Comments on: Social media: insights for crisis communication

By: Graham White

Graham White — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:11:58 +0000

Craig, thanks for the plug. I agree with Sean, and the comments made by my colleagues Jon and Craig Badings are also very important. Social media has really put the public back into our professions, where true engagement is required, and that is two way communication which James Grunig prescribed those many years ago.

By: Sean Williams

Sean Williams — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:47:17 +0000

Craig – thanks for this recap of what looks to be a good conference. Would that the air fares from the States to Australia were a bit less onerous!

Regarding crisis communication — I’d say that six hours of monitoring might be too long. I’d advise that as part of the crisis communication planning effort, a systematic researching of social media content of likely crises would yield strong indications of what an organization might expect. Thus, the dark Websites and templated materials would be better informed, with less time needed to analyze the exact situation and a faster response.

The social media conundrum is always related to speed — it all moves so fast that organizations, with hierarchical decision-making and the need to obtain multiple approvals prior to making statements doesn’t fit the new reality very well.

The other important point I’d offer is that social media isn’t designed or realized as a broadcast channel, though that’s how many organizations perceive and use it (if they do…) The point of these tools is interaction with relevant publics; they expect to interact when an organization uses these tools, and they’re mighty upset when the promise of conversation is pre-empted.

The initial, pre-approved response can always be rather general — “we need to investigate this situation. Please send your questions and we’ll begin compiling answers.” That type of response keeps the information stream flowing to the organization, and buys time (in the same fashion that a similar response to mainstream media buys time.)

So, I would agree with Mr. Badings — letting a story die a natural death in mainstream media is a worthy strategy. In social media, I am not sure it’s workable at all.

Thanks again for a good post.
Sean
@commammo

By: Craig

Craig — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:58:05 +0000

I think the default option is to always correct disinformation ASAP. There will always be exceptions.

But, as Master of Web Jonathan rightly points out, once ’stuff’ is up on the web it stays there, so not correcting has the potential to damage the brand at some point, even if it’s a sleeper.

Also, and maybe I am stretching this a bit, but I really do see a crisis as an opportunity to make friends and build advocates. Not responsing and not engaging with those who have commented – even those who are off with the fairies – reflects poorly on the relevant organisation/brand and may mean a missed opportunity.

By: Craig Badings

Craig Badings — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:13:24 +0000

Craig, subsequent to the conference I had an interesting conversation with Jonathan Nguyen at Howorth and an Ogilvy’s 360 Degree Influence champion. We agreed that given the nature of the Web the decision to let things certain things blow over without a comment could be risky – not necessarily the case with mainstream press. The reason? The point of view or comments once published are out there as a permanent record for any future search. If you haven’t put your point of view forward or rebuffed one-sided stories or misinformation, the person searching only gets one side of the story.

I’d be interested in others views on this.
Cheers
Craig