Three Steps for Positive Crisis Communication when dealing with Online Social Media

In March, The Home Depot found themselves in a crisis situation due to a picture taken in-store and posted on a blog site. The company had done nothing wrong, and a good-natured employee had done something they thought was customer focused, but it turned out to hurt the company.

Whether it could be a sting of customer complaints on Twitter, a clutch of employees blowing off steam on Facebook on a Friday afternoon, or someone posting company video on YouTube – organizations are increasingly finding themselves in a crisis due to the avalanche of online social media sites. And don’t even get me started on the Dominoes Pizza YouTube debacle.

The threat comes from two groups of people – the harmful insider and the pissed-off outsider.

So what, if anything, should a company do to protect itself in online social media?

1 – Be prepared. First and foremost, this means paying attention to the conversation in places such as YouTube & Twitter, and where possible social media sites such as Facebook. Have people who understand the capabilities and etiquette of the forums.

2 – Don’t overreact. Hyperbole’s the stock-in-trade online. Not every action deserves a company response.

3 – Get in the game. When it’s time to respond, use the medium where the offense took place. Provide value with new information, and be sincere.

This is just the beginning...

Why being a PR professional is like cutting hair

Yes, it's true, to be a good PR professional you can learn a lot from good hairdressers...

Middle East press releases and their use

The latest research about the media and PR in the Middle East by Media Source makes interesting reading.

The bad or good news – depending on your point of view - is that there are more press releases filling journalists’ inboxes than two years ago. The Arabic and English language media are more closely aligned than previously, particularly in the 0 – 20 and 21 – 40 categories but there is growth across the 41 + categories. This is not really surprising given the enormous growth we’ve seen in the number of new agencies in the region through 2007 and 2008.

Interesting reading for the PR industry – there may be more releases around but more of them are being used. Whereas ‘none’ or ‘less than 10 percent’ stood at 55 percent across all respondents in 2007, this figure has dropped by 11 points to stand at 44 percent. Use of releases has increased markedly among the Arabic language press with 41 percent of them claiming to use a quarter or more of all the releases they receive. Virtually every agency resists the tag ‘press release factory’ but should they, in fact, play up their skill in generating this humble communication tool?

Is Iran the birthplace of citizen reporting?

Whether you watch traditional media or get your news online, it is only thanks to citizen reporters that we knew what was going on during the June riots in Iran.

Ahmadenijad’s forces were doing all they could to shut down social media communication channels; Facebook and YouTube have both been blocked in Tehran. But Twitter was widely used to get the news and images out to the rest of the world (once the mobile network was working).

And for those that don’t follow Twitter, it didn’t really matter – television broadcasting will never be the same again. Fox News was the first one to set aside regular programming and only focus on the photographs and tweets coming into studios. For some hours, it was the only major network broadcasting bring the sights and sounds up people protesting on the streets of Tehran and other cities across Iran. It gave Fox an immediate competitive edge with an audience spike as Americans tuned in to keep up with the events.

Fox News chose to go global, while CNN and MSNBC stuck with their usual programming, broadcasting continuous coverage of the escalating political crisis and chaos in the streets with vivid photos and messages from protestors. Eventually, the other stations caught on and changed from the usual programming to focus on Iran events.

Twitter has broken through press censorship in Iran. It’s allowing reports from citizens that would have been suppressed to be exposed to a wide audience. Obviously we have to be cautious in how we react to the information. We must never take everything on face value and ensure that we aren’t being duped by someone manipulating anonymity. However, with the users claiming to be Iranian giving updates with consistent stories, we can perhaps assume that most of these people are offering legitimate and authentic views from Iran. On top of anecdotal stories we’re getting a stream of pictures and videos of scenes on the streets.

Twitter can be a powerful tool.

Too much talking?

An interesting phenomena is going on - and Time has just picked it up.

All the news is bad. News from the Economy is depressing, 'Britain's Got Talent' is accused with treating contestants badly, 'Jon & Kate, Plus 8' is imploding with cheating and child labor, Brown is being asked to resign, jets falling out of the sky, a man in CA got sentenced to death for starting a fire, Pakistan mosque bomb just killed dozens, China landslide just buried 60 people... I could go on.

At the same time - there is a never ending hunger for us all to get and share the news. In the past few weeks the amount of Tweeting has grown substantially.

As Time puts it - The weather reports keep announcing that the sky is falling, but here we are — millions of us — sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to one another.

Thoughts?

How to get great media coverage… don’t send a press release

Those learned soles in PR agencies have forever been touting the advantages to colleagues and clients of NOT sending press releases.

In their research, HubSpot estimated nearly 50,000 press releases are issued every month. Roughly one every 12 seconds. So on to the big question: is it worth it?

Do press releases generate publicity? That really depends on your definition of publicity. If publicity for you is any website that publishes your release, then releases are very effective. If on the other hand you consider mainstream news media to be your target, you’re probably not going to have much luck with press releases.

Do journalists read releases? According to the PRWeek/PR Newswire 2009 Media Survey, 38% of journalists look at opt-in press releases from commercial newswires when researching topics and writing stories, and 27% search the websites of commercial newswire services.

But are press releases the most effective way to generate publicity? The short answer is no. According to the 2009 Media Survey, 90% of journalists prefer email pitches over every other media. If email is the top way that journalists like to receive information, then a press release isn’t the best way to get their attention. True, a release could be excellent supplemental information to use in supplement to an email, but it should replace your pitch. A well-crafted and brief pitch letter sent via email can be far more effective at getting a journalist’s attention.

Tweet - Tweet

So I’ve given in and am now fully embracing Twitter. I held off face book and hope that between blogging and tweeting my online social network can be fulfilled.

One reason that I embrace Twitter is that I love brevity. If it can’t be said in 140 characters then you shouldn’t Tweet it.

First choice I had to make was whether I was going to Twitter myself or NettResults. I chose NettResults and hope to make it relevant to business followers with a mix of whit and international marketing acumen. By all means let me know how I’m doing.

To follow NettResults on Twitter simply search for ‘NettResults’. Couldn’t be easier than that.

And if you haven’t looked into Twitter then I recommend you do so. Check out what it does, how it works and then get connected.

If you are looking at Twitter from a business point of view, then I highly recommend this article on Macworld - Nine Twitter tips for business.

Tweet tweet.

Multinational Issues in a Multimedia World

I'm getting ready for IPREX's global conference in NYC. This year's theme is "Multinational Issues in a Multimedia World." We'll be discussing social media at Google, the economic crisis at Bloomberg, and how global companies are handling the toughest PR issues at New York University. The main event is a panel discussion starring seven heads of communications for global companies.

What's the most important question we should ask them about PR today?

It's all about relationships

People buy from people. Information flows better between trusting relationships. And we know we get better PR results when working with a trusted editor/journalist that we have a good relationship with.

The agency’s never ending question is how to build more and more relationships so everyone in your email address book is a ‘relationship’ and not just someone on a distribution list. For the past decade, our experience has been there are four things that can build a PR pro/media relationship:

Think ‘journalist’ – the best way to build any relationship is to understand the world from the other side’s point of view. Never is this truer than with the media. Don’t just call a press contact if you want something. Call then if you see or hear of something that might be of interest to them. Call them if you want to continue a conversation that they have reported on. Call them to congratulate on an excellent piece. None of these may be related to your own press needs, but opening up sincere, honest dialogue will get you better coverage in the future.

Think ‘their title’ – the single most common complaint that journalists make of PR pro’s is that they do not understand the title/show that the journalist works on. Before calling the media, it is imperative that the PR pro has read the title (or seen/listened to the show), understands it and identifies that their client has something relevant to the target group of that media. Without that you are not just wasting time, you’re damaging a long-term relationship.

Think ‘two-way’ – that’s a two-way conversation. Too often an agency pro will call up to pitch a client. That’s just like when you answer your home phone at 7pm and someone tries to sell you new windows. You want to get them off the phone ASAP because you are not looking for new windows – but you can’t get a word in. Agency pro’s need to stop the telesales routine, and instead of talking – try listening. The pitch might not be right for that journalist at that point, but something related my work, or that pitch might tie into something that is coming up in a forward feature.

Think ‘time line’ – journalists live by them. And theirs are written in stone. So your client wants to receive results on a certain deadline, but what drives that? If a monthly magazine goes to bed on the 20th of the month, is there really any point pitching a story in that week 13th – 20th? No. The space will already have been taken up. Similarly think of the time line for daily newspapers. Work to the media’s time line. If your client has something else in mind, then manage that client better.

Just think of the media from their point of view. That’s all it takes to build excellent agency/media relationships. And that’s what leads to excellent media results.

The Downturn’s New Rules for Marketers

So I just read an article of the same name that was in The McKinsey Quarterly. It explains (and I’m paraphrasing the 11 pages) how the global recession is changing how cash-strapped marketers have to operate in 2009. A ‘reprioritising’ of geographies, consumer segments, b-2-b opportunities, sales & marketing resources, adverting vehicles etc.

To an extent I agree. A reprioritisation of geographies does seem to make sense. I’m sure we’ll see a number of organisations re-org their staff and budgets when it comes it the never-ending central/disbursed models of marketing. I’ve worked client side both in the central office (using centralised budgets) and out in the dim and distant field (where local budgets were fort over and sometimes even measured). Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but for sure a centralised model will save money (but whether it will produce a greater ROI is a discussion for another time).

I am also in agreement that measurement needs to be stepped up and looked at more closely. The era of “oh, lets just sponsor this event because it sounds like a good idea” is not particularly savvy in this environment.

But here’s the thing. It’s really very simple for marketers to cut their budget and prove an ever increasing ROI. The old ad adage is "I know half of my advertising spend is wasted; I just don't know which half." Sod it. Cut half of it – any half - because that’s where the saving needs to come from. Want to know how to still increase your ROI? Then read on…

A large international client came to our agency recently and said they needed to cut their marketing budget by 75% across the board. Every agency they were working with was getting cut – design, media buying, media monitoring, PR, events, POS etc etc.

Our arguments to NOT cut the PR budget but actually increase it included...

1 – A relatively small dollar decrease in budget significantly reduces the amount of PR coverage obtainable.

2 – Unfortunately PR is not like a water tap that can be turned on and off. It’s easy to loose SOV (share of voice), but takes many months to build it up.

3 – The percentage of marketing budget spent on PR is comparatively small. A smaller percentage saving from the advertising or event budget can save an organisation considerably more money and allow PR (which has a low cost and a high ROI) to flourish.

4 – The reduction of monthly PR retainer of, for example, 25% (lets say from $10,000 to $7,500) is equivalent to the same cost saving of one page print advert a quarter in an average industry magazine.

5 – Strategically speaking, many organisations are about to go through a rough time in the media due to a reduction in sales, profit, a falling share price and reduced workforce. No amount of advertising is going to repair the bad press that job losses will promote – the only way to manage this is going to be PR.

So in a time of economic downturn – cut your advertising by 50% and increase your public relations by 25%. Not only will you greatly reduce your marketing budget (by about 45%), you will also safeguard your brand, increase your ROI and in the long term have greater marketing success.