crisis communications and social media

© 2011 IBM Corporation

Andrada Morar – Ketchum Pleon

Yves Van Seters – IBM

Bruxelles, 25th October 2011

Social Media induced Crisis Communication


Andrada MorarHead of Social Media, Ketchum Pleon Benelux

Yves van SetersTeam Leader Media Relations & External CommunicationsIBM Benelux

© 2011 IBM Corporation3

The internet acts as a catalyst breaking geographical and time barriers in a matter of seconds.

The online gatekeeper is now your

consumer.


Set-up

Exercise in Crisis Communication

Teams Present– External Communications– Internal Communications– Corporate Security Officers

Teams were unaware this was a Crisis Communication Exercise

Exercise was split in three parts– Briefing 1 – Setting the Stage– Briefing 2 – Set the Stage on Fire– Briefing 3 – Aftercare

Teams had 15 min only to respond on every new situation


The Start

Translation: “Who lost his #IBM USB on the Intercity ?”Translation: “Who lost his #IBM USB on the Intercity ?”


Briefing 1 – Setting the Stage

Internal Comm’s

Document with background info

Facts– USB-stick lost on the train– Found by student - Hacked within 2 min– USB-drive contains Customs database

documents– E-mail from Client Exec

Goal– IBM CGM sent email requesting counsel how to

prepare mgr-mail for Key Acoounts

External Comm’s


Facts– IBM branded USB-stick found on the train– Found by student - Hacked within 2 min– USB-drive contains Customs database

documents stating the export tax amounts paid by Philips – Major IBM client

– Incident is heavily discussed on Twitter– Tweets forwarded by external Contact


The Plot Thickens….


Fan mail pouring in


Briefing 1 – Setting the Stage (Continued)

Internal Comm’s


Facts– USB-stick lost on the train– Found by student - Hacked within 2 min– USB-drive contains Customs database

documents– E-mail from Client Exec



External Comm’s


Facts– IBM branded USB-stick found on the train– Found by student - Hacked within 2 min– USB-drive contains Customs database

documents stating the export tax amounts paid by Philips – Major IBM client

– Incident is heavily discussed on Twitter– Tweets forwarded by external Contact– E-mail from spokesperson State Secretary




Fan mail kept pouring in


Action Plan

Action mode of External Comm’s– Action 1: Forget to involve Internal Comm’s

– Action 2: Monitoring in Social Media

– Action 3: Fact finding ? • Is it ours ? Is the content confirmed ?

– Action 4: What with the customer ?

– Action 5: Prepare Briefing CGM and preliminary Statement

Briefed CGM on the steps taken/planned:

•Monitoring => Started / Ongoing

•Fact Finding => Started / Ongoing

•Customer Care => Started

•Draft Statements => being validated

Briefed CGM on the steps taken/planned:

•Monitoring => Started / Ongoing

•Fact Finding => Started / Ongoing

•Customer Care => Started

•Draft Statements => being validated


Briefing 2 - Setting the Stage on Fire

Internal Comm’s

Prepare an internal statement

(Lucky Bastards !)(Lucky Bastards !)


Briefing 2 - Setting the Stage on Fire

External Comm’s

Philips Corp. Comm was contacted– They declare facts will be further examined – they can neither deny or confirm

figures

Tax authority contacted– Will present their own statement later– IBM CGM on his way for crisis meeting with Secretary of State

Twitterstream still alive and growing, story picked up by Bloggers and online media

Goal– Prepare Statement and prepare expressions


Action Plan

You’re on your own– No help from customers

Try to contain issue online

– Monitoring ongoing conversations

– Find angles to contain the stream

– Find/identify influencers to bring correct messaging• What messaging ?

– Engage in Dialogue

Brief/ prepare CGM for his crisis meeting with Tax authorities– Statement

Pressure = on– Still no facts confirmed


Briefing 2 - KA-POWKA-POW

External Comm’s

IBM spokesperson asked to comment the incident on live radio– Request accepted

Philips– Facts need more investigation – at this point neither confirmation or denial– No Spokes on live radio

Tax Authorities– Will come with own statement later on the day– No Spokes on live radio

Radio Host confirms student who found/hacked USB drive will be in studio


Action Plan

High Pressure on team

Islands of action– Monitoring– Preparing Statement CGM– Preparping Radio interview

No sense of priority anymore

Pulled together a ‘It wasn’t me’-Statement – Impossible to know if this was an IBM’er who lost his stick or not ? – IBM branded is no excuses; we give them away– USB is outdated – IBM uses secured clouds to exchange data– Contacted the customers– Can’t confirm if data is valid or not– No further Comments


The result


Outcome

Student:– The man sitting across me on the train forgot his USB-drive– I tweeted so the man could retrieve his stick– When nobody replied, I accessed the stick to see if I could find an address or so– Things got out of hand

IBM– We never thought of contacting the Person who started the tweet– We never asked the USB stick back


Briefing 3 - Aftercare

The training provided a valuable insights

Speed: The speed in which an online crisis develops still surprises the most skilled and experienced communications professionals;

Internal stakeholders: Interaction with internal stakeholders provided a lot of insights about the struggle communications professionals meet when needed to involve the leadership of big organizations;

The power of integration: Organizing the training in real-life Broadcast Facilities provided an extra layer of depth in the training. The power of integrated plan: traditional and social. Managing both in the same time.

Internal procedures: One of the key learnings was the fact that IBM’s internal crisis procedures no longer provided a framework to handle ‘the new crisis’


Crisis preparedness 2.0


Crisis response 2.0 approach

Provide Focus – speed is critical

Measure Impact through structured questioning

Set Goals for response

DiagnoseDiagnose

ManageManage

RedefineRedefine

Apply Strategies based on a 360° view

Determine Best Voice authentic, experienced

Engage blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Harmonize actions with words

Improve capabilities to meet higher expectations

Weigh keywords to balance legacy of crisis

Measurement

crisis communications and social media

Business

email requesting

customs database

twitter tweets

prepare mgr

heavily discussed

crisis meeting

train found

2 min usb