Crisis Management & Social Media

Social media have brought about some positive changes to the PR industry. They provide the PR practitioner with new and better communication channels as they allow interaction and real- time communication with the audience. PR at present has the opportunity to engage with the audience as communication has shifted, from being one-way to a community network.

On the other hand, there are some challenges for the PR practitioner. The widespread use of social media means that any messages can travel fast and far to reach anybody throughout the world; nothing can be kept secret and this is particularly important in crisis management, which has become more complex and challenging.

The emergence of the ‘Citizen Journalist’

Social media have empowered individuals by giving them voice and the ability to reach a widespread audience. They now have the power to effect change. So social media can easily generate a crisis or, build one up. Bad news or even incorrect information about an organisation can spread rapidly, especially as the online world never sleeps. Also, the emergence of smartphones and tablets means that people are able to access social media anytime and anywhere.

Another popular trend is the growth of NGO’S and anti-business activists which put a lot of pressure on organisations. People on social media can be easily mobilised to sabotage a company. Organisations need to be able to react immediately and effectively. Therefore, is it essential that every organisation is prepared to handle a crisis, by having a crisis plan in place (and a social media crisis plan).

A recent example of how social media can trigger a crisis is the Domino’s pizza case in 2009 where two of its employees posted a distasteful video on YouTube in which they were engaging in food violation activities. The videos went viral online and were viewed by millions of people until they were blocked. Also, a huge buzz was created through Twitter.

What is interesting about this case is the way management handled the crisis; it also illustrates how organisations need to adapt their crisis management plans in a way that is consistent with the social media era.

What Domino’s did:

1. Management chose to communicate with its audience only through social media

2. The company didn’t issue a press release but instead posted a statement on its corporate website

3. The company shared an apologetic email it had received from the offenders

4. The president of Domino’s pizza USA apologised for the incident and gave further information in a YouTube video

5. Domino’s started twittering

The crisis communication plan was very successful and the buzz died out very quickly.

Reference: http://www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=1061

Crisis management: Threat or Opportunity?

Every PR practitioner will face a crisis at some point or another in his career, whether that is a small crisis like a banner gone wrong or a huge crisis like product failure. Some crises can be solved in a very short period of time while others can continue for a long time before they are completely cleared.
 

A badly managed crisis can destroy a company’s reputation as much as it can destroy the PR practitioner’s. On the other hand a well-managed crisis strengthens the company’s reputation as well as the PR practitioner’s.
 

An optimistic outlook of a crisis is that it is an opportunity for PR to raise its profile, status and role in an organisation. Very often, the value of PR is underestimated. Company CEO's are more concerned with business objectives rather than communication objectives and fail to realise how the two are linked.
 

A reputation is a company's most important asset and it is PR’s job to protect it. If a PR practitioner manages to emerge strong out of a crisis and maintain the company’s reputation, then he will be able to demonstrate the priceless value of PR.
 

For this to happen:
 

For a crisis to be handled well, the PR practitioner needs to plan ahead of it and make sure that he is prepared for any events that might follow. The truth is that most crises are predictable; the PR practitioner’s job is to think of any possible scenarios, the way each of them would be handled and include everything in a crisis manual.
 

The crisis manual needs to be read and rehearsed by everybody involved in its execution. The manual should include response papers, people’s roles, contact details and any other useful tips. It should be short (otherwise people won’t be bothered to read it) and straight to the point, avoiding technical jargon so everyone can clearly understand it.

A  useful guide for crisis management can be found in the book 'Public Relations for the New Europe' by Trevor Morris and Simon Goldsworthy, chapter 18

 

A modern example of War Spin

Last Wednesday, on our first class in Contemporary Theory and Issues in Public Relations, we watched a documentary by BBC called ‘War Spin’. If you haven’t heard of it before, ‘War Spin’, a BBC Correspondent documentary, is about how the US and British governments and military forces mislead and misinformed the public during the 2003 Iraq war. I have to say that I’ve never had an eye for politics, but anybody who watches this video can clearly see how propaganda and ‘spin’ are used in modern time public communication. 

According to Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell (2006), spin or news management, (which implies propaganda) refers to “a coordinated strategy to minimise negative information and present in favourable light a story that could be damaging to self- interests” (p.3). Shawn J. Parry- Giles (2002) defined propaganda as “conceived of as strategically devised messages that are disseminated to masses of people by an institution for the purpose of generating action benefiting its source” (cited in Jowett and O’Donnell, 2006, p.5). This, as you will come to realise by reading the following story, is exactly the communication strategy the allies used during the Iraq war.
 
As the public’s opposition to the war grew stronger, something had to be done in order to regain their trust and support. So, the US Government, decided to appeal to people’s emotions by staging the rescue of a young Private, named, Jessica Lynch. The only true fact about this story was that Private Lynch had been taken to a hospital after being captured by Iraqis. What followed thereafter, was a ‘Hollywood film production’ by the US government that was broadcasted by every major news channel in the US, Britain and Australia. 

Although the Pentagon was fully aware that the hospital, where Private Lynch was being kept, had been cleared from the Iraqi troops the previous day, US Army Rangers and Navy Seals forced their way in there to ‘rescue’ her, by breaking doors and restraining doctors and other patients. Later, the Pentagon ordered a press conference to present a five-minute video of the rescue. I note here that the certain video was the only source of information regarding the incident. 

At the press meetings, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence would not offer any clear answers for the questions posed by journalists or give out any specific information about the incident. Conveniently enough, Private Lynch had suffered amnesia so she could not make any statements. 

Every bit of information was ‘spun’ in order to be presented in a way that would favour the party; from lying about Lynch’s stab and shot wounds (which were non-existent), claiming that she had gone down fighting (she later stated that her gun got stuck), the (mis)treatment she had received at the hospital (she received the best treatment available).
 
This event coincided with a lot of spinning that was taking place at that time of the war. For instance, the US government had embedded with the military 600 journalists who were being fed only with information which the government wished to release. In the process, they lied about war progress; they broadcasted videos of friendly football matches between local children and soldiers and of Iraqis surrendering, to show that enemy troops were leaning. As if that wasn’t enough, when the US military fired missiles in a residential area which killed civilians, they blamed the Iraqi military. 

The fact that reality can be so distorted and that people can be so ignorant about it amazes me. Unfortunately, at that point, their tactics were successful and they managed to lure the public on their side.


This is a part from the BBC Correspondent documentary which shed light on the true story:
 

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References: Jowett, G. and O'Donnell, V., (2006). Propaganda and Persuasion. 4th ed. Sage Publications Inc.

To read the whole story behind  Private Lynch's rescue visit:  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/may2003/jess-m23.shtml 

 

Blogs and the 'Social Media Era'

It's no news that nowadays social media are overtaking traditional media. Don't get me wrong, traditional media will always have their place in the PR toolkit. However, social media provide new opportunities for organisations to interact with their publics in a way that was not possible before. With social media you can reach a wide audience, quite easily, with a fast and cost-effective way. Most importantly though, it can raise your brand awareness.

Blogs are a very popular example of social media. A blog can help an organisation communicate it's messages while at the same time allowing people to give feedback and share their own ideas through comments. This  helps to create and maintain a relationship between the organisation and the audience, which is what PR is all about. Therefore, a blog should be treated as face-to-face communication.

For more information about blogging (and a good list of do's and dont's), check out this presentation:

Blogging and video workshop

View more presentations from Matt holland.