Sunday, November 7, 2010

If there ever was a time to ...

OK ... you've heard this many times but apparently some people still don't get it. In a world of instantaneous sharing ... the need for an immediate response is no longer a desirable feature of your crisis management plan ... it's become an absolute necessity.

Case in point: the Quantas airline near-disaster this week: see this post from Gerald Baron on it:
http://ww2.crisisblogger.com/?p=1269

a couple of quick thoughts:
  1. if something bad happens ... get in front of it ... don't wait hours or say that nothing's going on
  2. always assume that people, your audiences know ...
  3. if you're using social media for marketing and PR ... why not use it as an emergency info channel too?
Things will never be the same again ... we're in the era of the "human network". It doesn't matter if the actual platforms (facebook, twitter, others) come and go ... most of us like to have the ability to communicate instantly what we're experiencing ... to share our feelings ... good or bad ... that cat ain't going back in the bag!

In a way, we're in an ultra-post-McLuhan world ... the medium is more than just the message ... the media (or platform) is now the user ... more on that a little later.

For people in crisis communications planning, the expectations are now clear ... it's do or die ... and do it PDQ ...

So, we come back to the four Ps: Plans (or procedures), People, Preparation, Practice ...

  1. Plan and Procedures: who does what? Who do we involve? Do we have enough latitude and delegation of authority to respond immediately? If not, you've failed!  Today, that means total integration of the different channels you might use to respond ... from social media to web to traditional media ...
  2. People: ... it's zero-dark thirty ... your guy is asleep ... or the B or C (or Z team) is on duty ... are they trained to know what to do? do they have the basic knowledge of crisis comms and crisis response to fill in the templates (see below) to get the ball rolling?  if not, you've failed again!
  3. Preparation: you know what risks your business or organization faces ... well do you?  you don't ?  you've failed ....and if you do ... have you prepared pre-scripted response that tell your audiences that you know what's going on and you have a plan to address the issue/deal with the incident? you don't ... you've failed yet again .... it's not rocket science ... a simple HIRA or risk analysis will guide you ... My colleague Barry Radford and I have been proponents of the message mapping technique to prepare our crisis communications response ... it's simple and offers a multitude of uses once approved ... more here from a recent post by Barry: http://barryradford.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/the-message-map/     .... you should have a whole compendium of such message maps or related templates ... ready to be filled out and used to effect an immediate response: we're aware of the incident and have implemented our response plan, we're investigating ... but our first priority is the safety and well being of ... yadda yadda ... you get the point ... again, if I can figure it out ... the complete theory of relativity it ain't ...
  4. Practice ... it's all and well to have all three elements above ... but if your plans sit on dusty shelf ... if your people have left or rotated out of their normal jobs ... or have been trained ages ago ... if your message maps haven't been updated ... you'll fail again ... so practice ... run exercises as often as you can ... involve as many of the business functions in your organizations as you can ... you can never have enough alternates and back up ... and there might be some real talent available to you there as well ...
those FOUR Ps sum up a crisis communications plan/crisis management plan ... and because technology and social media are changing our world .... I would now add a fifth P .... P for Platform ... that is social media ...

Because of the growing evolution of social media, its interdependencies with all other means of communications, and its growing involvement in all aspects of our lives ... the use of social media platforms ... those used by millions/billions of people ... is now a MUST for any comms response plan.

You must therefore integrate social media in all aspects of the plan:
  • from your procedures: who posts? who has access to the accounts on the platforms you'll be using?
  • are your people familiar with social media? with the conversational aspect of the many platforms? the ongoing exchange of info and ideas and how to use crisis communications practices in SM ?
  • Preparation: why not have tweets ready to go? facebook posts and blogs?
  • Practice: ensure that your key people have accounts on these platforms and can use them effectively ...
Hope this makes some sort of sense ... I know the obstacles are numerous: from policy, to misunderstanding of social media at the top or just paralysis caused by a blind application of the Incident Management System ... well, today, there's no time for inaction when the public's perception on your response is firmed up in a matter of minutes ...

Thanks and I look forward to your comments yet again!

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