Don’t clam up when it comes to crisis management
When a crisis hits, communicators need to be ready to clearly explain the 5Ws: who, what, why, where and when, plus the steps they are taking to resolve the issue. Activity to communicate this across owned, social, hybrid and traditional should be carefully planned. Communicators should consider utilizing video to engage stakeholders as it has high search visibility and engagement rates, but most importantly is more authentic than a written statement.
We’ve seen many examples of the suggestion in this quote, from an article on Ben Cotton’s Social Web Thing, being put to work, and it’s undoubtedly the right path to take. Remember the footage of Domino’s employees violating customer’s food that went viral, throwing the company into crisis? That fire was put out by one CEO’s deft video response, which drew a huge audience itself, and kicked off positive discussion about the brand online.
The fact that we do so much of our communication via text today has not diminished the impact of seeing an actual human speaking, but rather enhanced it. When you make that eventual mistake, an accident strikes, whatever it is, stow away the legalese and corporate jargon, and just explain to your stakeholders what happened, who’s affected, and how you’ll fix it. Follow through, and you might even come out of the situation with a stronger reputation than you had before.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training, and co-host of The Crisis Show. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]