social media crisis_presentation

Online Issues Management

Training

September 27th 2012


The Internet has changed how we respond to issues• In the era of social media, a crisis can start

anywhere and can quickly spread everywhere

• Potential risk factors: negative media coverage, influenceonstockprices,breachofcompanyconfidentiality,customercomplains,etc

• All of these issues will live forever online in search engines

• We only have one reputation online – it is not segmented by country or business unit

• Liketraditionalmedia,onlineinfluencersbecometrustedsourcesandcandrivesignificantattention to an issue quickly


People now expect access to information as it happens…15:26 Incident occurs

15:36 10 minutes later, a passenger on the rescue ferry tweets from his iPhone the first known photo of the incident. 34 minutes later, MSNBC interviews him as a witness

15:36 Airliners.net posts its first thread on the incident

15:41 FlyerTalk.com posts its thread on the incident

15:46 Airline Pilots Central Forum posts its thread on the incident

15:49 WSJ Blog posts its first story. ‘US Airways plan Crashes in New York’s Hudson River’

15:52 A WSJ e-mail alert is issued to subscribers

16:00 Story appears on Google News

16:03 AP story begins to appear on blogs and websites

16:04 First person to tweet the story is interviewed on MSNBC as witness

16:12 US Airways issues first statement

16:15 9 of the 10 most discussed topics on Twitter are about the incident

16:30 @southwestair (southwest’s twitter profile posts the following message: Our friends @USAir and their customers are in our thoughts this afternoon

16:34 Someone tweets that wikipedia has an entry on the crash before any info is available on usairways.com

16:40 Twitterers are anticipating the US Airways Press Conference

16:49 US Airways issues second statement

16:56 Someone creates a Twitter profile titled @Hudsoncrash to share news

16:59 @skytalk (the star-telegram twitter profile) tweets the link to he flight log

17:00 USAirways creates its first Twitter account (@USAirways)

17:20 People begin following the newly created US Airways Twitter account


Your client faces a number of potential online issues…

Staff or executive misconduct

Allegations of fraud, plagiarism

Comments made by staff in their

private time if they are associated with the brand

Internal emails are leaked

Staff strikes

Accidents or major

crisis events

Controversy regarding ad revenue or product placement

Budget cuts and funding decisions become a focus

Celebrity involvement

Accusations of bias or inappropriate

standards of care (healthcare)


Ignoring online conversations can create a crisis


Well-known case studiesSony


Well-known case studiesBP


Well-known case studiesToyota


New pillars of online Reputation ManagementCrisis Communications Model

OLD NEW24-hour news 24-second news

New Guidelines for Online Issues

1. Acknowledge issues as quickly as possible

2. Keep statements simple and transparent

3. Respond in-channel and go straight to the source

4. Empower your team

5. Make materials sharable


The environment may have changed……But some rules are timeless

• Acknowledge issues as quickly as possible

• Keep statements simple and transparent

• Respond in-channel and go straight to the source

• Empower your team

• Make materials sharable


What can Merchant do?


1. Convince

2. Answer questions

3. Plan

4. Monitor

5. Assist

5 Stages


1. Convince


2. Answer questions

Who should respond?

?What

tone do we use to respond?

When should they respond?

What platforms should they

use to respond?

Do we ignore traditional

press?

?Should our

employees use their own social media platforms to

post statements?

?

When do we respond?


3. Plan

Preparation Activating the process Taking action

There are three phases of developing and implementing an issue response process.

18 ©Merchant Marketing Group – 2012. All rights reserved.Preparation

Landscaping Audit

• Teach the basics of social sphere

• Develop a list of issues and keywords

• Take ownership of brand names in social spheres

• Determine roles and responsibilities from team/agency

• Prepare for barriers

• Decide upon employee guidelines

• Decide an information online hub

19 ©Merchant Marketing Group – 2012. All rights reserved.Activating the process

Have in place:

• Your chosen alert system

• Own brand names across all wanted social platforms

• Online information hub ready to go live with updates

• Plan for monitoring with in-house and/or agency


• Determine the severity level

• Follow the company response protocol

• Increase the monitoring of the brand/product

• Correct misinformation online

• Update anddrivetraffictotheonlineinformationhub

• Engage onlineinfluencers

• Continue to monitor and stay involved

Taking Action


What others do wrong

Companies that experienced Social Media crises lacked the following internal requirements (2001-2011)

0 5 10 15 20

Internal Education

Professional Staff

Triage Plan

Employee Policy

Influencer Identification

Moderation

Community Guidelines

20

13

11

11

6

5

4

Source: Altimeter Group (August 2011)


Practice makes perfect


THANK YOU[ ]Jessica North @JessicaNorthPR @mmgroup

social media crisis_presentation

Documents

us airways issues

online influencersinfluence

online issues1

online conversations

list of issues

transparent respond

era of social media

social media platforms