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Social Media & Crisis Management

Mark FarmerPodCamp Toronto 2017

TodayCrisis communications 101.

How to prepare (preparation is the lion’s share of crisis communications).

What to do when a crisis hits.

How to monitor.

How to respond, not only to people but to the crisis itself.

DisclaimerI’m representing myself and no one else.

All views expressed here are my own.

None of these experiences refer to any specific client or clients.

This is not legal advice. I advise you to seek appropriate legal advice before engaging in crisis communications.

Use good judgment: call 911 when and where appropriate in any emergency situation.

DefinitionDictionary definition: “a condition of instability or danger, as in social,

economic, political, or international affairs, leading to a decisive change.”

My definition: “a condition of instability or danger where you can feel your sphincter contract, and you know you’ll be working late”

How do you know when a crisis hits?Where will you hear about it?

Here’s how I often used to hear about it

How do I crisis? A scenario.

How do I crisis?“What’s going on with the Yoyodyne plant on Terminal Road?

It sounds like a tonne of people shouting.”

“Anyone know what going on at the end of Terminal Road? I keep seeing people with placards marching by.”

“WTF is going on at Terminal Road? What’s all the noise?”

“I was trying to get some sleep but there’s all this shouting near the Yoyodyne building. What’s going on?”

The report

Ye olde social media issue report (email)A tried and true formula.

Synopsis

Recommended Actions

Details

How urgent is this?Top priority: immediate threat.

Medium priority: no immediate threat to personal safety. Reasonable expectation of an actual or potential reputational threat to the organization.

Low priority: potential impact for the organization.

After life and limb are taken care of, it’s important to remember that we’re communicators.

We’re concerned with reputational impact.

Continue to monitor

Remember when reportingBrevity is the soul of wit.

Management is probably very preoccupied and very busy right now.

And senior to you.

Your job is to be like the assistants in “The West Wing:” experts at imparting essential information quickly.

Tell the powers-that-be exactly what they need to know: no more, no less.

Journalism 101Write it like a journalist: use the inverted

pyramid.

Start with the most essential information.

Work backwards to what’s next-most important layer of information.

And so on, and so on, and so on….

Know who’s in charge

Know who’s in chargeProtocol

Chain of command: do you have one?

Who’s monitoring? Who’s “got the ball?”

Who speaks for the institution at times of crisis?

Usually media relations, at least for mainstream media enquiries

What’s the next step?

How do you do that?It depends on the tools available to you.

Dashboards

Widgets

The most important widget

Start here

Who you gonna listen to?

Local media - online channels

TwitterSpecific sources

Pre-set - some of the previous sources, and others.

Discovered organically during a crisis.

Don’t forget to capture these sources for monitoring the next time.

Twitter searchesKeywords

Hashtags

Hashtags are important

The power of the Twitters

Outside the dashboard: specific sources

Will vary from industry to industry.Reddit

Facebook

Niche channels / platforms

Meet my little friend

X

Diigo outliners

Another helper?

Dark siteDropbox / Google Drive / Trello, whatever

Pre-prepared responses

Content calendar

Documents you can work up together & share

Canned MessagingCan sound inauthentic

Can be the basis for real-time messaging

Especially if you need to get it out to other people / other departments quickly

What’s missing here?Your own properties

Responding

By sa_ku_ra / sakura - Source: Flickr image., CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36174230

What do you not have to do?Hop onto every comment right away.

Instead, focus more on correcting things that are manifestly untrue and significant.

For customer service issues, it’s ok to say “I’ll need to get back to you.”

Provide an ETA if so.

Update that ETA if you don’t meet it.

Lets them know you haven’t forgotten about them.

Feed the trolls.

Negative commentsWhen should you delete? What are the criteria?

Obscenity?

Threats?

Racism / sexism / homophobia?

Criticism?

Solicitations?

Off-topic content?

Negative commentsWhen should you delete? What are the criteria?

Obscenity?

Threats?

Racism / sexism / homophobia?

Criticism?

Solicitations?

Off-topic content?

Why not censor?Authenticity

Trust

Screen captures

Once you say something online, it lives forever

Instead, know when to take things offline

When someone is hectoring you.

When it’s a customer service issue.

“Deal direct” with people.

CensorshipIf you remove negative comments simply because you don't want to

see them, your communications come across as inauthentic.

If comments are abusive, out of context or otherwise contravene your policies, they can be taken down, and you can state the fact that you're doing so.

If a comment isn't complimentary to you, but is otherwise inoffensive, it shouldn't necessarily be removed.

What’s your policy?What’s yours?

Depends on your business

Government

Education

NGO

Big business

Entrepreneur

Don’t wait for a crisis to come up with this.

Thank you@markus64

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