jonathan sy | when shit hits the fan

WHEN

THE SHIT

HITS THE FAN Jonathan Sy (@jntn)

Senior Director, Edelman Digital

An online conversation, photo

or video that has the potential

to grow exponentially in scale

and severity to damage the

reputation of the company

and/or its brands.

ISSUE & CRISIS

ISSUE =

LOW-LEVEL

THREAT

CRISIS =

BUSINESS LEVEL

THREAT

It can come from

anywhere

Consumers

Employees

Media

Competitors

Advocacy

groups

Politicians

Customers

Bloggers

Etc.

FRIEND OR FOE?

Listen

Start listening now

Add keywords related to issues into monitoring

Extend monitoring: Beyond your immediate

community and beyond top influencers

Know your audiences before issues arise

Craft crisis communications plan in advance

Assess your internal readiness

Formalize protocols, decision trees and

approvals processes

Train your employees with guidelines

Plan and Prepare

High

Risk

Low

Risk

Med

Risk

Is responder

influential?

Thank engage

further.

Thank / acknowledge

Positive

comment?

Violates policy /

terms of use?

Misinformed?

Specific customer

service issue?

General comment or

complaint?

Potential for greater

negative PR or legal

action?

Flag and delete. Signal

policy / terms of use.

Engage publicly.

Provide facts.

Alert response team. Get

approval before

responding.

Engage offline.

Acknowledge / answer

with standard FAQ

response.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes No

No

Alert response team. Get

approval before

responding.

Engage offline.

Develop FAQ list for

repeating product-

related inquiries /

comments.

Engage by email for

documentation.

Escalate issues proactively

Where possible, solve problems in public

Involve PR early, inform crisis team frequently

At the Trigger Point

PR

Marketing

Customer

Service

Operations

Legal

Operations

HR

Finance

C-Level

The first 12-24 hours are critical

Be clear on when your crisis plan activates

Go beyond the original source; address the

amplifiers

Speed of Response

Prepare dark sites ahead of time

Post response on owned properties but also send

response directly to third parties

Monitor analytics to get a sense of velocity

Go Beyond the Community

Stay true to your brand but be appropriate to

the situation

Align with Legal on flexibility for wording

messages*

Assume your content will exist online forever

characters

Tone and Language

Post proactive content and look to engage

strategically

Correct misinformation and present your side

negative news cycles or have

community re-live bad memories

Disagree when necessary. You

every discussion

Dialogue and Frequency

Manage expectations on information availability

Stick to the facts. or hypothesize

Stay on message and make measured promises

Identify the most appropriate voice for your

response community manager, senior

management, subject matter expert

How Much (or Little) To Say

Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/3001908/how-kitchenaid-spun-twitter-crisis-pr-coup

Debrief to Learn

Follow-up with involved colleagues

Consider quantitative analytics along with

qualitative insights

Revise and optimize your crisis response plan

When a company is trusted

When a company is distrusted

7% 22

%

63% will believe negative

information

after hearing it

1-2 times

-Think about a company that you do not trust. How many times would you need to be exposed to (C83. positive information; C84. negative information)

about that company to believe the information is likely to be true? Please give me a number. Informed publics ages 25-64 in Canada.

-Think about a company that you trust. How many times would you need to be exposed to (C85. negative information; C86. positive information) about

that company to believe the information is likely to be true? Please give me a number. Informed publics ages 25-64 in Canada.

will believe positive information after hearing it 1-2 times

will believe negative information after hearing it 1-2 times

40% will believe

positive information after hearing it 1-2

times

Preserving Trust

How prepared you are

How responsive you are

How informative and insightful you are in

helping the crisis team

Your openness, accessibility, frequency in

communication

Your willingness to learn from such incidents

Success for Your Role as CM

Questions?

Jonathan Sy

@jntn

jonathan.sy@edelman.com

(416) 849-1550