RED ALERTSocial Media & Crisis Management

Mark FarmerPSEWEB: July 28, 2015

Today

● What happens online when a crisis hits.● What to do.

o How to prepare.o How & where to listen.

o Social media dashboards.o Media outlets online.o Twitter.o Other tools.

● How to respond.● How to report.● What not to do.

Today

● I’m drawing on my years in public relations and the online world for this information.

● This isn’t about any specific employer or even the higher ed sector itself – it’s drawn from a wide range of challenging experiences across many industries and experiences.

50 shades of crisis

● I have a longstanding friendship with crises. ● These are just a few of the ones I’ve dealt with that

from my long career in communications:● The following are from my experience in agencies, for-profits, non-

profits, the energy sector, education, telecomms… you name it.

50 shades of crisis

● Protests● Crime● Accidents● Natural disasters● Infrastructure● Industrial espionage● Safety...and more!

Where are you going to hear it first?

● Online?● Word of mouth?● Other?

Where are you going to hear it first?

● Online?● I think it’s word of mouth

Where are you going to hear it first?

● I usually find out about it through word of mouth first.● That doesn’t mean I never hear about things online

first - I do. But word of mouth is still usually that much quicker.

Here’s how I heard about it one day

Here’s how I heard about it one day

• At a previous employer, one day I heard a helicopter hovering. Not passing overhead, but hovering. Hearing helicopters passing overhead is fairly common in Toronto.

• I knew something was up because the sound of the helicopter wasn’t moving.

• So I looked out and saw a news helicopter and rushed to my computer, and lo and behold, found out there had been an accident.

• So you can find out about crises in a wide variety of ways.

So what do you do?

● First things first.

Know who’s in charge

Know who’s in charge● First of all, you have to back up a bit, because what you do in a crisis

situation should start long before a crisis hits.● The man in the previous slide is Alexander Haig. He was Secretary of

State for the US under Ronald Reagan.● Right after the assassination attempt on Reagan happened, he uttered

what became a very famous line “As of now, I am in control here.”● Except he wasn’t. According to the presidential line of succession there

were two people in front of him. Any guesses as to who they might be?● The Vice President and then the Speaker of the House.

● The lesson here? Have a plan so that A) Everyone knows what’s expected of them in a crisis and B) You know who’s in charge.

● Don’t be like Al.

Know who’s in charge

● Protocolo Chain of command: do you have one?

● Who’s monitoring? Who’s “got the ball?”

● Who speaks for the institution at times of crisis?o Usually media relations / mainstream media enquiries

Know who’s in charge● Figure out the chain of command before you need to.● Know who’s “got the ball.” For our purposes here today, this applies especially to

monitoring online chatter and responding as needed.o True story: one weekend in February I was on my way to a film shoot (that’s something I do in my spare time for

fun) when I got a call.o “Mark, there’s been a major power outage. Power’s been lost to large parts of the campus, including student

residences. We need you to start monitoring social media. Immediately”o This was on the second-coldest day of the year. And a power outage means no electricity to run the heating

system for the university and its residences. This could have very quicly become an even bigger problem than it already was.

o So I’m heading to a film shoot and now I have to (potentially) drop everything and start monitoring and responding. If this situation had happened even a few months prior to when it actually did, I would have had to disappoint the whole damn cast of the film and go home to start working. Luckily, by that time I had an assistant who I tapped to monitor that day while I did my thing. Then I picked up monitoring the next day.

o That’s why it’s important to know who’s available and on tap for emergency situations. You can’t take time off in a crisis, but you can delegate if you have the capacity and infrastructure set up to do so.

o It’s also critical to know who speaks for the institution in a crisis. That’s usually media relations. In smaller organizations that don’t have a separate media relations department, that may be the head of communications or even the president. It really depends.

o But know who that is and make sure everyone else knows, so no one starts talking out of line.o Also, make sure you know how to contact them. (produce phone list)

What’s the first step?

How

● Social media dashboard● The digital channels of mainstream news outlets● Twitter

o Specific accountso Searcheso Hashtags

Dashboards

Dashboards● I use a mix of four different social media dashboards, because

each one is a different tool best suited to a different task. Each one gives you a different capacity at a different price point.

● I use two large enterprise ones: Sysomos Heartbeat and Radian6 as my daily bread & butter, specifically Radian6.

● In the mid-range I use Sprout Social mainly as our institutional memory on social media, but it’s also a useful tool for monitoring, if you only have the ability to use one dashboard.

● And then there are feemium ones such as HootSuite. I use HootSuite because even the free version is tremendously useful and has its purpose, even though I have access to large institutional dashboards.

Where to start?

Where to start?

● I think HootSuite is the natural place to start, because:o It’s free.o It’s flexible.o You can easily upgrade to a Pro or Enterprise license, starting for $10 / month.

You can even upgrade to an enterprise-level dashboard called UberVU through Hootsuite if you so choose at some point. They bought them last year.

o Hootsuite gives you the ability to monitor a number of channels, hashtags and searches quickly & easily, and that’s essential during a crisis.

o HootSuite also allows you to perform deeper searches once you’ve got a handle on the crisis, to try to suss out some useful intelligence.o That’s one important thing you’ll want to do with all these dashboards: try to get some useful

intelligence that will paint a picture or tell a story once things have settled down slightly, and you have time to think.

o As a matter of fact, this is the first thing I do each morning: crack open HootSuite and do a quick look at what’s going on around the York brand online.

Where to muscle up?

Where to muscle up?

● If you’re serious about being able to monitor and respond during a crisis, you’re likely going to want to buy a mid-range or enterprise-level dashboard. I use Radian6.

● Sysomos also does a good job, and there are dozens of other similar dashboards out there from NUVI to Crimson Hexagon to UberVU. You name it.

Radian6: Land ‘O Widgets

Radian6: Land ‘O Widgets● This is what Radian6 gives you: widgets that allow you to dive into

data. That’s its strong point. Nobody does it as well, in my opinion.● In spite of all these widgets, it’s a simple search result set – what

they call the “river of news” – that you’ll rely on. It sounds very grandiose, “river of news,” doesn’t it? But it’s just the results Radian6 brings back.

● A simple river of news is going to be your most important resource.● So you can see the variety of widgets available to you: pie charts, a

list of influencers, a word cloud, mention trend, river of news. What do you think is the most important one? What one would you pay the most attention to?

The most important widget: you

● I have yet to find an automated reporting mechanism that can replace someone scanning a series of mentions, summarizing them in English and then figuring out what’s important and what’s not. So far, that functionality doesn’t exist in a piece of software.

● So the most important widget is elbow grease, plain and simple. We do it every single morning at York.

● We scrub our mentions for anything that “pops,” anything that requires attention. We’ve gotten very good at being able to scan a lot of information very quickly to identify threats, opportunities, potential crises, etc.

Who you gonna listen to?

• Local media’s online channels

Who you gonna listen to?● So number two is our list of sources to pay attention to. Survey

number three: what are some outlets you turn to for breaking news online?

● We have our top priority outlets in times of crisis that we pay attention to, and then the next tier.

● We look not only at their Twitter feeds, but also at their websites & Facebook pages. Twitter’s number one for what they’re breaking, but you may find important mentions that can impact your brand on their other platforms:o You want to follow the thread of conversation & comments. This is where a lot of

false information can get shared during a crisis, which may need correction by you, and which you may need to be aware of from a brand impact point of view.

o What are people saying? How are they reacting?o It’s important to take the temperature of conversation on these channels.

Twitter

● Specific sourceso Pre-set - some of the previous sources, and others.o Discovered organically during a crisis.

Don’t forget to capture these sources for monitoring the next time.

● Twitter searcheso Keywordso Hashtags

● Hashtags = important!

Twitter● In addition to monitoring Twitter through the accounts of local media, you should monitor

Twitter directly either through a dashboard or Twitter searches.● There are certain pre-set sources you should have ready to go for monitoring in a crisis, and

we’ll talk about those in a minute. Those are the ones you know you’re going to need to monitor.

● More importantly, you’ll discover important sources during a crisis, which you’ll need to monitor.o Conversation leaders and news sources will emerge.o Note these for future monitoring, in addition paying attention to them during the crisis.

● So even if you don’t have a dashboard, you can still monitor Twitter. And since Twitter remains the place where breaking news gets reported first on social, and where most of the conversation and sharing of links around it happens, it’s going to lead conversation in a crisis situation.

● Finally, pay attention to hashtags - they’re where conversation focuses. As you start to see certain hastags trend, set those up as discrete Twitter searches.

● Don’t forget that hashtags can jump around during a crisis. What you start with may not be what you end with.

The power of the Twitters

Outside the dashboard: specific sources

● Will vary from industry to industry.o Reddito Facebooko Niche channels / platforms

Outside the dashboard: specific sources● Obviously conversation can happen on other channels that you don’t

need a dashboard to monitor.● And, in fact, dashboards tend to do a generally bad job at monitoring

Instagram specifically, and in some cases forums like reddit. ● Obviously, those are two very important conversation media.

● Reddit has really come a long way in the last two years as a forum and conversation source.

● James Bradshaw once asked a class of students where they get their news. They answered, “Reddit.” He asked “Where else do you get your news?” They said “…Reddit.”

● If this does nothing else, it should show you the importance of monitoring reddit, if not other forums. Not only is it where a lot of people get their news, but where they comment on it.

● Facebook is important to monitor for conversation, but it’s used by an older demographic for conversation, typically.

Meet my little friend

X

Meet my little friend

● I mentioned having go-to sources for monitoring ready to go. Here’s how I would suggest you organize those sources.

● Through an online bookmarking tool.● I used to use delicious and then it started being awful.● Now I use diigo.

Outliners

Outliners● It allows you to create lists of bookmarks that you can share online.● You do that through an outliner.● Here’s one example of an outliner I would use if I were working for

an aiport or an airline.● Say there was an aviation accident, such as – god forbid – a plane

crash at Pearson in Toronto. If you were in charge of monitoring social media for Pearson, how would you know what to monitor?

● In a situation like that, your ability to think clearly often goes out the window, so the more prepared you can be, the better.

● That’s where a list like a Diigo outliner can help: it allows you to create a page of essential links from your own bookmarks that you can just – boom – open up in an emergency or a crisis and start using.

● That’s its value: it’s one less thing to think about in a crisis situation

Another helper?

Another helper● Helper apps like Tab Snooze or Helper Buddy allow you to take a

snapshot of all the tabs and logins you have open during a session.● Anyone hazard a guess as to why that’s useful?● Because at some point you’re going to go home and lose all your

open tabs, Twitter searches, your place in Reddit, etc.● Wouldn’t it be easy to just click a button and recreate that?

Assuming you’re not bringing your laptop home with you?● It is for me, because when I’m monitoring a crisis, I have a minimum

of 25 tabs open. I use most of the 8 gigs of memory on my computer during a crisis situation, thanks in no small part to that.

● So you can see why it’d be useful to be able to open all those tabs again with a click of a button.

Dark site

● Dropbox / Google Drive / Trello, whatever● Pre-prepared responses● Content calendar● Documents you can work up together & share

Dark site● This is essential if you’re going to be fully ready for a crisis.● Anyone know what a dark site is?● Most commonly, it’s a private place to go where you can…

o Store documents during a crisiso Host a content calendaro Work on documents and responses as a teamo Etc.

● Some people also use the term to mean a website you turn on to replace your regular one during a crisis, but that’s nont what I’m talking about here.

● This is essential, and it’s essential that it not be hosted on-site. Anyone know why?

● In case the power goes out.

Canned Messaging

● Can sound inauthentic if not done correctly.● Can be the basis for real-time messaging.● Especially if you need to get it out to other

people / other departments quickly.

Canned messaging

● Canned messaging can be an essential part of what you have pre-prepared on a dark site.

● In a crisis, often there’s no time to think and work up responses.

● That’s why canned messaging is useful:o You can’t anticipate every possibility.o But you can have some generic messaging worked up and some

specific messaging for the scenarios you’re most likely to encounter.o You probably know what some of the more likely situations are right

now for your workplace.

What’s missing here?

● Your own properties

Responding

● How do you respond?o Get something out there ASAP, if only to say “we

acknowledge it - we’re working on it.”o Doesn’t mean you have to go into detail. That can take a long time

and often has to go through multiple stakeholders for approval.o But silence is deadly during a crisis: even if you haven’t got a

solution or a response, people want to know that you’re at least aware of it and working on it.

o That doesn’t mean you need to respond to everything ASAP, or provide information you’re uncertain about.o Important: you don’t have to respond to every question or

comment: that’s whack-a-mole, and as people see you responding, they’ll ask more questions.

o Focus on correcting misinformation and getting your message out.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tpapi/2765541278/

Your friend: the screen cap

● If people are saying things that are offensive, threatening, etc., you want a record. A screen cap is a good idea - shows the provenance, date, etc.

● You may also want to copy & paste text.● But I’d make the screen cap your first priority.

Reporting

● At some point you’re going to need to do a report to management.

● Your report should have three sections.● This is what we do every morning at York for a general report,

and more often during crises.● Note important players in the conversation, reach and

sentiment.● Synopsis● Recommended Actions● Details

o Important players / influencers.o Reach / amplification (demonstrated by shares, RTs, etc.)o Sentiment (NOT automated sentiment)

Synopsis

● This is going to management.● What is management during a crisis?● BUSY.● What do you need to do with your report during this

time?o Cut out everything that isn’t essential.o Prioritize.o Treat it like a journalistic exercise - the inverted pyramid: put the

most important thing at the top.o But above all else, remember to be brief and to the point. It’s a

crisis report, not a term paper.

What do you not do?

● Hop onto every comment right away.o Do correct things that are manifestly untrue, if they’re

significant or if the source is influential.o It’s ok to say “I’ll need to get back to you.”o Provide an ETA if you do so.o Update that ETA if you don’t meet it.

Lets them know you haven’t forgotten about them.

● Don’t feed the trolls.

Negative comments

● When should you delete? What are the criteria?o Obscenity?

o Threats?

o Racism / sexism / homophobia?

o Criticism?

o Solicitations?

o Off-topic content?

Negative comments

● These are the definites (black) and maybes (grey)o Obscenity?

o Threats?

o Racism / sexism / homophobia?

o Criticism?

o Solicitations?

o Off-topic content?

Why not censor?

● Authenticityo Trust

● Screen captureso Once you say something online, it lives forever

● Instead, know when to take things offlineo When someone is hectoring you.

o When it’s a customer service issue.

o “Deal direct” with people.

Why?● If you remove negative comments simply because you don't want to see

them, your communications come across as inauthentic.

● If comments are abusive, out of context or otherwise contravene your policies, they can be taken down, and you can state the fact that you're doing so.

● If a comment isn't complimentary to you, but is otherwise inoffensive, it shouldn't necessarily be removed.

Thank you

● @markus64● slideshare.net/Markus6464● webheresies.com● ca.linkedin.com/in/markfarmer64