Crisis Communications for the Social WebOctober 28, 2008

Trust in Online

• 41 percent trust Internet news according to (HarrisInteractive)

• From Searchers: Do you trust your search engine with your information? No say 62% (hakia)

• 44% of searchers regularly use just one engine, and another 48% use just two or three (Pew/Internet)

• Marketshare (ComScore):– Google 61%– Yahoo 20%– Microsoft 8%

09 f9 11 02

Song by Keith Burgmun, www.dinosaurlightning.comLicense: http://www.archive.org/details/OhNineEffNine

Not Only Do Posts Occur, They Create Conversations & Memes

Time Moves Quickly on the Internet

Crisis PR: Time Is of the Essence

• Traditional crisis tenets apply• Like crisis, messaging must not stray from facts• Timely reactions are critical to stymie crisis• Big blogs, social network users prompt immediate

reaction• Never overpromise (coal miners)!• Even small blogs, social network users should be

responded to w/in 24 hours• Media “crowdsources” stories from blogs, socnets

Influence As Pictured by Simon Collister

jetBlue Crisis

“This Target ad is senselessly subversive on so many levels that it begs pointing out this article in the U.K. Telegraph headlined, Girls Being Brainwashed to Be Promiscuous featuring Carol Platt Liebau’s new book about how our sex-obsessed culture damages girls.”

Amy Jussel, Founder Executive Director, Shaping Youth

Off Target

Target’s e-mail response:

“Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.”

Have a Plan, Items in Place

• Worst case scenarios such as downed plane, terrorist attack, etc:– Have messaging in place– Communication guidelines in place – In some cases, prepared statements

• Emotions involved get shared socially across the Internet, making it a community loss: It’s about them

• Prepare to provide regular updates on a public schedule, even if there is no update

Advance Work

• Pre-select and train your social media team• Have an in-bound blogger relations contact• Make sure there are monitoring and fielding processes in

place• Do the executives understand the immediacy of online?

Preordained executive contacts necessary• Similarly, having legal buy-in beforehand is critical

Social Media Tools for Crisis

• Launching a blog before crisis • Blog dark site for major issues that involve human lives• Social network accounts: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube• Integrate social activities into traditional media room

CRITICAL: Don’t Forget to Be Human

• Yes, communicate facts, etc, but it is Social Media– Genuine emotions– Authentic tone– Real conversations

• Transparency does not mean give away the house, dirty laundry

Central Park Sheep Meadow by New York808 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/newyork808/181896227/

Admitting Fault

• Key to Dell Hell turnaround: Listening• Acknowledging• Doing something about it• If you can’t or shouldn’t fix it, acknowledge

remarks• Use your social tools• Don’t apologize and do it again: Change!

Southwest Airlines Seating Policy

Dell Learns to Listen

From Hell To Heaven

Diacetyl Crisis

Image by Sage - http://tinyurl.com/3jptva

Where the Wild Things Are

Negative Comments and Trolls

• Identify through search, previous incidents

• Don’t answer every post

• >20 authority are musts• Avoid attention seekers• Don’t feed the trolls!• Blog: State your facts,

link back

Questions?

Additional reading: http://tinyurl.com/4g8bug

Contact: Geoff Livingston703-894-5460geoff@livingstonbuzz.comTwitter: geoffliving