As part of our MSc Strategic Public Relations and Communications Managment we have to do a crisis communications exercise, which quite frankly scares me to death. I'm sure it will be an interesting exercise that will teach us many lessons on how to cope under pressure and how to answer all those tricky questions. In this week's PR Week website update, I found a helpful article by Kate Magee on what companies should do when facing communication crises; and how they should be using social media to ensure stakeholders, publics and audiences are given up-to-date information.
Kate Magee's No. 1 top tip on how to plan crisis communications involved the internet:
"The biggest change for crisis management is the revolution of social media... Social media make crises spread faster and allow the public to voice their opinions and experiences or propagate rumours in a highly visible manner. And crises are increasingly breaking online, without the knowledge of the management."
Kate Magee used the recent Eurostar crisis in December 2009 to justify her claim that social media is crucial. "Passengers were tweeting complaints and updates about the situation online. But Eurostar was hindered from the outset - it did not own its "eurostar" or "eurostar uk" name on Twitter.
Her article was very helpful in what to do if you have to deal with crisis communication management, but I particularly liked her tips on using the internet:
1. Make sure you set up early warning systems.
2. Identify your key online influencers in advance.
3. Respond online first, then follow up with a traditional approach (such as a press conference).
4. Remember to still be selective about who you respond to, and where.
I found this news clip from Sky News with PR expert, Chris Reed from Brew Digital. He explains how social media is so important for communicating with disgruntled, stranded Eurostar travellers wanting to go home for Christmas. He explained that Eurostar used social media for marketing tools, but failed to use it as a way for passengers to communicate with Eurostar, and vice versa. "This is a watershed case for crisis communications."
Sweetser and Metzgar investigated the impact of blogs on relationship management during a crisis, (Public Relations Review 33 (2007) 340-342). They seem to think that blogs are a great tool when in a crisis communications situation, as it is an emergent PR tool. They comment,
"Because blog style writing lends itself to more frequent publishing in its shorter statements through a personal/human voice, it seems logical that organizations could deploy crisis blogs as a means of quickly communicating during a crisis."
I think this comment is very apt in regards to the crisis that hit Eurostar. They should have had their own Twitter account up and running so passengers could have found out information via their mobile phones or indeed a computer/laptop. As Sweetser and Metzgar concluded their report,
"...exposure to an organizational blog has the greatest impact on readers and decreases the feeling that a company is in crisis... organizations in crisis should continue to employ open communication practices during crisis situations and consider adopting blogs as another tool through which to disseminate official messages."
As globalization continues, the importance for companies and organizations to use social media as a ways and means to calm crisis situations increases. The early months of 2010 justifies this as the world saw car company Toyota being slammed for their slowness in reacting to claims of faulty cars; a politician having an affair with a nineteen year old; and natural causes such as the Earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. The quickness of PR practitioners' reaction to the situation seems to be the key to prevent further anguish from their audiences and to prevent reputation disrepair.
REFERENCES:
Crisis Communication Top picture taken from:Silver Fox Communications
Eurostar train picture taken from: Boncherry
Twitter bird picture taken from:Silicon Vally Denmark
