A Jolt of Business Buzz Mojo
By Harjiv Singh
Five Things You Can Do to Prepare for a Crisis in an Era of Instant Communications
Microblogging services such as Twitter and an infinite host of other social media platforms have enabled anyone with online access to communicate instantly with a global audience. As such, we now live in a world of billions of potential influencers. One person’s opinions about a company, regardless of whether those opinions are based on evidence, speculation or emotional impulse, can spread within minutes among networks comprising thousands, sometimes even millions, of individuals. Unsubstantiated hearsay about a company can quickly harden into fact – and live on forever, popping up again and again in search engine results. And if those rumors go “viral” – that is, seen and distributed by enough people – it can attract the attention of the mass media, leading to a full blown communications crisis.
High-profile examples include Google’s alleged plans to buy Twitter, followed by another stating Apple would acquire the micro-blogging service for $700 million. As we know now, both rumors proved false, but the wild speculation grabbed the attention of the trade media and undoubtedly impacted industry decision-makers around the globe.
Whether an online conversation involves something unfounded or true, the worst reaction is to ignore it. Instead, organizations should take a ‘Murphy’s Law’ approach, that is, imagine the worst possible things that can be said about your brand and have a plan for quickly and effectively responding to them.
Here are five steps your organization can take to anticipate and prepare for a communications crisis:
- Know Who Will Do What: Your senior officers and communications team should create procedures to be followed in case of a crisis. Who within the organization is designated to respond to rumors? What platforms will they use? Is there a company-wide manual that provides all employees with the dos and don’ts of reacting to online scuttlebutt or inquiries from professional journalists?
- Anticipate What You Will Say: What are the typical scenarios that the organization might expect? Do they involve products, services, customer interactions, employee relations, financial markets, industry practices, corporate social responsibility or something else that can impact your stakeholders? For each area, you can develop general messaging that can be quickly tailored to address a specific issue. Make sure those messages are consistent with the core messaging that your company uses in daily communications through all of its channels. The last thing your organization should do is send mixed messages.
- Keep Your Eyes Open: Assign one or more employees to monitor online conversations about your organization. Make sure to have them monitor both mainstream news stories as well as those that appear in social media. These individuals should bring negative conversations to the attention of senior communications strategists who can then determine if next steps are necessary.
- Be Responsive: The beauty of the Internet is that it enables two-way conversations. If, for example, your organization discovers an unhappy stakeholder on Twitter, invite the individual to speak with you via email, phone or some other channel that will enable you to give them personalized attention and address their concerns in detail.
- If Appropriate, Be Humble: Be humble as an organization. Show that you’re willing to listen and change. Demonstrating a willingness to learn from mistakes and move forward can generate good will among stakeholders. For example, Motrin, the brand for a popular U.S. pain reliever, launched a new ad campaign implying that mothers use baby carrying devices as a fashion statement. The campaign prompted an immediate, viral protest, with women denouncing the depiction on Twitter and even forming a Facebook group to boycott the product. Motrin, which was closely monitoring social media discussions, immediately pulled the ads and apologized, helping to turn a potentially damaging gaff into an opportunity to engage in a positive conversation with its target audience. Another instance involved a YouTube video of two employees, as a prank, tampering with food at a North Carolina Dominoes restaurant. When the video began spreading on the internet, the company posted its own YouTube video of its president reassuring viewers that appropriate actions had been taken.
With the ability of information to quickly become viral through social media, will this increase the number of crisis communications campaigns handled in the PR industry?
By Sean Teaford
Everyone knows that Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984 but few remember the catalyst for his landslide victory. After the first debate, Walter Mondale was the favorite as a normally quick minded Reagan was slow to process and respond. This played into the hands of the democratic strategy which challenged the incumbent President of being too old and beginning to show his age (Reagan was 73 at the time and the oldest President to have ever served). It was clear that Reagan’s mental faculties were beginning to fail (after his presidency he was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease).
After the President’s lackluster performance in the first debate, the Republican Party contracted television producer and political consultant Roger Ailes to coach Reagan before his next televised confrontation with Mondale. Ailes overhauled Reagan’s once genial debate strategy by more heavily prepping him on topics that would be addressed and having him focus on specific points of contention rather that the honest spontaneity that originally got him elected.
Reagan rebounded in the second debate, and confronted challenges regarding his age. Reagan famously quipped, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” which generated measured applause and laughter. The president’s landslide victory saw Mondale carry only his home state of Minnesota (by 3800 votes) and the District of Columbia. Reagan won 49 of 50 states as well as 58.8% of the popular vote and 525 electoral votes (the most of any candidate in United States history).
Ailes knew that he had to prepare the President thoroughly in order to secure a victory. He knew what the most likely questions were going to be and he knew the points that Reagan had to hit in order to be successful. However, he had to tailor the preparation so that the words the President spoke, the way he carried himself in the debate, and the demeanor that he presented to the public was consistent with his character. This is the same strategy that PR professionals must implement when preparing a client for an interview.
An interview is an opportunity for the client to shine. Likeability, intelligence, and confidence are the characteristics that will translate well from interview, to reporter, to the public. The job of the PR professional is to know what questions are coming, what could be brought up, and what points need to be addressed so that the client’s message is well received. Every outcome needs to be considered and prepared for - from current headlines, to stock market trends, to government regulations. All of these things must be in the preparation so that, in the end, the client can position themselves as an expert source in their industry.
Sometimes our clients feel that they don’t need preparation. They feel confident in their own savvy and neglect to think of potential outcomes that could affect the outcome of a story.
Can you advise a client who believes that they don’t need to be coached?
By Sean Teaford
On July 20, 1969, millions watched and listened as Neal Armstrong climbed out of the cramped lunar module, floated down the steps, and took man’s first steps on the Moon. It is a memory that reminds many of a more innocent time in their life and instills a certain amount of pride in the accomplishments of mankind. With all of the technological challenges and the unknowns involved in this mission, this single event typifies the best case scenario.
However, during the Apollo 11 mission, the worst case scenario was always in the back of the mind. William Safire was the man in charge of writing a speech that President Nixon could deliver in the event that the mission to the moon fatally failed. The never-delivered speech began, “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.” Some speeches are never given but, just in case, they have to be written.
When implementing a public relations strategy the same mindset must be utilized. Anyone who has been in this industry for more than a minute and a half knows that not everything goes to plan. What differentiates a good PR firm from the rest is the ability to anticipate multiple media outcomes, both good and bad, and have a plan of attack in place for each one of the projections. What makes a great PR firm is their readiness to counteract negative media coverage through systematic placement and thought leadership as well as a repositioning the corporate message so as to address the issues presented and shift media, and public, favor back to the client’s side.
The economic gauntlet from which we are slowly emerging was an exaggerated period during which PR firms had to carefully maintain favor with the media amidst tough corporate decisions both on the part of their clients and the media outlet itself. Layoffs, budget cuts, declining stock prices, and “corporate restructuring” are just a few of the topics that do not play well in the media but they have been a grim reality for many companies over the past eighteen months. Not only were many companies caught off guard with their communications strategies but numerous PR firms were ill prepared and many failed to pass the test.
During this time the term “crisis communications” has been bandied about in conversations, blogs, and articles when some PR professionals were asked to characterize this period of time. However, times are not always going to be bountiful and when one takes a common sense approach they will be ready for tough times such as these. As a PR professional, anticipating the possible fallout of such economic disasters (as well as other corporate, national, and international crisis’) is part of the job description.
What contingencies can a PR firm put in place in order to anticipate both the possible positive and negative outcomes of a PR campaign?
Is the cliché, there is no such thing as bad publicity, correct?
By Samantha Singh
Last week, I attended a sold out event at the Churchill Club featuring Vint Cerf, “the father of the internet,” who is the co-designer of the Internet’s TCP/IP protocols and the current Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google in conversation with Jessica Vascellaro, tech reporter of The Wall Street Journal. Vint’s intelligence, sense of humor, and engaging personality were proof points of why you should care about Vint.
A few of the forward looking points Vint mentioned are worth noting.
Cloud exchanges or interconnecting clouds
Right now, we don’t have set inter-cloud standards which means that everybody is making clouds but they lack interoperability between them making it nearly impossible to transfer data from cloud A to cloud B. Cloud computing is at a variable capacity; “It’s like time sharing on steroids.” If it has the same protocol, it will be like the Internet. Everybody is equal in this case and it should be the same for cloud, mobile, and more. If we follow the same path we took to develop the Internet, we can do the same for cloud mobile. This is an area that is still being explored, but seems promising.
The Obama Administration expressed interest in using cloud-based computing techniques to make government more efficient and cross-share of agency communication. However, additional measures must also be taken to secure the cloud; it is critical to develop strong authentication. The next generation will address many of the inadequacy issues that are currently present. Ideally they want to make the cloud a collaboration process, able to share of information, so that everyone will have access to the same product.
Mobility
Our smart phones will replace all of our home remote controls (no need to have five different remotes on your coffee table) and prove the demise of “little gadgets.” We use our smart phones for just about everything, including making payments, why not flip channels with it too. This reminds me of the Adam Sandler movie Click, with the “universal remote” that can control your life and anyone in it. Seems that our smart phones will become even smarter and we will continue to be dependent on them. Let’s hope it doesn’t make us dumb.
New Internet
Currently, Vint and friends are conducting an experiment at NASA under the title “The Interplanetary Internet/protocol” (computer networking in space). While they are currently at the development stage equal to where they were 40 years ago, they are taking what has been accomplished for the Internet thus far as the backbone for the Interplanetary Internet. As for the mobile environment, if you put the Interplanetary protocol on top of the Google Android OS for mobile devices, anticipating it works, this would change mobile and the Internet as you know it today, making it more robust, open source, and enables the ability to build a more complex multiple.
Optical switching may be the revolution that everyone is looking for as it is an efficient way of moving huge quantities of information back and forth, another area of interest for Vint.
Vint is definitely on a mission and we will just have to wait and see how things continue to develop in the next five or 10 years. As more protocols and standards develop, the planet is the limit. Vint’s principal, “do as little as you can get away with and don’t try to do too much.”
Being on the PR side, we thrive on learning about new technology and innovation and how that will improve or hinder what we do for our clients. I have to admit, I am excited to see some of these technologies in the future. I do think it will improve collaboration and transparency for PR and among team members and clients. It will only make us more efficient and get rid of some of the paper pushing.
Will these technologies change PR for the better?
What are your thoughts?
By Hugh Burnham
One of the key tenets that I counsel our clients on is never to besmirch the competition. It just doesn’t pay. You are far better served outmaneuvering your clients and competing head to head with them in an honorable fashion than coming right out and assassinating their character. Apparently that logic has been lost on Floyd “Joy” Money Mayweather Jr., who stands to make upwards of $40M in a potential Welterweight clash with pound for pound title holder Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao on March 13th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Demand for the fight had been building since Mayweather successfully returned to the ring following a 21 month hiatus, blowing out the smaller Juan Manuel Marquez on September 19th, and reached fever pitch after Pacman destroyed Miguel Cotto in Las Vegas on November 14th. Negotiations for the fight seemed smooth, but got ugly after Floyd Mayweather Sr. made some public comments that he believed Pacquiao was on steroids. It’s one thing to think that someone could be on steroids; it’s another to publicly accuse them of being on steroids with no evidence or proof whatsoever except their athletic prowess.
Mayweather then demanded that both fighters undergo Olympic style testing for the fight, in an apparent effort to both rattle Pacquiao and to force him to submit to more disruptive tests. Pacquiao, a proud man, already incensed with the comments, became enraged with the Mayweathers, and filed suit in a Nevada court to save his good name.
In this case, Mayweather’s PR plan was sound. He thought he could claim the moral high ground by insisting on the Olympic style testing. Against a public weary of cheating athletes, he felt that his plan to establish new testing procedures would be welcomed by the American public. What he didn’t count on was the backlash that the comments his father made would create.
The media sees themselves as arbiters of the truth and evidence is a key component of any argument. If the Mayweather camp had simply insisted on the stringent testing without the accusations, a PR victory would have been virtually assured. But by making baseless allegations, then trying to take the moral high ground with the testing, the Mayweather camp lost out. Pacquiao has never failed a drug test and it is well documented that he feels that blood testing weakened him in the past before his first fight with Erik Morales, which he lost.
The fighters are now locked in mediation with retired Federal Judge Daniel Weinstein, who solved previous disputes between the fighters’ promoters – Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions. Hopefully, the fight will be saved. From a PR standpoint, the big mistake Mayweather made was besmirching his opponent.
In fact, the putdowns make me think of Domino’s recent retaliation over Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi who told Domino’s to well, “get lost” over the holidays after they pulled their advertising from MTV’s Jersey Shore. Surprisingly, Domino’s felt compelled to respond, saying that “tick, tock” Snooki’s 15 minutes were almost up.
Is putting someone down in the media ever a good strategy?
By Sean Teaford
A sensory retreat once consisted of staying at a lake cabin in the woods or going to the beach for the weekend. Things have changed and the definition has changed. Sensory retreat is now synonymous with virtual escapism.
In recent years, virtual escapism has effected change in numerous industries and has given birth to new streams of revenue. On the other end of the spectrum, Adrian Higgins of the Washington Post wrote of the dangers of this constant escapism in today’s society, “Technology has drawn us into our interconnected webs, in the office, on the street, on the park bench, to the point that we exist virtually everywhere except in the physical world.”
An additional point to consider is the two Northwest Airlines pilots were found to have been distracted by their laptops when they overshot their destination by 150 miles in October. For some, being connected can be the biggest disconnect.
While those pilots may have been an exception to the rule, virtual escapism is quickly becoming part of the acceptable norm in many fields. No field has seen this in a more pronounced way than the emergence of social media in the public relations. Public Relations has been, and always will be, about the relationships that people cultivate and nurture with those in the media. It is a profession that has adapted to the times based on the changing of the media medium. The changes in recent decades have been in step with the advancements made during the digital revolution: from typewriters to laptops, from the post office to email, from land lines to cell phones.
One of the most recent changes in the industry has been the incorporation of social media in most PR campaigns. Unfortunately, many of these new implementations have been at the sacrifice of traditional PR strategy. Virtual connections, links, and followers have begun to replace the personal relationships that have driven this industry from its inception.
Relationships, both personal and professional, are hard work. Just because someone retweeted your post doesn’t mean you have a buildable relationship with that follower. In order to nurture and sustain a viable connection with someone, you must have personal contact that not only reinforces what you are doing but who you are as a person and a professional. Social Media removes you from personal interaction with other people subsequently reinforcing social ineptitude that has been increasingly instilled in people since the advent of video games.
Social Media is the beach house of the PR industry. While it is nice to stay there for a few days every once in a while, it is time to end our vacation and get back to work.
Do you find it ironic that this has been posted as a blog?
How large of a role do you think Social Media should play in a PR campaign? Will this change in the future?
By David King
It’s that time of year again where the media is saturated with New Year’s Resolutions, 2010 Outlooks, and Christmas shopping bonanza.
Don’t hate it, use it.
Just this last year, we’ve shamelessly exploited the swine flu, unemployment rates, blocked loan modifications, and yes – even Christmas itself – to get coverage. And we’re good at it.
Balancing on a delicate tight rope between media interests and corporate messages is a sign of good PR.
And more often than not, the media is interested in the latest train wreck and not the blue skies ahead.
One-time CIO developer editor Esther Schindler once told me she was looking for sources that “breath in the problem domain” which stuck with me as an interesting description of a good source.
Breathe the problem. Live in it. Talk about it until you’re blue in the face or red with anger at the monstrosity of the problem.
In marketing you may reduce costs, but in PR you may need to flip that around and instead talk about the how much cost is being wasted.
The point is relate your company to the latest news, today it’s Christmas, New Year’s Resolutions, and 2010 outlooks. We’ve been exploiting and just today it got our client three paragraphs in the Financial Times.
If you think your company doesn’t relate to the holidays, we dare you to challenge us in the comments below. We dare you!!
By Nazli Ekim
One of the common pressures of being a PR professional servicing clients within the tech industry is that there is a ton competition for coverage. A nice note or a pleasant phone conversation can be breath of fresh air.
Every day, I send out a plethora of pitches and make numerous phone calls. Most of the time, editors won’t tell me why they won’t follow up on a story, even though the pitch was tailored specifically to them and I know that it is something they would normally cover. That is just the way things go; most of the time we are treated as “the help” and forgotten once an editor gets his story or interview. Sometimes, they shut us down before they even consider what we have to say.
Of course, I can’t blame them for doing so. Getting bombarded by hundreds of PR people every day with irrelevant pitches must not be a pleasant thing. On the other hand, it makes it a lot harder for the rest of us who actually do their homework before hitting the send button and following up.
A recent experience with Bob Brown, Executive Editor of Network World made me realize why I enjoy my job.
I’ve been chasing Bob for a story that is out of his beat for a while now, a month and a half to be specific. The reason why I was chasing him was because he reported on a very similar story and of course I wanted him to get familiar with my client as well. I didn’t just do this so I would get recognition from the client, but because the stories were very similar and I wanted to make sure next time he’s reporting on something similar that he would keep me, and my client, in mind.
He is also the Executive Editor, which means he could assign a follow up story if he sees something worthwhile. What started as a cordial dance of going back and forth, with me persistently following up, finally ended with a pleasant phone call and an honest answer.
“You know I don’t usually cover this.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I wrote the other story because I had time and it was pleasant to write, but to be honest, as the executive editor I have to make sure my stories get traffic and this one didn’t get that much traffic. I think what you have to offer is unique but I’m not sure what to tell you beyond that.”
That is all I needed to hear; that simple explanation was enough. After going back and forth all this time, he had finally decided to come forth and tell me the real reason. It wasn’t because he wasn’t interested it was because of numbers. I understand that and I respect that. As one of the primary editors of Network World, he has duties. And it could be that the way the story was written, it just didn’t generate the kind of traffic he had hoped for.
PR people and journalists engage in a two-way communication. I wish everyone was as open as Bob about the story he wrote and why he may not revisit the subject anytime soon. It would arm us with more tools and help us serve journalists better.
Are there particular reporters that seem to respond better to questions than others?
By David King
How many times have you heard the growth stats?
Like Facebook’s 276% growth in 35-54 year-olds or Twitter’s 1,382 percent growth – both reported earlier this year. How about that Twitter has more traffic than Digg, LinkedIn, and the New York Times?
If you talk to someone who’s involved in social media marketing, there’s a good chance a comment on a stat like these escaped their mouth within the first 5 minutes of conversation.
Half validation of social media marketing and half reassurance there’s a market for our services, we watch the growth of these platforms like an eager investor who’s stock portfolio just keeps trending up.
But just recently our cheery outlook has been marred by reports of our balloon starting to flatten.
AdWeek reported that adults may have made Facebook less cool for young people, and Comscore found that young people are spending 25 percent less time on Facebook than three months ago.
TechCrunch recently covered that Twitter’s growth (over 1,000 percent earlier this year) is now nearly flat. Wordpress and Blogger.com combined have only gained about 30 million more visitors since March.
What do you think? Are we at a plateau? Will these social media outlets eventually start to shrink? Does it matter?
These growth stats have captivated quite an audience this past year, but even while traditional media is shrinking, we continue to invest in it. With or without growth, isn’t it obvious we should be doing social media marketing on whatever platform our customers are using? If Twitter went out of business in a decade, wouldn’t our stakeholders still be congregating online somewhere else?
What do you think would happen to you if Twitter went out of business? Put your comments in below.
By David King
If you’re a PR professional in Silicon Valley, there’s a reasonable chance you were at the latest annual PRSA Media Predicts event yesterday – where an interesting battle unfolded.
The moderator told a mixed panel of bloggers and press outlets that as long as they don’t throw chairs at each other, he won’t have to call security.
Throwing his chair is probably just what Om Malik wanted to do when he was called “not a real journalist”
What is a “real journalist” and why would Om be excluded from the definition? If you’re not familiar with Om, check out his bio or his LinkedIn profile, then come back here and comment below – is Om a “real journalist”?
Malik’s GigaOm is one of Silicon Valley’s most popular technology blogs and it chronicles, dissects and analyzes the biggest stories and trends in technology today. Malik himself can be a bit brash and outspoken, but the comment, coming from an old school technology journalist at one of the nation’s largest newspapers was a striking reminder of the transformation happening in the media industry.
Are bloggers real journalists? Send me your thoughts.
