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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