downloadable e-Book. Renegades addresses many issues, but chief amongst them is the fallacy that corporations have control of their reputation. In this guest post, he provides answers to three pivotal questions that shaped the resource.

Why did you use the opening line – ‘Does Your Corporate Reputation Have New Owners?’ –  for Reputation Renegades?

It was my personal wake-up call for corporate affairs. I thought:  if I was a crazily overworked corporate affairs exec, I’d like someone to draw this stuff to my attention.

It bubbled up from my own professional epiphanies over the past few years in seeing the influence of web-based communities grow: observing virtual tribes incrementally increase their impact on corporate reputation.

 So this influence is still seen as trivial by many corporations. The funny thing is that it was – and still is – bloody hard to define and target influencers in the ‘real’ world, let alone online.

Now that the e-Book has been published for about a month, I’m more satisfied that it wasn’t too far out-there. It’s had good feedback.

Pleasingly, I saw it reflected in the recent Boss magazine in the opening line to the article, ‘Brand We.’

It reads: “Forget brand management – it’s no longer in your hands. In the future, your customer community will control your brand.” For brand – read ‘corporate reputation.’ It headed a great story by Rachel Botsman about her new book ‘Collaborative Consumption’.

The pivotal message in Renegades is control. Corporations are all about keeping control: as they’ve done since corporations began.

But they aren’t. Control and ownership of brand/reputation is changing hands.

Just ask BP.

The issue is not that corporate affairs exec are sticking fingers in their ears and yelling ‘not listening.’

It’s that those who own and run corporations don’t feel the need yet for change: especially in response to invisible stakeholder groups hidden on the internet.

Let’s face it, corporations are quite odd entities. We retain expectations that they will behave in some humanised way. The sad fact is that they were never created with such empathy in mind. They are legal constructs: defensive enclaves with regulatory moats and thick walls of limited liability. Behind this fortress the aim is simply to meet profit targets.

But times change. “These fortresses are under siege,” as the bible, ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’ says.

‘Renegades’ is divided into sections titled Ready, Aim, Fire. In ‘Fire’ you use the term ‘reputation’ as a 10 lettered mnemonic call-to-action. Tell me more about these three: –

1. Allies
   The tactic here is for corporate affairs to recruit in-house cadres: allies. While the C-suite and Board may not want change when it comes to comms, within the company there will be many who do. They will likely be passionate users of social media too. So create an army of partisans: quietly – up in the hills. Don’t try and do it all on your own. Magic some critical mass for in-house momentum to include, rather than exclude, when it comes to comms.
2. Tell tales
   Simply, this is about humanising. We love stories. Wherever you can, drop the use of polished corporate speak. (Take a lead from Don Watson’s ‘Bendable Learnings’ in this regard.) Allow internal corporate communications to be as natural as you can. Allow us, please, to tell our stories in our own words. Social media is not just about the web; it’s a state of mind that’s about warm, humane, empathic communications.
3. Trust.
   This big warm and fuzzy is often overlooked. The issue with most corporations, as the Edelman Trust Barometer shows, is that trust has evaporated. So the recommendation here is for corporate affairs execs to tackle this head-on. To purposefully (and probably awkwardly and painfully) ask difficult questions at meetings that seek ways to bring back trust. Not easy. But you have to start somewhere, so get it out on the table.

Corporate affairs has a tough job. They have to toe the corporate line because.. well .. they wrote it.

Reputation Renegades acknowledges this and details some tactics whereby enlightened professionals might consider bringing about change: hopefully without calls by the CEO for an inquisition or worse: the burning of a heretic.

What inspired you to write it?

At parkyoung over the past year we have studied the impact of the web on societal communications. During this review it struck me that corporations, which lead our society in so many important ways, were really dragging the chain in responding to the hyper-connected market.

The fact that most corporations remained unenlightened – and were comfortable about it – was a real epiphany for me. I was encouraged, however, that deep inside these big organisations there’s a growing number of enlightened ‘guerrilla’ PRs who are becoming ‘reputation renegades.’

The kick-start came when I attended one of Jen Frahm’s workshops featuring the guru David Meerman Scott.

I was really not that familiar with the e-Book medium at all. He was such a passionate advocate for them. I really took to the informality of e-Books: his especially.

At this business workshop, business colleague Yvonne Adele, nudged me and said: “Betcha you can’t write one in a month.”

It took six.

David Park

David Park

Author of corporate affairs manifesto Reputation Renegades, David Park (a.k.a. Parky) has over 20 years experience in corporate affairs in both in-house and consultancy roles. He entered PR via an urban planning background that gave him a strategic approach which he has applied to comms ever since. He describes his in-house career as very ‘beery’ with 11 years with Lion Nathan and over 5 with Foster’s. He runs Melbourne-based strategic communications advisory firm, parkyoung, with PR Warrior Trevor Young.

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This is a guest post from Paul Ritchie*, an experienced public relations practitioner who has just published Stay On Message^, a book which explains the principles of professional communication and how they interact with context, narrative, framing and the media cycle.

The most common thought that is contained within crisis management literature is that somehow a crisis is just an external event that can be managed with the right level of resources and preparation. My view is that this is incomplete and it misses the most dangerous variable in any crisis and that is the way a spin doctor actually responds to the issue.

Stay On Message by Paul Ritchie

Time and time again, we see crises spin out of control because of the miscalculations of the spin doctor or the organisation he or she represents.

A crisis first and foremost is a time for good judgment, yet often under the pressure of the moment we retreat to the default mechanisms that define our own behaviour. It’s hard to believe but most of us under pressure move to a way of operating that, more often than not, is our general default. For some it is to shout, for others it’s to lock the door and search for data, for others it is to blame someone and, for others still, they downplay the crisis or even deny it is happening.

I suggest that spin doctors, more often than not, make seven common mistakes in a crisis. These mistakes are the result of our own default mechanisms. The challenge for the spin doctor is to understand their own defaults, so that when a crisis hits, they can actually be aware of their weaknesses and work around them.

These are the seven most common mistakes of a spin doctor in a crisis that I identify in my new book, Stay on Message.

1. Not asking for help

The speed and overwhelming intensity of a crisis demands the willingness and capability of a spin doctor to say, “I can’t do this alone”, and to call in help from other business units, or from an external public affairs firm.

2. Underestimating the danger

No one likes bad news and no one likes to be the person who brings bad news. In some organisations, to give bad news is akin to isolating yourself from the mainstream of an organisation. Think of Enron, Wall Street financiers who believed a market could never fall, NASA’s space shuttles, or the Catholic Church dealing with child abuse, or the Greek Government wildly spending money. It takes courage to confront prevailing worldviews or cultures that are crumbling internally.   

As the interface between an organisation and the public, the spin doctor has a responsibility to his or her organisation to provide fearless, frank and honest advice about how to best manage the organisation’s reputation, and they also have a responsibility to the public and the media to ensure that the information provided is trustworthy and reliable.

Paul Ritchie

3. Throwing out your quality control

 A crisis, by its nature, brings uncertainty and confusion and a testing of character that is remembered long after the intricacies of the events themselves are forgotten.

There is a tendency in a crisis for spin doctors to cut corners and throw away the normal quality control processes that typically guide the production of materials and the preparation for media conferences and interviews. To cut corners and throw away the processes that make your materials and responses accurate and robust is a false choice. Quality control is the key to producing reliable work, and these processes should not be junked in a crisis.

4. Using weasel words

Spin doctors have forgotten that part of their work involves saying uncomfortable things. Somewhere along the way, many spin doctors have come to believe that weasel words are the best way to pacify anger.

Weasel words allow a spin doctor to slice and dice a response, while thinking that by not providing real answers and not acknowledging the premise of an issue or accepting responsibility, then somehow the issue will go away. Instead of pacifying anger, however, weasel words galvanise anger, with the audience muttering to themselves, “they don’t get it”.

5. Providing false assurance

There is something deep within most people that says that, even in the darkest of circumstances, everything is going to be okay. This human yearning for reassurance has an important place in life, particularly in providing encouragement to loved ones at difficult times. However, there is a world of difference between holding the hand of a sick loved one and saying, “You’re going to be okay” and lying to them by saying, “The doctor says you will be home in 24 hours.”

The difference between false assurance and reassurance is a narrow one. Reassurance seeks to create strength out of pre-existing trust, whereas false assurance seeks to create that same confidence out of false premises.

For spin doctors who are managing the media response to a crisis, misplaced or false assurance can actually exacerbate a situation. False information in a crisis breaks trust with those seeking reliable information, harms the longer-term credibility of the spokesperson and, in a worst-case scenario, can actually cost lives.

6. Not accepting responsibility

Every crisis has a cause, or a series of causes. The powerful pressure of the principles of narrative means that in many crises, the quest to blame and punish someone commences almost immediately. That deep intrinsic yearning to make sense of things leads us all to instantaneously ask the question, “Whose fault is this?” When this question is asked, it sparks in others another basic human instinct, which is to avoid, hide from, or deny responsibility for their own mistakes and errors.

It is in assessing the issue of responsibility that the spin doctor has to move away from the traditional role of defending at all costs.

Traditionally, the work of spin doctors is to protect reputations, and because of this, most spin doctors instinctively gravitate towards providing a defence of any action. It is at this point in a crisis when many spin doctors make the terrible mistake of trying to explain and defend the organisation rather than seeking to answer the unfolding narrative. One of the worst mistakes a spin doctor can make in a crisis is to move immediately to a defensive position and not realise that he or she is defending the indefensible.

7. Getting caught flat-footed

Crises, by their nature are not planned. They can and do strike with little or no warning. They happen on weekends, at night or in the hours before you plan to head off on annual holidays – it is the spin doctors’ version of Murphy’s Law.

The need to communicate reliable and factual information quickly means that you have to be on top of your game and ready to go at a moment’s notice. The spin doctor’s email, fax and phone lists need to be up to date and backed up in multiple locations. Media monitoring must already in place and you have to be prepared for a failure in your organisation’s IT infrastructure. Its hard to get on the front foot if you are flat footed.

These are my seven most common mistakes in a crisis. If I have missed any let me know.

What do you think of Paul’s list of mistakes? Can you add others that should be high up on the list? Do you have personal experiences of your own that amplify what Paul has said? And on a lateral front, what do you think of him using the term ‘spin doctor’ for PR people!?

*Paul Ritchie has advised Australia’s largest institutions and political leaders on how to communicate their message for over 20 years. His work has provided him with unique insights into how organisations and political leaders position themselves in the media, how they develop narratives about what they do and how they behave when faced with a crisis. Paul has completed postgraduate study at Harvard University and the Australian Graduate School of Management. At Harvard, Paul studied the role of personal narrative, the rise of social media and the principles of adaptive organisational leadership.

^‘Stay on Message reveals the simple yet powerful tools that will allow you to communicate effectively and authentically in a world with unlimited media possibilities. It authentically explains the principles of communication and how they interact with context, narrative, framing and the media cycle. Stay on Message identifies the trends in new media and explains how to navigate this new media world. It is available from Vivid Publishing.

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Round tables are an excellent methodology to help public relations professionals achieve positive media coverage, enhance relationships with important organisational stakeholders and strengthen organisational positioning. The white paper, produced from a round table, resources issues-driven media campaigns (of which opinion pieces are likely to play a leading role), direct mail and online communication campaigns.

The round table/white paper methodology can also be used in an even more targeted, discreet manner where very confidential, targeted relationship enhancement (i.e. management) will deliver results.

Strategic communication results with target audiences

The white paper is generally a strategic branding, rather than a tactical sales generating, mechanism, though it can be used for the latter. When using the white paper as a direct mail piece, for instance, in many circumstances a follow up phone call will take place to the prospect to use the thought leadership it features as a ‘door opener’ for an appointment.

Another reason why the white paper can assist with positioning, tactical sales or organisation-stakeholder relationships is that the target audience finds its content of value – so recipients appreciate the white paper’s ‘sponsoring organisation’ for producing it.

A final reason for adopting this approach is that it can be part of a program to help rehabilitate an organisation’s reputation after it has undergone a crisis. The thought leadership it shows, its linking/partnership/alliance with other reputable organisations and the manner in which it discusses its insight and activities can all impact positively on knowledge of, and perceptions towards, an organisation

White papers have an excellent track record, if well done, of achieving high level, top tier media coverage. They play an important part in an holistic communication strategy.

A round table (RT) is generally constituted of:

• six to ten participants
• a sponsoring organisation participant and external, non-organisational participants
• participants who are experts, and/or thought leaders, in a particular field
• an agenda for discussion that features a single or a series of closely-related issues that are topical, compelling and of business-relevance to all those participating, as well as the sponsoring organisation’s target audiences.

The ultimate objective of the RT/white paper is to position the organisation (and/or individual, such as a CEO) more favourably with priority stakeholders. From a process perspective, the objective of the RT is to generate ‘content’ that can be leveraged through a white paper, and/or other communication mechanisms, that enhance the positive positioning of the sponsoring organisation.

The credibility factor

There are a number of rationales for having non-organisational employees present at round tables:

• They automatically bring with them 3^rd party credibility when you are using the content generated by the discussions when positioning your organisation and engaging with your stakeholders
• From a positioning perspective, the non-organisational attendees shine a certain light on the sponsoring organisation. If they are well known or experts in a certain field , this spotlight is shared with the sponsoring organisation. This is different to 3^rd party credibility – it is about what the sponsoring organisation does and what it is good at
• Their presence has a snowball effect in filling the seats on your round table. The more credible people/organisations you get to participate, the more attractive the round table becomes to prospective participants
• Similar to forming a strategic alliance, the content from the round table can be leveraged through their organisation’s communication mechanisms (website, newsletters, social media etc). This helps raise the profile and positive positioning of the sponsoring organisation.

Elements of a marketing communication round table

There are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes an effective round table, but primary elements to consider generally include the following:

• Having only one representative of the sponsoring organisation present, though you could do two at a push
• Those present need to be senior organisational stakeholders. Preferably, organisational leaders. But if not leaders in title, then certainly they should be leaders in thinking, intellect and/or standing
• Eight to ten participants is ideal. Any less and you may not get the discussion, debate and quality content required to give the white paper ‘heft’. Any more and it can become unwieldy, with many participants potentially becoming frustrated at their lack of opportunity to make a meaningful contribution
• Eight to ten participants also allows those present to network effectively and to have side-conversations. This is a key attraction to attracting participants to the RT in the first place
• Limit the discussion to one morning. A whole day is too long and most high-level potential participants will baulk at giving up this much of their time. The brain and the body are likely to be more willing and more engaged at this time of day. Enthusiasm and quality input will be greater
• Follow the round table with a lunch, by all means, but don’t have a meal during the RT process. Make the lunch optional. And don’t make it War and Peace. The mechanisms of serving food will impede and/or upset the thinking and interaction process. These things get in a groove and you don’t want to stymie the flow provided is appropriate, with an 8.45 or 9am sit down and rev up the talk fest time making sense
• Two to three hours should be the limit of time allocated to the round table, with a morning tea break an option to consider, though it is best to keep participants in the room and make it very short
• Make an audio recording of the discussion. Keep it on file as it may be called upon if participants disagree with the way they are quoted
• The white paper produced of the RT discussion will need to be signed off on by all participants.

And remember, as the issue(s) being discussed in the RT should be topical, there is a need to accelerate the white paper generation. Don’t hang around.

Importantly, you want to get that paper and its supporting communication out and in front of stakeholders quickly. You don’t want someone else to beat you to the punch.

 Additionally, a slow white paper production process will mean reduced buy-in and attention to it from participants through the sign off process. And that is nothing short of death to ROI.

This is the first of a three-part series on round tables and white papers. The next post will feature tips on getting participants to attend a round table, facilitating it and taking an alternative approach to round tables. The final post in the series focuses on the media relations dimension of a round table and white paper: should they be invited and getting editorial placement results.

What did you think of this discussion? What is your experience in holding round tables and producing white papers? Did they achieve the intended results? What were the non-media related outcomes, such as stakeholder relationship enhancement?

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There are a number of contenders for the most eye-rolling, can-you-believe-it dumb marketing and/or PR moment of 2009: loser marketers, the GFC and social media amongst them . But, thankfully, there have been plenty of inspirational examples of best practice professional communication too. Most importantly, what have we learnt during the year and how will it make us better communicators?

This post explores these dimensions with the input and assistance of two of the globe’s most astute public relations minds, Craig Badings and Sean Williams, both of whom provide plenty of insights on their own estimable blogs.

The ugly communication canards

Starting with the eye rolling, it never ceases to amaze me what some wankers in the advertising/marketing world come up with and their justifications for it. Australian readers will be familiar with the Toyota debacle, where a sexist, incest-implying entry into an advertisement competition was repeatedly justified by marketers, then needed to be pulled out of the fire by public relations experts.

Arguably even more devastating due to the impact it is literally having on people’s lives, is how one of Australia’s largest banks, Westpac, raised home loan interest rates way in excess of our Reserve Bank’s guidelines (unlike some of their competitors). This was bad enough (avarice, completely contradictory to the Westpac’s supposed – and now obviously shot to pieces – CSR positioning) but it was made worse by an ill-judged video using banana smoothies as an analogy for the excessive interest rate hike…unbelievable.

Craig Badings found the GFC tiresome (hey, and who can blame him! It got me retrenched, so I know what he means). “The impact of the GFC on communication service companies has had a profound impact in many respects,” he says.

“I am nervous that some of these will become de rigueur moving forward. For example, some companies have become extremely process driven in their approach to comms. This is all well and good when used to measure outputs and impact on ROI but when it comes as the expense of innovation and creativity I start fearing for the relationship. These approaches, if taken too far, inevitably kill the passion.”

Sean Williams, on the other hand, took the other major elephant in the room over the past year to task. “Crap social media claptrap. There is a ruling class in social media consulting who regurgitates the same old, tired canard of gobbeldy-gook that makes social media out to be the reinvention of the structure of society itself, declaring the End of News Media and accusing anyone who disagrees of being stupid, corrupt or worse.”

Examples of best practice public relations

On a more positive note, Craig looked back with satisfaction on a campaign he had worked on with law firm Henry Davis York. This…“resulted in the government of New South Wales settling with a family whose home was situated on an old radioactive waste site.”

Sean pointed out an excellent campaign by The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, called ‘Drawing Board’. “They are my client for measurement, so I can’t take credit for the single best and simplest explanation of financial regulation I’ve ever seen [unintentional banking and video connection noted...!]. They’ve also done a follow up video on the consumer price index…”

Getting better (at communicating) all the time

There is nothing that we all can’t get better at, but Sean and I would love to win more new business for our consultancies and I am sure Craig empathises with this as well. I question whether really profound, organisation-changing work can be done from the consultancy position, as opposed to working in-house in a PR capacity, but there are certainly plenty of exceptions to this position.

Sean, like most of us, had a big social media learning and ‘doing’ time in 2009. “Twitter and blogging make up a huge part of my day/week,” he says. “And the amount of information (some good, some not) I’ve gleaned from reading others in our field has been great.”

Plenty of us would have the tools to get better at our jobs by reading Craig’s book, Brand Stand; seven steps to thought leadership, which was published this year, whilst professional communication blogs by the likes of Karalee Evans and Trevor Young make an ongoing contribution to professional PR learning.

Incorporating the perspectives of others into my work and approach is always one of the more interesting and enriching dimensions of a professional life. Of course, embracing the views of others is analogous to public relations so it’s hypocritical not to bring such a mindset to our work.

And for 2010?

“I think more and more executives and communication professionals are beginning to understand the true power of good thought leadership and, if done properly, it’s ability to impact sales,” postulates Craig. “The biggest battle, however, is getting some people to understand that the focus of thought leadership doesn’t have to be on the product or service and that it is perfectly OK to ‘give away’ or share information and insights.”

The ‘giving away’ of information is similar to social media best practice. But social media still remains a war zone, according to Craig. “Many of the large corporates are still battling with the concept of engaging online. Speak to Dell, Walmart, Kryptonite locks, Pizza Hut and a host of others to find out just how important it is, if only as an early warning device for issues and a way to help manage crises.”

Sean says, “2010 could well be the Year of Measurement – that means doing long-delayed internal comms research, reducing dependence on ‘more more more’ in media relations in favour of better targeting and generally looking critically at how communication affects the business.”

It was reinforced for me during 2009, and I’ll be applying this in 2010 and beyond, how important flexibility and believing in yourself is. I was retrenched during 2009, I started my blog, I was forced to start my own business and now juggle a permanent role, my own business and this demanding blog baby.

An upside out of this was meeting, networking and collaborating with a wide range of public relations professionals, many of whom provided me with a great deal of support, inspiration and professional education. It reinforced to me what a rewarding, worthwhile profession I work in.

 So tell me, what were the highs, lows and ‘learnings’ of 2009 for you – and what do you think the professional business communication world will bring in 2010?

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Strategically, social media offers immense utility for public relations professionals when it comes to crisis management but, conversely, it also opens up organisations to immense risk.

On the upside, said James Griffin of SR|7 at Frocomm’s Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009, an example of the positive power of social media is the over $3 million US dollars of revenue that has been generated by Dell through its Twitter platform engagement. “This has created a new asset for Dell,” said James, “Allowing the company to build trust, revenue and its brand.”

And organisations need all the help they can get, it seems, if the findings James cited from AON’s  Australasian Risk Management Benchmarking Survey are anything to go by. “Brand and image have been ranked above corporate governance and other risk categories including legal, human resources and information systems as the number one risk concern since 2007.”

But the “wild wild web”, as James calls it, has a set of risks of its own. “It is a world where people are largely anonymous,” he said. “People feel empowered to say anything regardless of the truth. It is a world where blogs, videos and Twitter broadcasts are more powerful and faster than bullets.”

James quoted Deloitte findings that 58% of executives agree that reputational risk and social networking should be a boardroom issue, but only 15% say it actually is. “Staggeringly, Deloitte also found that only 17% of companies had any form of program to mitigate risks associated with social media.”

An opportunity for communicators? It certainly looks like it.

James said that critical to understanding the importance of social media, and an insight into where social media is heading, is that both Bing and Google will be integrating Facebook status updates and Twitter posts into public search results. “This means a standard Google search for a company is as likely to bring up the official webpage as it is the live feeds of customers, suppliers or employees who happen to comment on that brand and organisation.

“In addition, it will make it faster and easier for the media to source negative or sensationalist stories about goods, services and individuals. The flipside is that there will increasingly be more opportunities for organisations to leverage and use social media as a means for positive brand engagement.”

A powerful strategic point is that 60% of Australians trust the recommendations of their peers. And with the prevalence of social media as networking tool for peers, the importance of the mediums to public relations professionals and marketers is clear.

“The key is knowing where the positive content exists and developing strategies around maximising authentic brand advocates, said James. “These are critical in times of crisis.

iSnack. iFail? Or eyeballs = iWin?

The KRAFT iSnack 2.0 campaign is a very good illustration, said James, of how the integration of social media platforms makes it critical for your organisation to have a presence on each one.

SR|7 was commissioned by the Sydney Morning Herald to provide data and analysis of the KRAFT iSnack 2.0 marketing campaign as it unfolded. Central to the drama around the branding of the product was a very funny but subversively critical YouTube video which, James said, “featured heavily in the majority of traditional news articles both online and offline was linked to, and from, a variety of social media platforms.

“The Kraft experience highlights the power of social media in shaping perception about goods and services. It is clear that Kraft did not have the tools in place to counter arguments and discussion online about iSnack 2.0”

Counting and caring: monitoring results

YouTube video:

• Monday 10am 1,110 views
• 1 day later #1 most watched video – Australia
• 3 days later 45,956 views

Views were accelerated by these sources:

• First referral from YouTube – Homepage 9,391
• Other / Viral 17,581
• First embedded on – www.facebook.com 10,414
• First view from a mobile device 5,703
• First referral from – www.facebook.com 4,722
• First embedded on – www.thepunch.com.au 4,324
• First embedded on – www.crikey.com.au 1,780
• First embedded on – www.defamer.com.au 1,590.

James made the following further points:

• Collecting only brand mentions will miss the most relevant conversations. Discussions are key
• Simple measures (counts, brand mentions, sentiment) are not useful for understanding why people do what they do and, without understanding, we don’t gain the insight of what to do next
• Effective social media monitoring is going beyond buzz and ‘sentiment’, to understand the emotional and motivational drivers of your customers or clients. Human analysis of social media data is vital.

Web visuals’ growing impact

The power of visuals – and moving visuals at that – on the internet seems to be replacing the primacy that television has (had?) in our lives. Online visuals can be seen at the viewer’s convenience and may take only a minute or so to view. From there, it takes mere seconds of effort before an online missive is despatched, whether through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog and others where untold numbers of people may see it.

Strategic alliances

One method of combating this is applying the tried and true methodology of strategic alliances, even more potent in the social media environment than in a non-digital environment. This is a key tool public professionals should always consider applying when designing communication strategies.

The three primary benefits of strategic alliances are that they enlarge the communication footprint an organisation can have, they can enhance the credibility of alliance ‘partners’ and they provide excellent ROI (especially if they are mostly free!).

In this context, the following is relevant:

• Identify customers, suppliers or other organisations that have appropriate communication mechanisms in place and a mutually beneficial interest in, helping communicate your messages/position
• This is particularly useful, in the context of this discussion, if those mechanisms include social media and their audiences are complementary/relevant to your own
• As these messages, even if they are flagged as being your own organisation’s, come from a third party, they come with their brand imprint and, presumably, credibility
• Even, as has been seen ad nauseum at the Frocomm summit and elsewhere, if the alliance’s social media network is not big but it is influential, then it will be a strategic tactic (um, verging on tautological here…) worth implementing.

These alliances won’t be ‘one-offs’ (who the hell is going to, firstly, want to institute an alliance with your organisation when it is in the credibility ‘bad books’ and, secondly, have the time to do the sign off protocol turnaround in about 24 hours flat?).

As Libby Day, From Roche Australia, said at the summit, alliances and partnerships are built up over years, not hours. Whether we are talking social media or ‘simple’, professional relationships, it takes trust to form alliances and for those alliances to be willing to put themselves at some level of risk by associating themselves publicly with another organisation under the gun.

But if those relationships are meaningful from a two-way perspective, if they are mutually beneficial and if they are founded on trust, then they may well help your organisation get over the crisis line.

This post is part of an extended series covering the summit. All the coverage is also available in a free PDF report that you are welcome to share with your colleagues and peers. As a return favour for providing this resource, and only – of course – if you think the content is worthwhile, perhaps you could tweet about it or flag it on one of your social media networking sites, such as LinkedIn.

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Fires and flu: what a year. Worst of all for those suffering from the cataclysms. But a real challenge for public relations professionals working hard to inform and help the community. This post features insights shared by two of Australia’s preeminent public relations practitioners at Frocomm’s Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009.

Fire

Amber Brodecky, Director Communities and Media Relations, for the Victorian Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner, led the crisis communication effort in response to the deadly Victorian Bushfires, Australia’s worst natural disaster, earlier this year.

A statistical summary of the tragedy is not able to reflect the anguish it caused, but the figures are sobering:

• 173 lives lost
• 2,000+ homes and businesses destroyed
• 1,500 properties damaged
• 430,000 hectares of land burnt
• Fires affected 78 Victorian communities across 25 municipalities.

Some web 2.0 tools were used to assist communication, but a model for strengthening their use as part of operational planning is currently being devised by the emergency services. The key principles that inform the communications approach still make for compelling reading, however. They include:

• An approach that is based not on spin, but providing information communities need to put in place safe behaviours
• Messaging that builds on the 9/11 model used by Rudy Giuliani:
  • What we know
  • What we don’t know
  • What we are doing
  • What we want you to do
  • Ensuring messages use a  ‘call to action’
  • Being realistic, real-time, disciplined, authoritative and two-way in communication
  • Taking the view that resilient communities are informed communities.

Amber said that the media were an important link in emergency management chain and they were viewed as partners, rather than a group that need to be managed. Similarly, local communities were also viewed as partners, playing a key role in their own safety planning.

The emergency services were also transparent in updating the public on fatalities and losses, with the view that an open, honest approach is best.

Flu

Porter Novelli provides another example of how selected social media tools and selected applications of those tools can b effectively applied. Sometimes, it isn’t necessary to throw the kitchen sink at the problem. As always, public relations professionals need to assess the situation, build the appropriate strategy and utilise the most efficacious tactics in the most effective manner.

Porter Novelli (PN) applied  social media tools to help Australian Pork Ltd (APL) in its  management of the communication dimension of the A/H1N1 (swine) flu epidemic this year.

PN’s corporate and crisis practice principal, Campbell Fuller, said social media was used to monitor conversations about swine flu and pork consumption and assess awareness and key message penetration. The challenge for APL and PN was to convince consumers that pork was safe to eat and the flu could not be contracted through eating pork, thus arresting falling meat sales.

Though Porter Novelli and APL were prepared to engage with consumers through social media to counter misinformation about eating pork and catching the flu, they found this was not necessary.

Instead, what Porter Novelli found was that:

• Coverage achieved in traditional media, especially TV news, syndicated radio programs and daily newspapers, and their online versions, easily flowed through to online and social media channels
• Active social media participants became advocates for pork
• Social media participants swiftly responded and corrected negative and incorrect information without any involvement from APL, posting links to mainstream sources
• Medical and veterinary experts, and ministers’ reassurances, were seen as credible, highlighting the importance of being able to call on strong stakeholder relationships established over many years
• Messaging surrounding the impact (i.e. lower sales/revenue, thus livelihood ramifications) the issue was having on farmers – a personal approach – had traction. Most people love a symbol
• Real primary producers appeared in the media to help show the human face of the crisis, leaving APL’s chief executive Andrew Spencer as the corporate spokesperson.

Porter Novelli used consumer surveys to measure changes in sentiment toward the purchase and consumption of pork. Within a month, negative sentiment was almost zero and pork sales had returned to almost pre-crisis levels.

What do you think of the approaches taken by these two organisations in their management of the crises? What could they have done better? What was done particularly well? What are the most important factors you have learnt from these two public relations professionals?

This post is part of an extended series covering the summit. All the coverage is also available in a free PDF report that you are welcome to share with your colleagues and peers. As a return favour for providing this resource, and only – of course – if you think the content is worthwhile, perhaps you could tweet about it or flag it on one of your social media networking sites, such as LinkedIn.

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Whether through addressing a flu pandemic or the cataclysm that we know all too well in Australia, bushfires, the same principles of crisis management apply. Some of them include building trust in an organisation, using your employees as ‘advocating communicators’ and putting human safety at the top of the priority pyramid.

And whilst using social media is an excellent way to communicate and engage with stakeholders, “trust is harder to maintain in a social media environment,” said public relations leader, Rupert Hugh-Jones from Scaffidi Hugh-Jones at Frocomm’s Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009.

One way of building trust, said Hugh, is having real people represent the organisation in a crisis through social media, both in reality and in ‘attitude’. Organisational representatives should be allowed to express their personality and their empathy, as long as key organisational messages and culture are transmitted, which obviously means training and counsel as appropriate.

Subtext: ditch the cold corporate edifice approach.

An interesting post on The Guardian goes further into this aspect, discussing how organisations need to trust their employees, sound human and be transparent: don’t lie, don’t pretend and don’t be rude being the mantra.

Discipline is another key factor to bear in mind when using social media in a crisis, said Rupert. Messages are spread over a plethora of communication devices. In this case they are all dialogue- characterised rather than solely broadcast- characterised, so the potential for message ‘erosion’ is amplified.

For consistency and discipline to be maintained, organisations need to be” water tight” in knowing who is undertaking what precise role, as per standard crisis communication planning

“Be intelligent in managing conversations,” said Rupert. Which partially means that whilst there is a corporate approach to take, customise the response to the individual. Empathise. Acknowledge. Respond.

As Graham White said at the summit, the tone and style of communication with stakeholders is critically important in social media. “Don’t preach,” he said. It is not about broadcast, it is about participation. Engage, don’t announce. “Be informal and conversational,” Graham continued. “Your goal is to build a community (of fans), a community that can, and will, support you in trying times.”

This amplifies what I have said elsewhere that, perversely, a crisis is actually an opportunity for public relations professionals to engage and to convert, to build advocacy for your organisation or brand. The sin is not in falling victim to a crisis communication situation, the sin is in not responding professionally, not learning and evolving from the situation and not taking the opportunity to build bridges with your stakeholders.

On the topic of Twitter specifically, Rupert put these notions forward:

• Evidence suggests that platforms such as Twitter have the potential to rapidly induce a ‘networked panic’ of pandemic proportions.
• The impact of Twitter in the context of a global health issue has been demonstrated with the H1H1 outbreak. Tens of thousands of concerned and connected citizens and organisations were tweeting daily earlier this year
• Tweeting is not confined to individual citizens. In the USA, one million-plus subscribed to the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Not only does the web allow a two-exchange of information about a pandemic,” said Rupert. “It uses that conversation to map the progression of the pandemic, bypassing traditional tracking methods.”

Rupert summarised what he thinks are the key utilitarian uses of three key social media tools:

Twitter:

• Use as early warning system
• Talk to your staff and customers on a daily basis / talk to them instantly
• Calm your staff / customers
• Reassure your staff / customers
• Excite your staff / customers
• Dispel rumours / correct misinformation
• Share ideas and news.

Facebook:

• Dispel rumours
• Post videos
• Speak to your staff / customers.

Blogs:

• Share ideas / send messages
• Share your news with public and the media (people are getting their news online these days)
• Dispel rumours / correct misinformation.

This post is part of an extended series covering the summit. All the coverage is also available in a free PDF report that you are welcome to share with your colleagues and peers. As a return favour for providing this resource, and only – of course – if you think the content is worthwhile, perhaps you could tweet about it or flag it on one of your social media networking sites, such as LinkedIn.

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Some of the most insightful tips provided by public relations heavyweight experts at the recent Frocomm Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009 related to specific social media tools that are of utility. This post talks about how ‘dark’ websites, videos, forums and Twitter can be of use during a crisis.

Ogilvy’s Brian Giesen, Edleman’s Amanda Little, Howorth’s Graham White, Scaffidi Hugh-Jones’ Rupert Hugh-Jones, SR|7’s James Griffin were amongst the PR thought leaders whose advice is captured below, whilst a previous post discussed social media crisis communication themes such as human resources and messaging, advertising and monitoring.

There is a truncated version of this post. I thought it worth going into greater detail on the tactical elements the public relations leaders named above shared with all of us. This post is part of an extended series covering the summit. All the coverage is also available in a free PDF report that you are welcome to share with your colleagues and peers.

Website

• ‘Dark’ websites – whether using Wordpress or another digital format – can feature pre-prepared information in a pre-prepared format that can quickly be customised and turned ‘live’ when a crisis hits
  • Pre-registered URLs can also help (e.g. KentuckyFriedChickenresponds.com)
  • Make sure the content is made easily sharable through incorporating applications such as Digg, Technorati, Facebook etc
  • A webcast of organisational statements can be uploaded, making for a ‘media conference’ that can be accessed at any time by any media anywhere (important in a global context where social/digital media facilitates worldwide coverage). The webcast should be formatted so that it can be embedded in blogs as per standard YouTube videos.

Video and forums

• Video is a messaging tool of high utility; YouTube is a search engine of significance in its own right, whilst plenty of people prefer to learn/understand from watching footage rather than reading
• Forums are particularly applicable to Australia, so focus on them, whilst Australians have not engaged with blogs as much as in some other countries (though a few people I know are sceptical of this claim re forums, so it may be specific to certain sectors, such as fashion and IT)

Twitter

• Twitter is good at getting the message out, though it clearly cannot be relied upon in isolation:
  • It needs to be part of an holistic social media crisis management and stakeholder engagement ‘package’
  • Further advice on Twitter was to make sure you direct message (DM) people who make comments, but do it strategically. Some comments you need to let go through to the keeper whilst it may be prudent to engage with some twitterers (or tweeters…) to, firstly, nullify/correct disinformation and, secondly, either though asking or hoping (!) for corrected information to be tweeted out through the individual’s network.
  • When transmitting issue response tweets, link to more comprehensive content on your website
  • Always correct disinformation about the issue. Incorrect information, especially if it is inflammatory or ‘bad news sexy’, will probably be a hotter online ticket than good news. Just ask the media on that point. But don’t be condescending when making the correction
  • Don’t engage with bloggers who want money to cover the issue in a positive light. Instead, as with traditional media, offer them access to unique information or spokespeople. Emphasise this gives them additional credibility for their blog and can facilitate more eyeballs for them
  • Social media is useful for media relations, too, as through a mechanism like Twitter you can determine which media is driving online comment. You can then make an informed decision to place more resources in addressing that specific media source and customising a response/content to ameliorate the reputational damage it might be generating
  • As such, it is important to follow negative as well as positive comment about your brand on an ongoing basis as well as, of course, in a crisis situation
  • Lots of journos are on Twitter so can be good way of cutting through the barriers (i.e. which could be something as simple as the multi-tasking pressure journalists themselves are under in crisis coverage/analysis) and engaging with them
  • The future for Twitter (from Graham White): it will find its role; will probably need to monetise in one way or another, with an example of this being charging corporates being followed once they reach a certain level (e.g. 20,000 followers etc).

[Ogilvy have bookmarked some useful resources on Twitter.]

Further sage words of advice from Craig Badings, of Cannings, just in case anyone was fool enough to consider thinking it was possible: “You don’t make friends during a crisis.”

There are two points to make about this:

• In a crisis, aim to minimise the increased amount of enemies you make
• Look at it as an opportunity to form a solid base of stakeholders who, whilst they may not be in a swoon over your organisation at the conclusion (if there ever really is such a thing from a branding perspective) of the crisis, at least there is solid, respectful ground on which to form new, and renewed, positive, mutually beneficial relationships.

What do you think of this advice? What approaches have you taken that can add value to crisis communication using social media tools?

This post is part of an extended series covering the summit. All the coverage is also available in a free PDF report that you are welcome to share with your colleagues and peers. As a return favour for providing this resource, and only – of course – if you think the content is worthwhile, perhaps you could tweet about it or flag it on one of your social media networking sites, such as LinkedIn.

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