In an article from “The Observer,” John Naughton wonders in amazement at how society ever managed without the Internet. Naughton ponders a world without Google, Skype, instant messaging, and online bank accounts. And while the Internet has created boom for most of us, the rise of social media hasn’t been sweet ambrosia for all companies. In fact, with social media and Internet technologies, now company decisions and actions are mostly public, including those of front-line employees. Now, actions that happened last week, last night, or 10 minutes ago can be broadcast across the globe in seconds, creating very dangerous challenges for company branding and reputation efforts.

In the Financial Times article “Perils of a Tarnished Brand,” authors Morgen Witzel and Ravi Mattu notice that even the most scripted and orchestrated product launches can go haywire. And even when “best-intented” marketing plans are well-executed, companies can be exposed to the ramifications of their daily operational and strategic decisions (e.g., Google in China and BP). “What affects reputations, in turn affects brands,” the authors point out.

Every employee is a brand ambassador, and brand management is no longer simply the purview of marketing managers. Even the best branding intentions can go awry when actions don’t back up corporate speak, say Witzel and Mattu.

Of larger concern however, is marketing cost-cutting trends in the name of efficiency that potentially leave brands and reputations exposed.

Robert Mabro, Honorary President of Oxford’s Institute for Energy, describes this problem in a letter to the Financial Times. He writes, “(Companies) no longer want to employ specialists in soft matters, such as political issues and the like. When an accident occurs, they find themselves hopelessly unprepared. This of course (ends up) destroying shareholder value!” Moreover, economist John Kay sums up the problem quite succinctly, “Yesterday’s cost-savings are so often today’s corporate crisis.”

One potential solution is for companies to invest more in “softer matters” like brand, reputation, crisis and risk management. Undoubtedly, some of these considerations are tough to justify in an age of narrow return on investment marketing calculations such as cost per lead.

However, Internet and social media technologies that transmit events, news and crisis accounts—at the speed of light—aren’t going away. To succeed in such an environment, companies must invest in the softer functions mentioned above even when “payback” doesn’t appear imminent.

It’s difficult to forecast all types of crises that could occur. A much better plan is preparedness. Is your company up for the challenge?

Related: Financial Times “It Pays to Expect the Unexpected“

Often they think they need a HUGE three-ring binder that includes a page on every single possible crisis that might occur. And that–my marketing, PR and communications friends–is completely unrealistic and ineffective! Not to mention that it could take forever to get an actionable plan together.
When it comes down to it, managing a crisis isn’t about a plan…but knowing how to properly handle ANY crisis that might occur with authority, sincerity, confidence, compassion, etc. It comes down to skill/experience versus having a playbook. And whether you’re a company engaged in only traditional PR or public relations 2.0, these steps will help you to get started in the right direction.
Here are the ten basic steps that I have used successfully for years:
Basic Planning:
1. Invite all departments that could be affected by a potential crisis to a meeting (marketing/PR, legal, manufacturing, IT, executives, etc.).
2. Document each department’s crisis concerns then rank them from low to high in crisis level and low to high in level of potential.
3. Make a color-coded table of the crisis situations (Red = high level crisis, high potential, Orange, high level crisis, medium potential, etc. Colors can vary.).
4. Select the crisis team (typically one key person from each department).
5. Select who will be the spokesperson/people during a crisis (a media trained spokesperson is ideal).
Basic Strategy:
6. Invite the crisis team to a meeting to review the table, agree on each situation and its level and potential.
7. Develop a potential response for each situation (obviously until the situation occurs, you can’t have an exact & accurate response, but it helps to be prepared).
8. Develop a business card size call tree for the crisis team. Make sure that there is one person who is the ONLY key contact for media (when it comes to blogger relations, you may have more than one person). It’s that person’s job to contact the rest of the tree and inform them of the crisis situation.
Basic Practice:
9. Select a partner to work with the key contact to randomly test their crisis situation skills (ex: “Hi, this is Sue from the Daily Herald, word on the street is that your company will be having massive layoffs this week any comments?”). Or practice writing comments for potentially negative blog comments & posts.
10. Take notes on how the practice calls/comments were handled. Evaluate, repeat, practice even more.
[From the original post] …10 easy steps to crisis management, it’s impossible right? One might think so, but I’ve found that when potential crisis situations are actually ranked (from the potentially realistic to the potentially outlandish), discussed and strategized for it actually helps to curb corporate risk aversion. It also helps when there’s a crisis team in place that is all on the same page, practiced and confident. That said, these 10 steps assume that you are dealing with a team that understands public relations and is media trained. When it comes to actually speaking to your publics during a crisis, the key basics of being honest, forthright, etc. still hold.
Your thoughts? Can you plan for a crisis in 10 easy steps and still be effective?
If you want more background, examples and details, you can read the original post over at Kami’s blog.
NOTE: The PR 2.0 chat is held every Wednesday night at 8pm EST on Twitter. The hashtag is #pr20chat. All are welcome to participate! (There’s a different PR 2.0 topic each week.)