Page 194 - Crisis Communication Practical PR Strategies

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Crisis Communication and the Net 175
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Additionally, a company’s response during a crisis has to be more
than just making sure the corporate Q&A on the website is up to date.
A corporate crisis in the internet age requires a commitment and an
attitude shift from a management that needs to be ready to devote
their time and corporate resources to responding to stakeholders in
new and immediate ways. Are they ready to blog, are senior managers
prepared to cut through approval channels to get information ‘up and
out’ quickly, and are management ready to have an online dialogue
instead of posting some statement? This kind of response requires a
major shift in management attitudes and processes.
One more note on transparency. The internet is unforgiving of
companies that try to hide behind industry-sponsored front organiza-
tions or that have their communication people write their ‘personal’
blogs. When you’re in an online discussion group or responding to a
blog, make sure you identify yourself and stay away from defensive or
corporate responses. Communicating on the net is about having a con-
versation, not a debate. Keep it open and honest, and web-savvy stake-
holders will reward you as a trusted colleague and thought leader.
Trick them just once and watch a small issue escalate into a crisis.
A standard tenet of any good crisis communication programme is
anticipating and planning for a range of issues and potential crises.
Working in the internet age doesn’t change that principle, but the
pace, scope and impact of potential crises does mean that planning is
more dynamic, as is the need for a faster response. What is different is
that the standard crisis plan that used to get written and then put on
the shelf just doesn’t work any more. The quarterly update of crisis
scenarios (if that’s done at all) is a model that doesn’t work in the age of
the internet. Monitoring the market, evaluating threats and creating
worst-case scenarios become a critical and ongoing PR function, not a
quarterly assignment.
Part of that process is the kind of deep monitoring that the web
allows and demands. It also means breaking down corporate silos so
that reports from the field about trends, customer comments, compet-
itive information, what’s being ‘heard on the street’, etc, become inte-
grated into the corporate management function. Responding to a
crisis on the internet may require breaking down traditional chain-of-
command corporate hierarchies in order to collect insightful stake-
holder-level information. In-depth monitoring has to be more than
just the PR intern scanning the web for clips and blog postings.
The speed of the internet, and its content-rich channels, means that
corporations need to be ready to provide more and more information,
in multiple media and formats. A decade ago savvy companies were
creating ‘in-the-ready’ web pages, or ‘dark pages’, to post during
emergencies. Today, that content has to include podcasts from execu-