I have started teaching my Strategic Communications courses at the University of Louisville, and I asked my students how they would define not only strategic communications, but also PR. One student mentioned how they felt that whenever you consider PR, you are looking at a professional that is managing a particular image or reputation in various situations, including crisis situations. This seems to come up quite frequently, and it does beg the question on why we are not only discussing this even more in PR, but why we are not allowing undergrad students to have more experience and knowledge about crisis communications as a separate elective course? I have seen only crisis communications being offered at the graduate and doctoral level, which seems to me that this needs to be adapted.
PR disasters (or otherwise known as PR Nightmares) can be handled proactively. Training and understanding of all of the facts are just some of the best practices to keep in mind – as well as understanding the nature and application of effective strategies involving emerging technologies being used in emergency and crisis situations. Mashable came out with a list of some examples of some of these PR disasters and crises that emerged through social media including Kenneth Cole, American Red Cross, and others to name a few. Crises appear in various formats such as corporate crises like Enron, natural disasters like the Japanese Tsunami and the Joplin Tornadoes, and social media crises like United Airlines (Guitar Song) and Domino’s YouTube crisis.
What are some other practices that need to be taken into consideration when you are dealing with a PR crisis via social media? Here are just a few proactive tips and guidelines to keep in mind.
- Set up a monitoring system and plan: Whether you are using a paid service like Kyoo or using just free services, this needs to be decided on before a crisis happens. In addition, having a social media handbook for crisis communications is absolutely key – the CDC and other government agencies / military branches have done a very good job with this.
- Continue to evaluate presence before, during, and after a crisis: Have people comment and add their own suggestions on the crisis communications practices and actions – people want to feel like their voices are being heard and that they feel they can make a difference. Engaging in this practice is key to establish strong credibility and trust among key audiences. This seems to work in times where there is not a crisis.
- Making sure to respond quickly with transparency and action steps for others to take: People are expecting PR professionals to respond to their inquires more than ever, especially when it comes to social media.
- Understanding what would be some of the top questions being asked in a crisis, and prepare for them: There are going to be some questions related to social media in various crisis situations, so it is key to make sure to have some prepared answers and be able to discuss each of these with various audiences as well as in different mediums.
- Have training sessions and continuing education regularly: Taking the time and investment in begin aware of not only the new emerging technologies, but also how to apply them strategically, is essential for proactive crisis communications practices. Ongoing sessions and workshops for all members of the team or organization when it comes to social media and crisis communications is very important.
- Organize both traditional and organic keywords for SEO monitoring: Being aware of what are some of the trigger key words as well as any that organically appear via social media is a good early warning detection sign for crisis communication professionals.
- Be aware that people are expecting responses across platforms: People are going to social media to get more information about a crisis, but they are also going there to get answers and responses from these various organizations. This is another emerging trend to keep in mind.
- Establish presence and outlets for brand before a crisis: Understanding where people are going to network and share information is key – and making sure to take claim to these various platform sites and usernames is critical. Once you have an established presence on FB, Twitter, Google+, or other sites – you need to make sure you have set instructions and guidelines for the conversations emerging on these sites internally as well as externally. In addition, incorporating some of the applications and features of each of these sites (ex. Hangouts on Google+ to host meetings and interviews / training sessions or Twitpic for taking pictures to share via Twitter) also need to be discussed early on as well.
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