Dealing with a crisis is never easy, but it’s always more manageable when there’s a plan in place. Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to get everyone on a team to agree on a single crisis communication plan. The first step to implementing a crisis plan is to sell it to the rest of the team.
2. #CRISISCOMMS
@PRNEWSWIRE
@CNWGROUP
Victoria Harres - @VictoriaHarres
VP, Strategic Communications & Content
PR Newswire
Gerard Braud - @GBraud
CEO/President
Braud Communications
James E. Lukaszewski - @JimLukaszewski
America’s Crisis Guru, President
The Lukaszewski Group – Division Risdall Marketing
3. #CRISISCOMMS
@PRNEWSWIRE
@CNWGROUP
• Definition of crisis
• Anticipating how a crisis plays out
• The social media angle
• Being prepared with a plan
• How to guide your leaders through crisis
What we’ll discuss:
6. #CRISISCOMMS
@PRNEWSWIRE
@CNWGROUP
Photo sources from Flickr users: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Birdies100, Simon Law, Geoffrey Gilmour-Taylor, Luke Addison, opensource.com, Ben Ostrowsky, Michelle Tribe, Eirik Solheim, Mark
What is a crisis?
MAN MADE OR
NATURAL
CATASTROPHE
INJURY
PRODUCT DEFECT PRODUCT FAILURE NEGATIVE PRESS
UNREASONABLE
CUSTOMER
MISTAKE
MISHANDLED
COMPLAINT
MISUNDERSTANDING TROLL TWEET
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How to Convince the Boss
to Act
• Reduce your enthusiasm.
• Focus on the threats to them – be
sensible, simple, positive and
constructive.
• Let them approve the process before
you spring your plan.
• Leaders like to choose their own
directions and solutions.
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@jimlukaszewski
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Why They Do It
• Block public or private actions
• Bully and humiliate
• Corporate dis- or misinformation
• Decrease or increase market
capitalization
• Legitimate problem that they cannot get
solved by any other means
19@jimlukaszewski
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Why They Do It (continued)
• Giving a voice to victims
• Just because they can
• Publicity for their cause
• Revenge and extortion
• Social-Political-Religious agendas
• Target organization to stop certain
behaviors
It’s Because They Are Victims
20@jimlukaszewski
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So What?
1. Attack strategies can build huge, diverse
audiences quickly.
2. Sites remain long after problems are
resolved, sometimes forever.
3. Attacks raise questions among key base
audiences that must be answered, in any
event.
4. Failing to respond can be toxic to leader
reputation and career.
21@jimlukaszewski
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And Why?
• Management needs to understand… help them.
• Your destiny is your responsibility.
• Social media counteracts the #1 criticism of all
crisis response – failure to speak promptly.
• Even the briefest pause or silent period is
impossible to credibly explain or excuse.
• Silence makes you the perpetrator.
• If you don’t manage your own destiny, someone
else is waiting out there to do it for you, or is
already trying.
22@jimlukaszewski
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Lukaszewski’s 1st Axiom
of Crisis Survival
• Neither the government, your toughest critic,
blogger, bloviator or bellyacher, or the media
can take you down. It’s always done by an
uninformed but well-meaning employee,
self-appointed explainer, critic, a well-
meaning friend or relative.
23@jimlukaszewski
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Types of Cyber Attacks
• Bellyaching
• Bloviating
• Bullying
• Carping
• Confrontation
• Contentiousness
• Customer retribution
• Customer service complaint
• Damage reputation
• Denial of service
• Disturb sales
• Extortion
• Hate
• Misinformation
• Revenge rumors
• Stock value impairment
• Terrorism
• Threats
• Vent
• Whispers
24@jimlukaszewski
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Nine Tactics of On-line Activists
1. Polarize the issue.
2. Build a support base on the Web.
3. Trivialize, emotionalize, insult, humiliate.
4. Anger, debilitate, violate trademarks, and
misinterpret every response.
5. Use ultimatums.
6. Register their site in search engines.
7. Postings on message boards.
8. Work the e-news media.
9. Misinform, misdirect, misstate, mindlessly
question, be infuriating.
@jimlukaszewski
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There’s still a common tool often triggered by an
overlooked adverse event to someone else.
www.ihatexyzcompany.com
Attack Sites
26@jimlukaszewski
26
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What’s the Impact?
• Builds the victim pool
• Creates doubt about leadership in the minds of
consumers, vendors, employees, investors, public
officials
• Damages reputation
• Decrease / Increase market cap
• Lawsuit threats
• Lower sales
• Lowers morale
• Makes recruitment difficult
• People with no credentials get power
@jimlukaszewski
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Questions
1. Is there a single tactic that is proven to be the
most effective in the process of crisis
management?
Speed Beats Smart
Every Time
@jimlukaszewski
29
30. 30
Questions
2. What are the best practices, besides the
CEO’s coercive power, to win internal
support to prepare for crises?
Prepare for what frightens the boss most,
first.
@jimlukaszewski
30
31. 31
Questions
3. If you could choose only one skill or
characteristic that is crucial for crisis
communication management, what would that
be?
Compassionate decisiveness.
@jimlukaszewski
31
32. 32
Questions
4. When the law firm suggests that management
keep silent about a crisis, what’s the secret to
persuading the leadership to speak promptly
and face stakeholders quickly?
These are leadership decisions
rather than legal or public
relations decisions.
The advice is:
First, do what your mom taught
you to do in these
circumstances.@jimlukaszewski
32
Hello and welcome to the PR Newswire & CNW webinar: Crisis Communications in the Social Media Age
I’m Victoria Harres, Vice President of Strategic Communications & Content at PR Newswire.
Before we start I have a few housekeeping items to share:
There is no need to take notes as we will be emailing you the on-demand webinar replay along with the slides from today.
Please submit questions by typing them in the “ask a question” box in the bottom right of your screen. If your question is for a particular speaker, please indicate the name. We will address as many of your questions as we can at the end of the discussion.
The hashtag for the webinar today is #CRISISCOMMS. We encourage you to continue the conversation on twitter using the twitter button at the bottom of your screen.
Jerad Bro: A former journalist turned communications pro who wrote the crisis communication plan for the Internal Revenue Service and whose plans are also used by the Library of Congress, the U.S. Army Missile Defense Command, and countless other organizations.
Jim LukaSHEVskee: He’s an author, speaker and an expert in managing and reducing contention. He’s been named by PR Week as one of 22 “crunch-time counselors who should be on the speed dial in a crisis.”
Most crisis are very traditional in nature. Product failures have happened, I’m sure, since the invention of the wheel. What’s different now is the stage a crisis plays out in. Social networks are real-time. On Twitter, you can go from a misunderstanding to a full-blown crisis in a matter of minutes.
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Gerard and Jim thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and tips with us today.
We have time for a couple of questions.
We’ve come to the end of hour. I want to thank our speakers again and all of you who joined us. Have a great day.