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00:00:10.605Welcome to Embracing Marketing Mistakes, the podcast that helps you learn from the fails and missteps of the world's top marketers.
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00:00:23.033I'm Chris Norton and my mission is to arm you, the senior marketer, with the tools, strategies and hard-earned lessons you need to grow your brand, protect its reputation and ultimately hit record-breaking revenues.
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00:00:33.950This week, we're looking at one of the recent sold-out events and tackling a topic that every marketer and board director fears but must be ready for how do you protect your brand when a crisis strikes?
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00:00:43.130Whether it's a viral backlash, a data breach or a PR nightmare, knowing how to act decisively could be the difference between surviving and thriving.
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00:00:48.229We'll explore questions like are your crisis plans built for today's social first world?
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00:00:57.649How do you turn a public blunder into an opportunity for growth, and what do brands like Boeing, Bud Light and the BBC teach us about the do's and don'ts of crisis management?
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00:01:09.206This episode looks at practical strategies like how to monitor social conversations in real time, when to engage or stay silent, and why empathy might just be your secret weapon.
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00:01:18.331So, as always, sit back, relax and let's hear how you can safeguard your brand's reputation even in the eye of the storm.
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00:01:18.914Enjoy.
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00:01:24.463Thank you for joining us.
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00:01:27.433Today is on crisis management.
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00:01:30.766We're going to be looking at navigating challenges in PR and marketing.
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00:01:31.668Thanks for joining us.
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00:01:40.691Crisis management is quite an interesting one, because the nature of crisis management is that almost always we have to sign an NDA when we're dealing with a crisis.
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00:01:48.388So we can't talk about case studies per se, but we will be drawing on anonymized client examples throughout.
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00:01:53.224Today's session is about helping you to minimize damage in a crisis scenario.
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00:02:00.507It's about reducing the impact on your brand and your brand's reputation, because reputation is the most important thing.
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00:02:06.549It always amazes me when people think that public relations is a small part.
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00:02:18.931They think of it as media relations, and actually, crisis management is when your PR person, your PR agents or yourself, if you work in-house in the PR bit, is when reputation is what it's all about.
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00:02:22.665And if a crisis kicks off, trust me, it has a big, big impact.
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00:02:30.008We're going to look at ensuring your crisis planning is fit for purpose in a social world Well, social media first world.
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00:02:32.520Also, in an AI first world as well.
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00:02:41.490There's a lot of changing technologies and you've got to make sure that you've updated your social media strategy, that is, and your crisis plan as well.
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00:02:49.088So in the next 60 minutes we're going to go, we're going to bring your crisis plan up to date, ready for 2024 and beyond, hopefully.
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00:02:52.229So what will you get from the next hour in this session then?
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00:02:59.568Well, I'm going to look at the context into why crisis planning is so important for brands and some of the latest statistics on that.
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00:03:10.194We'll get insight into the evolving crisis curveballs presented by social media, which is why I've been doing social media crisis management for near on 10 years.
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00:03:29.135I actually wrote the CIPR's section in the CIPR, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations have a handbook and I wrote a section on online crisis management because basically there wasn't a framework for how to deal with online crises, social media crises, and I wrote all that section for them.
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00:03:32.088So I've been doing it, and that was about eight years ago or something.
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00:03:36.365We're going to look at some case studies into who's got it right and who's got it wrong.
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00:03:39.040Not everyone gets it right and not everyone gets it totally wrong.
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00:03:44.132A crisis can actually be a good thing, sometimes to clear the decks.
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00:03:44.894Weirdly enough.
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00:03:47.784Crisis can actually be a good thing sometimes to clear the decks, weirdly enough.
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00:03:54.275And then Will's going to talk about how to get guidance into creating a social first crisis plan for this year and beyond.
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00:03:58.024We're going to show you some examples of how you can do that.
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00:04:01.151And then a little bit on further help and support if you need it in any which way, shape or form.
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00:04:06.250So let's define crisis communication If we use AI.
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00:04:12.408This is what it's spitting out today, rather than a body description.
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00:04:15.093This is what ChatGPT says so.
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00:04:21.382It says crisis communication is a strategic way to manage and share information during a crisis or critical event.
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00:04:26.281The goal is to minimize damage, maintain public trust and guide appropriate responses.
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00:04:28.084Pretty accurate, as you would expect.
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00:04:31.713So why the hell should you care Like?
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00:04:33.504Why are you sat there now thinking?
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00:04:35.689Why did you sign up to a webinar about crisis management?
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00:04:36.721Why are you interested in it?
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00:04:40.187What is the thing that's making you care about it?
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00:04:44.975Well, the cost of failing to prepare or deal with a crisis.
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00:04:50.745For businesses, it can be up to 36% of turnover for failing to deal with a crisis.
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00:04:52.630It can ruin companies and has done.
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00:04:55.805We only have to look at a business like Ratner's.
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00:05:03.827Many, many years ago, when I started out in PR, ratner said made a big claim at a conference and it wasn't even.
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00:05:05.552He didn't do a press statement or anything like that.
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00:05:16.610He just said at a conference most of our stuff is shit, and it got taken out as a direct quote that stuff that they sold was shit and within two years the business was pretty much finished.
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00:05:27.350But today, the amount of time board members said it took to fully recover from a crisis, according to Deloitte, is between one and five years.
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00:05:31.951So if you haven't prepared for one, that's why you're here, because it can take up to five years to recover from a crisis.
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00:05:40.653Some businesses never do, so it's an interesting question, but if it's a proper existential crisis, it can really smash a business to pieces.
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00:05:42.112Reputation is everything.
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00:05:48.555It takes years and years to build the trust, but it can take seconds to destroy all that trust and ruin your business.
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00:05:58.999So Experian said that 78% of business leaders say that they've experienced some kind of crisis in the past 18 months.
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00:06:10.610I'm going to talk about some of the crises that could occur as well, and, according to Forbes, 50% don't have a company-wide crisis plan in place.
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00:06:17.170That's one of the questions in the polls I believe that Will's put in there is do you have a crisis plan in place?
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00:06:20.502If you don't, you should have some sort of crisis plan in place.
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00:06:22.745Anything is better than nothing.
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00:06:31.261To start, 78% of people most frequent crisis that, yeah.
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00:06:35.682So these are the most popular crises that we're seeing, and Will and I have just been talking about this recently.
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00:06:41.261So data breach of consumer information so somebody's got into your data and released it.
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00:06:47.642A product recall, which maybe you'll see that with several cars, some of the electric vehicles.
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00:06:55.041There's been product recalls, a cyber attack 74% or a ransomware attack 73%.
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00:06:58.709Those two at the end a cyber attack and a ransomware attack.
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00:07:07.473I was speaking to an IT specialist yesterday and they've seen a 40% increase in cyber attacks on businesses.
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00:07:23.642It is massive and he was telling me that he didn't tell me the client's name, but the client had everything in the cloud Microsoft Office and it cost the client more than £8,000 in damage just to repair what had been done.
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00:07:33.127But this particular business had been hacked and all these emails had been sent to everybody in their database, every single contact and every single person in the business.
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00:07:34.531It just mass spammed.
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00:07:43.870More importantly, not just the 8,000 pounds to recover the business and lock it down, it was actually the damage to customer reputation.
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00:07:47.165All the customers just thought the business was completely out of control.
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00:07:53.923But that is a growing area, so crisis can come from anywhere non-controllable to me and you.
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00:07:58.812So what is the payoff of getting it right?
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00:08:00.822There's quite a lot of payoffs of getting it right.
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00:08:03.990Rebuilding trust with customers is what I was just talking about.
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00:08:13.403A minute ago, customers said the most positive response to a crisis would be continue to be a customer, so 46% will continue to be a customer.
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00:08:17.464That is good after a crisis, and you can have a stronger reputation after a crisis.
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00:08:21.528Working in PR, I've done several sessions on this.
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00:08:33.187We do full-day training sessions with clients and we use multiple examples of when businesses have gone through a crisis, the response, how they've dealt with it and then the recovery, and sometimes brands come out of it stronger.
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00:08:53.912So the biggest positive response was that 43% of people would think favorably of the organization after the crisis, or 31% would recommend the business still after the crisis, and 16% of people would post about it positively, not negatively, obviously on social.
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00:08:58.308So crisis management really matters.
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00:09:01.825It protects your reputation.
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00:09:03.350It protects your brand values.
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00:09:11.934It can minimize and it will do, if it's dealt with properly financial losses the £8,000 and the reputational loss I just talked about as an example.
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00:09:14.548It ensures business continuity.
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00:09:18.410So if you've got a decent plan in place, you know what to do.
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00:09:20.047You've run through the scenarios.
00:09:20.047 -->
00:09:24.725Scenario training is a big thing as well, because having a sheet of paper doesn't mean that you've got a plan in place.
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00:09:25.888What about scenarios?
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00:09:30.595You've run scenarios in, such as a twitter outbreak, etc.
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00:09:31.160Etc.
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00:09:39.783There's loads of different things you can do that make it really specific to your business and to make sure that the people that are there ready know how to speak and how to deal with certain situations.
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00:09:43.777And it's safeguards stakeholder relationships.
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00:09:46.066So make sure that you've got stronger relationships afterwards.
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00:09:48.684It demonstrates leadership and accountability.
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00:09:52.552If you own a crisis and look like you are managing it, you're investigating it.
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00:09:55.086You show leadership and accountability.
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00:09:55.970Ok, they're investigating it.
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00:10:03.070There's been several businesses that I've known and there was, right back in the day, there was somebody in the press office.
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00:10:10.030I was talking to the head of media relations at a business that I knew and their phone was ringing off the hook, off the hook, off the hook, off the hook.
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00:10:18.993It was a national story, it was breaking, and they decided the head of media relations just said look, stop answering, issue a statement.
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00:10:23.489We'll issue a statement at 4 o'clock and then that's when we'll release your statement.
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00:10:37.408And they took control because the journalists were just ringing them and ringing them, and ringing them and you see this on social now, where you just get question after question so they said we're going to release a statement after four, then just stopped answering the phones till four o'clock when they released a new statement saying we've investigated this.
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00:10:48.014This is what we're doing now and we'll release another statement at nine, eight, ten am next day Taking control, demonstrating leadership of you, owning the situation, showing accountability.
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00:10:51.589Turn threats into opportunities for growth.
00:10:51.589 -->
00:10:53.306I mean that's a big thing.
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00:10:54.686So maybe something's gone wrong.
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00:11:01.605You see this with product launches all the time, and a crisis will come from a product launch and then they turn it into something where they can grow.
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00:11:12.629The brand I've got a couple of examples in a minute of bad crises and one of a couple of good ones as well Prepares organizations for future challenges.
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00:11:16.625So, if you've got a crisis plan, you've gone through your plan, you've gone through your scenario.
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00:11:21.091Training your spokespeople are ready, they're media trained, you've drilled them.
00:11:21.091 -->
00:11:25.091I mean they might not get Jeremy Paxman, but you know you're ready for it.
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00:11:31.113So yeah, preparing organizations for future challenges, because you never know when one's going to happen.
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00:11:37.152So is your planning fit for purpose in our social first world?
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00:11:41.652And that's the question we're going to answer, and Will will put together something in a minute.
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00:11:45.490He'll go through our framework of how we deal with it, with our clients.
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00:11:49.726So I was trained in PR, so I did a degree in PR.
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00:11:53.527I've taught PR at university and my favorite area was crisis management.
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00:11:57.889It's my specialism, and a traditional crisis is actually where PR came from.
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00:12:07.869The first press release in PR came from a train crash in America in the 1800s and they didn't know how to deal with it, so the rail company issued a press statement.
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00:12:11.169It was the first press release to ever be issued.
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00:12:15.846That's a traditional crisis Train crashes.
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00:12:17.570The media want to know what's happened.
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00:12:18.993Issue a statement telling people.
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00:12:20.888That feeds the media.
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00:12:23.025But we've got new things now.
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00:12:25.306So a staff or a customer issue.
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00:12:35.417So here you can see, there's an example here from a burger, a burger restaurant, where someone's taking a bite out of a burger before it's served, and that picture can go on social media.
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00:12:43.245It can be the employee sharing it or it could be in a customer sharing it and before you know it, you've got a crisis from one of your outlets that you're not even even.
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00:12:56.711They're not even in marketing or in comms, or a bland, brand-led social media crisis, such as when burger king said women belong in the kitchen, um, which broke and didn't go down so well.
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00:13:10.716So as what we're trying to say is, as well as traditional crisis scenarios, now social media can facilitate or even trigger a crisis, and actually we used to say that it sort of puts what social media can do to a crisis now is put petrol on the fire.
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00:13:12.023It just basically you've got.
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00:13:18.460You've got your crisis, and then you've got social, and then everybody can jump on the back of it and say aren't you a terrible organization?
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00:13:20.100Because, trust me, that's what they like to do.
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00:13:23.543It always feels it's get shares and engagement.
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00:13:25.144So people do do that.
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00:13:26.345You know what social media is like.
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00:13:27.505It can be a wild west.
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00:13:33.950So with that wild west, is social media a friend or a foe?
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00:13:36.052What is the role of it in crisis management?
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00:13:41.715So let's look at that the revolution, the evolution of a crisis online.
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00:13:51.760So we've broken this down into sort of several sections, but if you've never been involved in a crisis scenario, we've been involved in quite a few.
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00:14:19.849We've been involved in stuff that you'll have seen and we've kept brands out of the media, but we've been involved in putting crises out before they even happen, before something's shared on social, and then we'll help advise a client to stop this from happening, where, within an hour, 28 percent of all crises spread within one hour and you can be damn sure I've done this for years it won't be between nine and five thirty and it won't be worse still, it probably won't be Monday to Friday either.
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00:14:25.711And so you're, all your team, are out and and the crisis breaks at seven o'clock on a Sunday.
00:14:25.711 -->
00:14:35.614Within, on average, it takes 21 hours before companies are able to create some meaningful external comms to defend themselves.
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00:14:37.134So nearly a full day.
00:14:37.195 -->
00:14:48.177So if you have had a crisis and you've dealt with that in less than a day, with roughly a day, isn't it Twenty hours well done, because a lot of businesses take, and the longer you take, there's a vacuum.
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00:14:50.558This used to happen before social.
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00:14:57.802If you don't answer, you know, own that situation.
00:14:57.802 -->
00:14:59.392Like my statement example earlier, you get this scenario where there's a vacuum.
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00:15:00.196Oh, they've not answered what's going on.
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00:15:09.346There must be something mysterious going on, it must be their problem, it must be their fault, and more than 48 hours in 18% of incidents.
00:15:09.346 -->
00:15:12.272So, yeah, the crisis happens quite quickly.
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00:15:20.809And then by 23, so by 12 o'clock, 69% spread internationally within 24 hours.
00:15:20.809 -->
00:15:28.272So you can have a crisis that's broke in one of your stores or in one of your outlets and within 24 hours it's reached 11 countries, which is crazy.
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00:15:36.909One year later, 53% of companies had not seen share prices regain to pre-crisis levels.
00:15:37.250 -->
00:15:47.188So that is what happens if you're not prepared or deal with it appropriately, you can be prepared, but if you haven't practiced or got scenario and you've run through the various and nobody ever gets it 100% right.
00:15:47.188 -->
00:15:54.543But why do they say practice, practice, practice, because if you don't practice you ain't going to get perfect and it's never going to be perfect.
00:15:54.543 -->
00:15:59.393Being inside a war room of a crisis can be quite fun.
00:15:59.393 -->
00:16:05.432It can be quite scary if you're in the brand, but it can equally really get you to earn your wages.
00:16:05.432 -->
00:16:06.214Put it that way.
00:16:06.214 -->
00:16:15.581And 50% of communication advisors surveyed believe organizations are not adequately prepared to handle a crisis.
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00:16:26.181Hence why we sometimes recommend crisis management training or some formal sort of media training or a scenario training or something with our customers or whatever.
00:16:27.143 -->
00:16:36.245So social media can supercharge your crisis response, because before you had to issue statements and then they had to go to the press.
00:16:36.245 -->
00:16:40.926Now you can provide information instantly Wherever the crisis is broke.
00:16:40.926 -->
00:16:48.187If it's broken on Twitter or X or threads or wherever it is, you can provide that information on said platform instantly.
00:16:48.187 -->
00:16:52.264Obviously, you have to get it all If you've got agreed statements pre-approved.
00:16:52.264 -->
00:16:59.025It also helps you can monitor evolving conversations, some of the issues that we've stopped happening.
00:16:59.025 -->
00:17:02.101We've had things where clients have said we're going to end up in the nationals.
00:17:02.101 -->
00:17:19.960We've monitored social media because we've got numerous monitoring tools, identified the people that are talking about it, looked at what the problems they've got, how they're mobilizing and had a pre-planned approach and then contacted the journalists that are going to attend and put out a fire before it's even happened.
00:17:19.960 -->
00:17:21.863That's by monitoring conversations.
00:17:21.863 -->
00:17:22.784You can't always do that.
00:17:22.784 -->
00:17:24.786If you know something's coming, you can.
00:17:25.727 -->
00:17:29.592You can address concerns on social media because misinformation is happening all the time.
00:17:29.592 -->
00:17:32.816During COVID we've had various people on our podcasts.
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00:17:39.101We're getting the guy that.
00:17:39.101 -->
00:17:41.664We've had somebody that was involved in the COVID war room and misinformation was happening.
00:17:41.664 -->
00:17:48.563Like they had at least 65 social media posts that were misinformation every single day during COVID, one of which was drink.
00:17:48.843 -->
00:17:49.664You might remember this one.
00:17:49.664 -->
00:17:50.827There's loads.
00:17:50.827 -->
00:17:54.925You remember when Donald Trump said drink bleach, which was insane.
00:17:54.925 -->
00:18:04.231And then there was another one in the UK that the government did have to respond to and that was if you drink boiling hot water, it kills the virus in your stomach.
00:18:04.231 -->
00:18:10.150That was when that was peak COVID and the government had to do a response so you can address concerns, misinformation.
00:18:10.150 -->
00:18:19.708Equally, if you're using social media, you can limit the damage, you can monitor, respond and also you can demonstrate transparency by saying we're investigating this.
00:18:19.708 -->
00:18:21.271This is where we're at so far.
00:18:21.271 -->
00:18:23.345We'll do X, y and Z.
00:18:23.345 -->
00:18:26.553We're investigating, don't worry, we've got this.
00:18:29.641 -->
00:18:35.792So let's take a look at some real world crisis examples and hopefully the sound will work on this.
00:18:35.792 -->
00:18:39.287So let's just talk about this.
00:18:39.287 -->
00:18:43.406So we've got Boeing here Now.
00:18:43.406 -->
00:18:44.009I mean we've put here.
00:18:44.009 -->
00:18:46.215It's an absolute masterclass in mishandling a crisis.
00:18:46.215 -->
00:18:47.460Boeing 737.
00:18:47.460 -->
00:18:51.839I mean, boeing have been an interesting case study for crisis management.
00:18:51.839 -->
00:18:53.625They spend millions on it.
00:18:54.507 -->
00:19:05.053But this year just keeps getting worse for Boeing More FAA investigators, more whistleblowers and delays in its new Starliner, which is its space vehicle.
00:19:05.053 -->
00:19:08.357Whistleblowers and delays in its new Starliner, which is its space vehicle.
00:19:08.357 -->
00:19:13.240That's been delayed Terrible PR.
00:19:13.240 -->
00:19:17.449Also, you have the 737 MAX where two planes under the new software flew directly into the ground due to software malfunction.
00:19:17.449 -->
00:19:22.784Boeing denied it was a malfunction, then had to admit it was and then they had to admit the training.
00:19:22.784 -->
00:19:30.756Allegedly the training wasn't provided appropriately for the captains and then so that had all gone on.
00:19:30.756 -->
00:19:38.452Boeing stock is down 29%, almost a third this year, making it one of the worst performing stocks in the US stock exchange.
00:19:38.452 -->
00:19:43.852The company is currently having to borrow nearly 10 billion trying to fix its problems.
00:19:43.852 -->
00:19:48.791And then, on top of all that, this video appeared on social media, which you'll have seen.
00:19:48.791 -->
00:19:50.765It was one video, but I mean.
00:19:50.765 -->
00:19:52.911You know what I'm saying about trust.
00:19:52.911 -->
00:19:54.807It takes years and years, and years.
00:19:54.807 -->
00:19:57.750Good quality building planes, the engines are reliable.
00:19:57.750 -->
00:19:59.666Then this appears on social media.
00:20:01.601 -->
00:20:03.184We are following a developing story.
00:20:03.184 -->
00:20:16.454After part of an Alaska Airlines plane fell off mid-flight, the FAA is now grounding 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9s as investigators try to figure out how this happened and if it's a bigger problem.
00:20:16.454 -->
00:21:42.366Abc's Rena Roy has the latest New video from inside this 737 MAX 9 shows federal investigators combing through the plane as they work to figure out what went wrong when the door plug flew off midair during an Alaska Airlines flight on Friday, leaving a gaping hole.
00:21:42.366 -->
00:21:47.229I looked to my left and there's this huge chunk part of the airplane just like missing.
00:21:47.229 -->
00:21:50.400The door plug now found after a three-day search.
00:21:50.400 -->
00:21:53.410It ended up in the backyard of a Portland school teacher.
00:21:53.410 -->
00:22:05.194The discovery coming as the National Transportation Safety Board reveals, no data can be pulled from the cockpit voice recorder because it was completely overwritten At two hours.
00:22:05.194 -->
00:22:08.657It re-records over it, so we have nothing from the CVR.
00:22:09.650 -->
00:22:14.422171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes now grounded around the world.
00:22:14.422 -->
00:22:33.403We are emergency, we are depressurized, but we do need to return back the plane taking off from Portland, oregon, friday evening, heading to Ontario, california, with 179 people on board when all of a sudden, the so-called door plug, which is used to cover and seal optional emergency exits flew off from the 26th row.
00:22:33.403 -->
00:22:36.276Thankfully the two seats next to it were empty.
00:22:36.276 -->
00:22:38.122The plane depressurizing.
00:22:38.122 -->
00:22:39.394I was really praying.
00:22:39.394 -->
00:22:42.726I was asking God to put angels under the wings to hold us up.
00:22:42.726 -->
00:22:48.580Some passengers' phones sucked out of the plane, flight attendants racing to keep everyone calm and safe.
00:22:48.580 -->
00:22:54.692I just noticed one flight attendant rushing down the aisle with a portable oxygen mask.
00:22:54.692 -->
00:22:56.279She was just trying to do a head count.
00:22:56.279 -->
00:23:01.237Make sure everybody was counted for, the pilot immediately heading back to Portland International Airport.
00:23:01.237 -->
00:23:03.823The entire ordeal lasting 26 minutes.
00:23:04.950 -->
00:23:06.534I mean the NTSB says.
00:23:06.834 -->
00:23:14.312I mean I won't share the rest of that video, but the point is, I mean, imagine if there had been two people sat in those chairs.
00:23:14.312 -->
00:23:17.799Had they survived if they'd not been strapped that way?
00:23:17.799 -->
00:23:28.238Seat belt is the first message to this um, but boeing, I mean to add to this, obviously they've had two planes crashed straight into the ground killing several hundred people, which is absolutely horrific.
00:23:28.238 -->
00:23:36.003Um and the ceo, um, I believe and I don't know the exact numbers, so don't quote me on this but is hundreds of millions.
00:23:36.631 -->
00:23:50.663His salary is, and he got pulled in front of the American committee to answer questions on build quality on Boeing planes and the, the, the, the various senators that were grilling him were saying basically, you're, you're using profit.
00:23:50.663 -->
00:23:57.690Him was saying basically, you're, you're using profit, you're, you're taking out profit of the business just to make more profit for your shareholders at the risk of safety to passengers.
00:23:57.690 -->
00:24:03.482So I mean it's literally awful and all bowen keep doing is issuing more defensive statements.
00:24:03.482 -->
00:24:08.101But now they've had to um, admit some things with the issues with the, the software and etc.
00:24:08.101 -->
00:24:08.280Etc.
00:24:08.301 -->
00:24:19.396Because there's been formal investigations into it but yeah, I, yeah, and for me, one of the you know, 15, 20 years ago, if that had happened on a plane, chances are nobody would have been there to film it.
00:24:19.396 -->
00:24:25.769But the challenge we face now is you know, something like that happens, or indeed something quite minor.
00:24:25.769 -->
00:24:27.314You know, and it might be.
00:24:27.314 -->
00:24:40.042You know, it might be a minor product defect or it might be a member of staff misbehaving, but rest assured, there's always somebody there with their smartphone to record it, and that can absolutely create a whole new dynamic when it comes to crisis scenarios.
00:24:40.930 -->
00:24:41.971Yeah, but they seem to be.
00:24:41.971 -->
00:24:47.644I mean, they're in, they're in trouble in terms of reputation, stock markets, prices down, but it's backed by the American government.
00:24:47.644 -->
00:24:53.682So they still, you know, they're still going and they're going to continue to go, because they employ millions of people in the US.
00:24:53.682 -->
00:24:59.023The second case study that I want to talk about is Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney.
00:24:59.023 -->
00:25:02.513I don't know if you've heard of this story, so I'll just tell you what happened.
00:25:02.513 -->
00:25:10.201Tiktok to promote a transgender.
00:25:10.201 -->
00:25:14.706Dylan Mulvaney on TikTok to promote a contest.
00:25:14.706 -->
00:25:23.274Around the same time as releasing pride, themed cans of products with various pronouns to celebrate, you know, diversity.
00:25:23.976 -->
00:25:25.480However, the backlash.
00:25:25.480 -->
00:25:35.343This led to boycotts from very conservative American customers, accusing the company of being far too woke and spreading rumors that the entire marketing team had been laid off.
00:25:35.343 -->
00:25:42.073In response, which included American musician Kid Rock shooting cans of Bud Light, people boycotted the brand.
00:25:42.073 -->
00:25:46.583I mean it was shocking how this nearly killed Bud Light.
00:25:46.583 -->
00:25:57.220The problem was that the response from the company was so inconsistent they didn't know which way to go, whether to say oh, they couldn't, and then they like hung out Dylan Mulvaney to try.
00:25:57.220 -->
00:26:10.375They didn't really back what they'd done, they just said that they just totally backtracked, which was awful, really badly handled and then they didn't know what they were doing, whether they were for or against or what because they were worried that they were going to upset.
00:26:10.375 -->
00:26:21.319So they ended up upsetting both sides of the argument, and it didn't address the concerns to come out of Mulvaney, who announced that she was scared to leave her house because of the backlash.
00:26:21.319 -->
00:26:23.315It's a horrible story for that individual.
00:26:23.315 -->
00:26:25.101She was really scared.
00:26:25.210 -->
00:26:33.361So the impact on the brand though which is why I've shared it is there's a 28% drop in sales in the month following the controversy.
00:26:33.361 -->
00:26:35.352That's more than a quarter.
00:26:35.352 -->
00:26:43.396Almost a third Revenue dropped by nearly $400 million, over 10% compared to the same period in the previous year.
00:26:43.396 -->
00:26:46.066Operating profit dipped 30%.
00:26:46.066 -->
00:26:48.452And what lessons can we take away from this?
00:26:48.452 -->
00:26:55.878Understanding your core audience and having consistent in your crisis, because they just kept flip-flopping from one to the other.
00:26:55.878 -->
00:26:59.432It ended up being worse that they didn't back what they'd done originally.
00:26:59.513 -->
00:27:02.161So, yeah, awful handling of a case today.
00:27:02.161 -->
00:27:03.826Who got it right?
00:27:03.826 -->
00:27:06.658Now, I know what you're thinking, gary lineker.
00:27:06.658 -->
00:27:07.523This will be interesting.
00:27:07.523 -->
00:27:08.649What have you got for me here, chris?
00:27:08.649 -->
00:27:11.154Well, I'll tell you, um, but the bbc.
00:27:12.458 -->
00:27:20.003I'm not sure they entirely got this right because obviously what happened was Suella Braverman said that we were being invaded.
00:27:20.003 -->
00:27:22.196You might remember she said we were being invaded.
00:27:22.196 -->
00:27:27.605She was in the government at the time a foreign secretary, I believe, or was it Home Secretary, one of the two.
00:27:27.605 -->
00:27:38.415She said we were being invaded by migrants to the UK and Gary Lineker responded saying good on Twitter, good heavens, this is beyond awful.
00:27:38.415 -->
00:27:44.114And then everybody started saying he was out of order and he responded.
00:27:44.114 -->
00:27:47.663Gary Lineker responded with this tweet this is no huge influx.
00:27:47.663 -->
00:27:53.461We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries.
00:27:53.461 -->
00:28:05.043This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people, in language that is not dissimilar to that used in Germany in the 1930s and I am out of order question mark.
00:28:05.043 -->
00:28:14.917So what happened there was they basically suspended Gary Lineker over his tweets criticising the government's immigration policy.
00:28:17.014 -->
00:28:18.018Now, were they right to do that?
00:28:18.018 -->
00:28:19.938Because the BBC are meant to be impartial.
00:28:19.938 -->
00:28:30.782So my question is this bit was probably wrong, but it led to mass walkout of several presenters and you might remember it led to the match of the day being 20 minutes long because they panicked.
00:28:30.782 -->
00:28:33.018The BBC really backed themselves into a corner.
00:28:33.018 -->
00:28:37.436So you'd be wondering why we've used this as an example, because actually it's a bad example.
00:28:37.436 -->
00:28:40.390But you remember when I said you can never get it 100% right.
00:28:40.390 -->
00:28:48.737I think that they dealt with the second part of it a lot better and they thought hang on a minute, we have got this wrong, trying to be impartial all the time.
00:28:49.190 -->
00:28:51.774So what did the BBC do to start rebuilding the trust?
00:28:51.774 -->
00:28:59.192It reinstated Lineker within several days and announced a formal independent review for its impartiality rules.
00:28:59.192 -->
00:29:04.301And how did they use their strategy to communicate to the public?
00:29:04.301 -->
00:29:14.158There was a public apology issued by the BBC Director General, which has never been done before, and it maintained a transparent review process throughout.
00:29:14.158 -->
00:29:16.245And what was the outcome?
00:29:16.245 -->
00:29:22.761There was a swift return to normal programming and increased conversation around impartiality in the media, where the BBC stands.
00:29:22.761 -->
00:29:37.996And they completely reviewed their social media policy with freelance people, because obviously Gary Lineker is freelance, he works for several, but he also works for Back to the Day, et cetera their policy, because Gary Lineker believed it was one thing, bbc believed it was another.
00:29:38.317 -->
00:29:44.001So the initial bit, I thought they got wrong, but I thought their way, that they did it all transparently after that was much, much better.
00:29:44.001 -->
00:29:46.353What can we learn from this?
00:29:46.353 -->
00:29:51.094So quick acknowledgement and a resolution of the issue is swift.
00:29:51.094 -->
00:29:51.816That is good.
00:29:51.816 -->
00:29:54.682A commitment to review and improve policies.
00:29:54.682 -->
00:29:58.201If you get something wrong, there's no point in defensing the undefensible.
00:29:58.201 -->
00:30:00.537If it's wrong, review it.
00:30:00.537 -->
00:30:07.663And how can we improve Open communication with all stakeholders and find out the general consensus and see if there's anything you can do.
00:30:09.912 -->
00:30:16.443Balancing the organizational values hard for me to say with public expectations, which is what they did there, which was quite smart.
00:30:16.443 -->
00:30:30.125So, managing a crisis in 2024, I said that traditional crisis and social media crisis were different and are now integrated, just like all types of comms.
00:30:30.125 -->
00:30:36.653So in our crisis management process, we've got three stages of crisis management.
00:30:36.653 -->
00:30:38.318You might have heard me talk about this.
00:30:38.318 -->
00:30:44.561There's actually a fourth one as well, which is recovery, but for this I want to keep it nice and clear.
00:30:44.561 -->
00:30:53.557So you've got pre-crisis how you deal with and that's why you're all here today to learn, maybe, look and review what you're doing, maybe scenario training, pre-crisisise, anything you can do to that.
00:30:53.557 -->
00:30:58.932Then you've got during crisis and crisis response so how you dealt with how you deal with that.
00:30:59.212 -->
00:31:10.871Then you've got post-crisis and how you review about 60% of you do have a crisis plan, which is great, but about 50% of you have taken actually consider social media as part of that.
00:31:10.871 -->
00:31:29.860And then about 70% of you haven't actually faced a crisis, which is great, and long may that continue, but the chances are at some point a crisis will happen and what I'll talk about actually later on often an issue, a seemingly innocuous issue, can spiral into a crisis if it's not dealt with correctly.
00:31:29.860 -->
00:31:33.403So let's talk about the pre-crisis stage.
00:31:33.403 -->
00:31:47.321So this is really about kind of preparation and, like I said, the more work you can do in this kind of pre-crisis stage, the less likely you are to well, not, you know, you're always going to face crises but the less likely crises are to really develop into something more damaging.
00:31:47.321 -->
00:31:56.375So I think, first and foremost, in the kind of pre-crisis stage, we need to be really on top of our crisis plan.
00:31:56.375 -->
00:32:02.396Now the data suggests, as Chris talked through, about 50% of organizations don't have a crisis plan.
00:32:02.396 -->
00:32:17.345You guys filling in the polls says about 60% do have a crisis plan, but the point is there is organizations out there without a crisis plan and, equally, even if you have got crisis plan, it might not adequately consider social media as part of that.
00:32:17.345 -->
00:32:19.754So that's absolutely crucial and we need to.
00:32:19.754 -->
00:32:27.353You know, we need to make sure our crisis plans are fit for purpose for the challenges we're likely to face today and like a strategy.
00:32:27.353 -->
00:32:29.881Actually, a crisis plan needs to be reviewed regularly as well.
00:32:29.881 -->
00:32:34.053So at least yearly, we need to review that and make sure it is up to date.
00:32:34.053 -->
00:32:45.492Um, what we need to do as part of that is include roles and responsibilities of all the team members involved, and a crisis response as I'll explain in a minute, isn't just a comms concern.
00:32:45.492 -->
00:32:48.001Um, it's not just a board concern.
00:32:48.001 -->
00:32:52.756There needs to be lots of different teams inputting into that, working together, including the social team.
00:32:52.756 -->
00:32:56.285Actually, we also need to test it out.
00:32:56.285 -->
00:32:58.891So just having a crisis plan isn't really enough.
00:32:58.891 -->
00:33:03.509What we need to do is stress, test that plan and check does it work when we're under pressure?
00:33:03.509 -->
00:33:04.875Do we all know what to do?
00:33:04.875 -->
00:33:09.677And, as part of that, what you can actually do and this is something, at prohibition, that we do with our clients.
00:33:09.677 -->
00:33:13.491A lot is actually simulate social media crisis scenarios.
00:33:13.491 -->
00:33:26.343So we will create a believable crisis scenario and then we will incorporate social media elements where the crisis starts to get out of control and starts to go viral on social media.
00:33:26.343 -->
00:33:33.016And there's actually third-party companies you can work with as well that have got tools in this space that really realistically simulate a crisis going viral on social media.
00:33:33.016 -->
00:33:43.536And the more you can work with as well that have got tools in this space that you know really realistically simulate a crisis going viral on social media, and the more you can practice it with all involved parties, then the better you're actually going to be when it comes to dealing with a crisis when it actually happens.
00:33:44.960 -->
00:33:51.179I spoke about who needs to be involved in a crisis response and really you know this.
00:33:51.179 -->
00:34:04.317This can vary depending on your organization, but definitely board and senior leadership you know they don't need to be looped in necessarily at every time you have an issue, every time you have a complaint or something like that.
00:34:04.317 -->
00:34:07.876Typically, they get looped in when a crisis hits tipping point.
00:34:07.876 -->
00:34:11.931You know, and that's when you loop those people in Customer service.
00:34:11.931 -->
00:34:19.634Absolutely, Customer service are dealing with your customers and typically with complaints all the time, so they need to be briefed.
00:34:19.634 -->
00:34:22.438Of course, marketing, comms and social need to be involved.
00:34:22.438 -->
00:34:28.657Legal and HR might be a consideration as well as operations, and there might be other teams involved as well.
00:34:28.657 -->
00:34:37.057But the point is, an effective crisis response involves a multidisciplinary team and everybody needs to be briefed and everyone needs to be across the plan.
00:34:37.057 -->
00:34:41.297So on to the actual crisis response.
00:34:41.297 -->
00:34:51.482So just to reiterate, the more robust your crisis plan in theory, the less likely a crisis is to develop into something overly damaging.
00:34:52.329 -->
00:34:56.442So when you're actually in a crisis, there's four kind of key areas to take into consideration.
00:34:56.442 -->
00:35:00.842One is the actual response, ie you know what do you do, when and how do you respond.
00:35:00.842 -->
00:35:02.511One is messaging.
00:35:02.511 -->
00:35:08.143So what do you actually say, you know, and what kind of key messages do you push?
00:35:08.143 -->
00:35:15.313Communication, which is, how do you communicate with people and on what platforms, and that's a massive consideration.
00:35:15.313 -->
00:35:23.402Actually, you know which platforms do you need to communicate on, and consistency as well, which I'll cover on the on the communication one.
00:35:23.402 -->
00:35:35.474Actually, I'll come on to this, but you know which platform you engage with is really really important, and what we're starting to see actually is crisis scenarios developing on different platforms.
00:35:35.535 -->
00:35:43.299So TikTok is something we talk about a lot, and Chris gave the brief example earlier of, you know, people in a restaurant tampering with food.
00:35:43.299 -->
00:35:48.858Funnily enough, tiktok seems to be a really dominant channel for that kind of content.
00:35:48.858 -->
00:35:58.391You know, and when somebody's messing around with food or something like that, typically somebody is there in the queue filming it and almost always it lands on tick tock first.
00:35:58.391 -->
00:36:05.015So if you're in hospitality, for example, you absolutely need to be across tick tock as a channel where where these issues could develop.
00:36:05.015 -->
00:36:08.163So on to response.
00:36:08.163 -->
00:36:11.682So this is the first um element to consider what we need to do.
00:36:11.632 -->
00:36:12.931As with all you know, this is the first element to consider what we need to do.
00:36:12.931 -->
00:36:23.222As with all you know, this is not unique to social media crisis management, but we need to be decisive and we need to be prompt in our response by acting quickly and focusing on the facts.
00:36:23.222 -->
00:36:29.393Even if we don't know many of the facts, we can control the narrative and what happens is in social media.
00:36:29.393 -->
00:36:46.357If we don't respond, then we invite speculation and misinformation and what happens is a kind of a vacuum gets created where people will speculate and you know the story can quickly spiral out of control.
00:36:46.357 -->
00:36:52.432So what we need to do, even if we don't know the full details, is acknowledge there is a problem and we are looking into it.
00:36:52.432 -->
00:36:59.721And that's also got the second benefit of focusing debate and discussion onto our own channels.
00:36:59.721 -->
00:37:12.227Now, it won't remove other people speculating, but it will certainly focus that chatter onto our own channels, which is a good thing because it's in one space.
00:37:14.250 -->
00:37:32.696When we kind of publish this response as well as kind of traditional responses, whether that's a media statement directly to journalists, we need to think about using our own social media channels not necessarily all of our channels, though, and I'll come on to that in a moment but if a crisis, for example, breaks on Instagram or an issue breaks on Instagram, then it's really important to respond on that same channel.
00:37:32.696 -->
00:37:50.172We don't necessarily want to respond on all of our channels, so if something happens on LinkedIn or on Instagram, there's nothing necessarily to be gained from them talking about it on TikTok, because actually that could serve to amplify the crisis beyond where it necessarily needs to go.
00:37:50.172 -->
00:38:10.371Also, publishing a statement which can be regularly updated on your website is a really good idea, and when you're in the trenches with a crisis and you're getting as anyone probably knows, if there's been in a major crisis scenario, you might be getting 100 calls an hour from journalists, but if you have a statement on your website, you can immediately direct people to that.
00:38:10.371 -->
00:38:21.001You can put an out of office on your emails, on the press office email address, and direct people straight to that statement, and that can just give you time to focus on how are you going to respond, rather than firefighting.
00:38:21.001 -->
00:38:27.621And in most cases, if we act quickly, we need further time to investigate.
00:38:27.621 -->
00:38:35.062So that's fine and we can tell people we need further time to investigate and we will be publishing a second statement at so and so o'clock.
00:38:35.062 -->
00:38:42.605But the point is open and honest communication and getting in there early is really really In terms of messaging.
00:38:43.646 -->
00:38:55.768Ideally, as part of our crisis planning, we need to first of all, anticipate the type of crises our organizations are likely to face and you're never going to guess every type of crisis.
00:38:55.768 -->
00:39:07.451But, depending on your sector, there's going to be 10 or 20 different types of crises you could face and actually you can use AI to help anticipate some of those issues.
00:39:07.451 -->
00:39:14.326So you could use ChatGPT, for example, to ask give me 20 crisis scenarios X company is likely to face.
00:39:14.326 -->
00:39:28.807But the point is, you can actually prepare statements which can be finessed and bespoke according to all of those different scenarios that might occur, and ultimately they give you the basis of how to communicate with different stakeholder groups.
00:39:28.807 -->
00:39:31.989And the point is there's massive time-saving benefits of this.
00:39:31.989 -->
00:39:43.211When you're in the middle of a crisis, the last thing you want to be doing is spending ages and ages A responding to people's questions and B drafting comments and drafting statements.
00:39:43.211 -->
00:39:59.551The more you can kind of automate that and the more you can take that away, the more time you can actually focus on the crisis Communication quite a broad issue here but the point is we need to understand how to communicate our response.
00:40:00.300 -->
00:40:02.908Obviously, we need to get everything signed off, ideally in advance.
00:40:02.908 -->
00:40:20.232We need to brief our team, first of all, that this is happening, and that's the immediate crisis team, and we might also want to consider broader internal comms, and there's things throughout the organization and the more robust our internal comms is, the less likely there are to be leaks.
00:40:20.232 -->
00:40:33.538And it's not uncommon for journalists or the media to basically research employees on Twitter or on LinkedIn and actually engage with them directly and say oh, I see you work for so-and-so company.
00:40:33.538 -->
00:40:35.405What can you tell us about this?
00:40:35.405 -->
00:40:41.319But if you brief employees that they're not to say anything, they shouldn't respond to journalists on social media.
00:40:41.319 -->
00:40:43.423They shouldn't speculate on their own channels.
00:40:43.423 -->
00:40:52.201That can help lock down things from a messaging perspective as well as sort of holding statements and things like that.
00:40:52.260 -->
00:40:54.948We need designated spokespeople.
00:40:54.948 -->
00:41:13.390As with a traditional crisis, they need to be media trained, which is a whole separate sort of discipline, something we do a lot of, but you know, we could do a kind of a whole separate training deck on media training, but ultimately, they need to be able to speak clearly and confidently and with empathy as well.
00:41:13.390 -->
00:41:23.083Actually, increasingly, the most successful spokespeople and chief executives are the ones that have empathy and connect with audiences, not just corporate robots.
00:41:23.083 -->
00:41:40.173We also might want to consider video content as well, and increasingly what we're seeing is, if there's a major organizational crisis, the chief exec will shoot a quick video of them explaining what's happening, what the situation is, and that can be really, really effective.
00:41:40.173 -->
00:41:45.489But again, they need to be used to being on camera and you can't just do it first time.
00:41:45.489 -->
00:41:57.264You know, ideally you'll have trained your senior people in, you know, in shooting video content in an effective way, and I kind of mentioned this before.
00:41:57.284 -->
00:42:03.159But we need to understand the appropriate channels to communicate, to always communicate on the channel where a crisis breaks.
00:42:03.159 -->
00:42:15.713If it's a crisis, first channel, a crisis, sorry a social first crisis and we don't necessarily need to communicate on every channel because in some cases, that might amplify the crisis beyond where we.
00:42:15.713 -->
00:42:17.444You know when it necessarily needs to go.
00:42:17.444 -->
00:42:24.339But as part of your social strategy, you should always understand which of your audience are on which channels.
00:42:24.339 -->
00:42:31.826So, clearly, the people that follow you on LinkedIn they're going to be a different group to the people that follow you on TikTok or Snapchat.
00:42:31.826 -->
00:42:38.009So understand where our audiences reside and, depending on the context of the crisis, communicate on the appropriate channels.
00:42:38.009 -->
00:42:46.105Consistency is really important as well and you know as well as kind of getting in there first with a statement.
00:42:46.105 -->
00:42:57.715We need to regularly update our kind of customers, our stakeholders, whoever it might be, our audiences, whenever there's a kind of a changing concern or changing circumstances with a crisis.
00:43:00.762 -->
00:43:09.221Now, often it's hard to understand how a crisis is evolving and really this is where social media monitoring comes in.
00:43:09.221 -->
00:43:21.300So social media monitoring essentially allows you to track in real time and retrospectively but the real time function is most useful for a crisis how your brand is being talked about online.
00:43:21.300 -->
00:43:30.841So how is your brand, how is your category or how is a topic you know it might be, you know it might be product recall, it might be your actual brand name, it might be a competitor.
00:43:30.841 -->
00:43:39.049It allows you to track how that's being talked about by people in real time and, ultimately, you can track the sentiment of that conversation.
00:43:39.049 -->
00:43:52.667You can track how, how you know the volumes of that conversation, which channels that conversation is on, and that just allows you to be super responsive and flexible in terms of how you respond and you can identify misinformation.
00:43:52.667 -->
00:44:07.004For example, you can identify the key antagonists involved in a conversation or indeed those key positive voices that you might want to amplify as well positive voices that you might want to amplify as well.
00:44:07.024 -->
00:44:56.431And actually, chris and I have been involved in a number of crises usually with retailers actually doing live events, where we've had lobbyists or protesters coordinating a protest basically against said client, which we can't talk about, and what we've actually done is identified some of those antagonists on social media and, in real time, tracked what they're doing and what they're planning and looked at how that kind of conversation is shifting and you can make real time decisions based on that and it can be incredibly effective and really, if you're not using social media monitoring during a crisis, then you know you're blind to really what's going on, and prompts and professional responses where appropriate, are really important.
00:44:56.431 -->
00:45:00.245Now, we're not suggesting you respond to every single comment on social media.
00:45:00.245 -->
00:45:09.529You know, if a crisis kicks off, you might be getting several hundred questions and comments every hour and there's nothing to be gained from responding to all of those.
00:45:09.529 -->
00:45:13.591So you need to decide which of those to respond to, and that's an issue I'll talk about in a moment.
00:45:13.591 -->
00:45:17.043And then finally, post-crisis.
00:45:17.043 -->
00:45:30.588So, like all elements of marketing and comms, we need to measure the impact of what we've done and take the learnings and improve our plan to make us better in the future, and this allows for kind of incremental improvement.
00:45:30.588 -->
00:45:38.163So, ultimately, this kind of post-crisis assessment, you know we need to do things like examine the effectiveness of each comms channel we used.
00:45:38.163 -->
00:45:39.205You know.
00:45:39.205 -->
00:45:41.980So have people been visiting the website to look at the statement?
00:45:41.980 -->
00:45:49.612Is there a certain social network where more people came across your responses or engaged, positively or negatively?
00:45:49.612 -->
00:45:55.711We need to measure the reach and impact of any kind of messages and refine our messaging and our approach accordingly.
00:45:55.711 -->
00:46:00.114And again, this comes back to social listening and social insight.
00:46:00.114 -->
00:46:12.871But using social media listening tools we can actually track the sentiment of a crisis over time and the volume of content over time about a topic, and then we can cross reference that with our crisis intervention.
00:46:12.871 -->
00:46:23.172So, you know, we might have issued a statement refuting the claims and then the sentiment improves and this is a really useful tool to understand what you've done that has or hasn't worked.
00:46:23.172 -->
00:46:32.644And all of this needs to go back into the crisis plan and, ultimately, every single crisis, your plan will become more robust and you'll get better at managing crises in the future.
00:46:34.808 -->
00:46:40.929So we've got a few tips now on, specifically, the kind of the social media elements of handling a crisis.
00:46:40.929 -->
00:46:45.290And, as we talked about at the beginning, yes, social media can throw fuel onto the fire of a crisis.
00:46:45.290 -->
00:46:52.932And, as we talked about at the beginning, yes, social media can throw fuel onto the fire of a crisis, but actually social media can allow you to supercharge your crisis response.
00:46:52.932 -->
00:46:59.726So we need to identify issues as early on as possible.
00:46:59.726 -->
00:47:19.483So this is about really looping in the social team to your crisis management plan, and the social team's job is to really kind of become highly tuned into any kind of issue that could be contentious and could spiral out of control before it becomes a crisis.
00:47:19.483 -->
00:47:32.271Now, typically this might be a customer complaint, it might be a negative review, it might be a photo of I don't know, you know a one of your fleet vans parked on double yellow lines.
00:47:32.271 -->
00:47:40.466Whatever it might be, there's a number of kind of you know and ultimately intuitively they will, they will get a feel for what could spiral out of control.
00:47:40.466 -->
00:47:54.489And typically if the person complaining is a journalist, an influencer, a blogger, that's always, you know, that's always a bit of a red flag and there's all sorts of factors that can, that can, kind of you know, that can be a red flag.
00:47:54.489 -->
00:47:58.908Equally, if hundreds of people have responded to a comment, then that that should be escalated.
00:47:58.908 -->
00:48:06.302But the point is, if your social team can kind of tune into these issues early, they can be dealt with before they turn into a crisis.
00:48:06.302 -->
00:48:12.002If they're left or not identified, then they may become a crisis which could easily be avoided.
00:48:14.447 -->
00:48:17.614Um, social listening I mentioned, but really you know this is about.
00:48:17.614 -->
00:48:35.027Well, first of all, actually, social listening allows you to track mentions of your brand in real time so you can set up searches for your brand against negative keywords and when mentions kind of tip over a certain point, ie you get 10 times as many as usual, or five times as many.
00:48:35.027 -->
00:48:36.974You get an alert so straight away.
00:48:36.974 -->
00:48:41.733If there's a crisis happening or an issue happening, you will get an alert 24 hours a day, and again.
00:48:41.733 -->
00:48:45.926That allows you to really be on the front foot, rather than learning about it when a journalist rings you up.
00:48:45.926 -->
00:49:00.022But, equally, social listening just allows you to really kind of get to the heart of who's communicating, what's being said, what's the sentiment of conversation, who are the key protagonists, what platforms is the conversation taking place on?
00:49:00.022 -->
00:49:11.111And, ultimately, this allows us to be really, really focused with our messaging, with our engagement and with engagement and with platform strategy, and it saves a huge amount of time and effort and allows us to be as focused as possible.
00:49:14.360 -->
00:49:24.545We need to be empathetic when engaging with comments online, and probably more so than even when doing a media interview, and you know we we need to.
00:49:24.545 -->
00:49:33.483We need to be open and honest and if we've made a mistake, admit we've made a mistake and we talked about this and the way things are going.
00:49:33.483 -->
00:49:54.323We need our senior team to be also well-versed yes, in media training, of course, but they also need to be social media trained, so they need to be able to shoot an engaging video directly addressing the issue on for social media first and foremost, and and it's really important that they're kind of comfortable appearing on camera.
00:49:54.323 -->
00:50:08.214Of course and this is a nightmare if you forget to do this if you're having a crisis and it's kicking off on social in particular, we need to make sure any kind of pre-planned campaigns are paused.
00:50:08.214 -->
00:50:20.409So the worst thing in the world is if we're dealing with a crisis and then a campaign that you've been six months in the pipeline planning suddenly launches on social media and it can seem really, really insensitive if you do that.
00:50:20.900 -->
00:50:27.552So absolutely check what social media posts are scheduled, what's happening.
00:50:27.552 -->
00:50:58.928And there's a very famous Tesco's example when the horse meat scandal kicked off and there's basically 24 hours of terrible media coverage about Tesco's possibly selling horse meat in some of their products and they had a pre-scheduled tweet saying wow, it's been a busy day, it's time to hit the hay, which apparently was completely coincidental, but they forgot to pause it and it made it look like they were making light of the whole scandal and it completely kicked off and actually made the news.
00:50:58.928 -->
00:51:04.603So always look at pre-scheduled posts and consider pausing campaigns.
00:51:04.603 -->
00:51:08.011Always lock down your accounts.
00:51:08.011 -->
00:51:11.727I mean you should change your social media passwords regularly anyway.
00:51:11.727 -->
00:51:20.340But the worst thing is, if a crisis happens, particularly if it involves members of staff being made redundant or being fired, lock down your social accounts.
00:51:20.340 -->
00:51:50.913And there's a really famous example when, if anyone remembers HMV which is not really a brand anymore, but when HMV had a major kind of operational reorganization, the head office, the intern, still had access to the Twitter account and was basically live tweeting the MD and the marketing director being marched off the premises and I think they sent about 50 tweets providing live commentary on who's being made redundant, as it was happening.
00:51:50.913 -->
00:51:56.512If they had locked down the accounts before doing anything of the sort, that would not have happened.
00:51:59.899 -->
00:52:06.343Internal comms is really important, of course, as with traditional crisis management, make sure we reassure people what's happening.
00:52:06.343 -->
00:52:11.244We, we keep an open dialogue and we talk to them about what our kind of communication response is being.
00:52:11.244 -->
00:52:16.922But also, um, you know, consider your kind of communication policies.
00:52:16.922 -->
00:52:25.858You know, during a crisis scenario, you would ask people don't, uh, communicate on the behalf of the company on their own channels, channels, and it's those kind of things.
00:52:25.858 -->
00:52:32.885And again, the more you can lock that down, the less likely you're going to get speculation or misinformation from staff.
00:52:32.885 -->
00:52:39.322And, equally, that's also going to stop journalists tapping up your staff to try and comment or try and get the inside track.
00:52:39.322 -->
00:52:48.314Knowing when to engage is really, really important, and this is a kind of a social specific challenge.
00:52:48.314 -->
00:52:49.535But a crisis kicks off.
00:52:49.535 -->
00:52:57.433Chances are there's going to be hundreds of people taken to social media to ask you about it, to complain, to rant, whatever it might be.
00:52:59.000 -->
00:53:03.932We do need to respond to some of the questions but practically speaking, we can't respond to them all.
00:53:03.932 -->
00:53:06.306So if you're getting 100 questions an hour, you can can't respond to them all.
00:53:06.306 -->
00:53:08.250So if you're getting 100 questions an hour, you can't possibly respond to them all.
00:53:08.250 -->
00:53:16.894So what we should do first of all is not get involved in arguments, of course, but you know, roughly assess influence.
00:53:16.894 -->
00:53:22.108So aim to aim to respond to maybe one in ten is is a good idea.
00:53:22.429 -->
00:53:25.004You can either respond to the main themes or topics.
00:53:25.004 -->
00:53:33.669So if lots of people are asking the same questions, respond to one and don't respond to the rest, and you might even want to kind of pin it to the top of your profile.
00:53:33.669 -->
00:53:38.427And, equally, if you see somebody particularly influential, if they've got a verified account or something like that.
00:53:38.427 -->
00:53:39.960Do consider responding to them.
00:53:39.960 -->
00:53:45.672So respond broadly to the themes and assess the influence of the people you're responding to.
00:53:45.672 -->
00:53:50.359You might also want to kind of loop in third party information here.
00:53:50.359 -->
00:54:11.975So if there's people who you know your partners or the media or or stakeholders or whatever who are kind of Talking the truth, arguing it from a different perspective, favorably covering the issue, you might also want to share that content, go public as soon as you can.
00:54:12.897 -->
00:54:14.742You might also want to consider a crisis hub.
00:54:14.742 -->
00:54:27.317So a crisis hub essentially is a kind of a dark site that goes live and can take over the homepage of your main website, and typically crisis hubs are used for the most severe crises.
00:54:27.317 -->
00:54:30.223So this might be an oil spill or a plane crash or something like that.
00:54:30.223 -->
00:54:38.524But at the very least you know we need, you know we might, you know we might want a banner or something like that or something linked on our homepage.
00:54:38.524 -->
00:54:42.006You know giving people information about the product recall or something.
00:54:42.006 -->
00:54:53.187But make it fairly obvious so that people know where to go, and the more clearly you can communicate on your website then the less chances are people are going to head to your social channels and create chaos there.
00:54:53.187 -->
00:54:58.222Instead, getting a little bit technical never goes amiss.
00:54:58.502 -->
00:55:03.903So if we've got a crisis scenario, it's always worth thinking what the crisis keywords are.
00:55:03.903 -->
00:55:10.014So, so you know, is there the name of your product, the terms like product recall, the name of your brand?
00:55:10.014 -->
00:55:16.530There'll be certain keywords that people are basically searching for online to look for details of what's happened.
00:55:16.530 -->
00:55:35.992Now what we can do is make sure our news updates that we're publishing, that we're sending to journalists, that we're posting on social media, include those, and that can help from an SEO perspective, because the idea is your responses start to appear in search as well as perhaps the negative pieces.
00:55:35.992 -->
00:55:40.648We can also look at Google PPC bidding for those keywords.
00:55:40.648 -->
00:55:50.990So if somebody's searching for XXX, product recall, our content comes up on PPC with our side of the argument, and the whole point is we want to redress the balance.
00:55:51.050 -->
00:55:53.083So it's not just all negative, actually.
00:55:53.083 -->
00:55:55.569Here's the facts from our perspective.
00:55:55.569 -->
00:56:07.263And equally, it's not uncommon to use what we call bash tags, where people might say hashtag my Dell hell being one of the famous ones or company name fail.
00:56:07.263 -->
00:56:19.373We can also use those hashtags, because if people are using those hashtags to search for information about what's happened, we should also use them in our content and our content will start to show up in those hashtag searches as well.
00:56:19.373 -->
00:56:21.402And again, it's about redressing the balance.
00:56:21.402 -->
00:56:46.904And finally and this might be something probably post-crisis in the longer term, but ideally we'll have social media allies, and these might be stakeholders, partners, it might be influencers we've worked with, you know, and this is a chance to kind of, you know, like retweet or link to favorable content that perhaps presents the argument from a different perspective.
00:56:46.904 -->
00:56:54.793Or, equally, in the longer term, you know, start to use influencers to tell the good stories you know about what's happening.
00:56:54.793 -->
00:57:09.057And again, this is about balancing things out online so there's not just pages and pages of negative content about our company negative content about our company.
00:57:09.057 -->
00:57:11.442Okay, that's a whistle-stop tour, just so you know.
00:57:11.461 -->
00:57:15.804You know when Chris and I deliver crisis strategy and crisis training, of which we do an awful lot of, it can take many days.
00:57:15.804 -->
00:57:20.652You know, drafting a crisis plan is a fairly in-depth process.
00:57:20.652 -->
00:57:27.205You know, what we've done here in about 50 minutes is kind of giving you a whistle-stop tour of what you need to take into consideration.
00:57:27.205 -->
00:57:32.923You will face challenges on the way, unfortunately, and we're just being realistic.
00:57:32.923 -->
00:57:43.582You know, one of the big challenges we hear clients telling us about and brands telling us about is meaningfully and effectively integrating social into a traditional crisis plan.
00:57:43.582 -->
00:57:56.050I think it's quite easy to superficially incorporate social media into a crisis plan, but doing it in a way where everything is joined up and everything is integrated does require some real consideration and brainpower.
00:57:57.199 -->
00:58:04.266Tracking a crisis when it starts to go viral is a challenge, and that's the importance of kind of stress.
00:58:04.266 -->
00:58:14.129Testing your crisis plan and doing scenario testing as well and you know how you respond when it goes live, if you like, and it starts going viral is crucially important.
00:58:14.129 -->
00:58:36.371Identifying issues early, before they turn into a crisis is another challenge and, like we said, you know, often what happens is a customer complaint just isn't dealt with on social media and suddenly it's the weekend and it's a bank holiday and three days later there's a thousand comments and the journalists are looking at this and ringing you up and asking what's happened.
00:58:36.371 -->
00:58:41.992If that had been dealt with in the first instance, before it spiraled out of control, then it might not have become such a big issue.
00:58:41.992 -->
00:58:49.866Setting the right tone when it comes to messaging and knowing when to engage with the right people at the right time is also a challenge.
00:58:49.866 -->
00:59:01.480So, with so much happening in a crisis responding to journalists, internal comms, responding on social media it's really hard to know how to focus your time and effort and it's really important to understand.
00:59:01.480 -->
00:59:11.214Okay, let's respond only to the most influential antagonists on social media that have got the potential to to influence how the crisis evolves.
00:59:13.560 -->
00:59:17.230So you'll be pleased to know we do have various crisis products.
00:59:17.230 -->
00:59:22.279I'm not going to speak for ages about these, but we can help you in your crisis journey.
00:59:22.279 -->
00:59:30.922So we have what we call the social first crisis plan, and really our point is here.
00:59:30.922 -->
00:59:44.865If you think about a crisis and the fact that you know, for companies with a turnover of less than 10 million, a serious crisis could cost them 36% of their turnover and you know, can you afford a loss equal to that?
00:59:44.865 -->
00:59:53.264Now, an effective comms social first crisis plan can help you reduce the impact of a crisis.
00:59:53.264 -->
00:59:57.350Now, essentially, it's a crisis order and risk mapping exercise.
00:59:57.639 -->
01:00:02.527So we look at the types of crises or risks that you're likely to face as an organisation.
01:00:02.527 -->
01:00:10.553It's consultancy around bringing your crisis plan up to speed with the challenges we face in 2024 and beyond.
01:00:10.553 -->
01:00:16.074So it's making your crisis plan social first, and then it's bedding that in with the necessary stakeholders.
01:00:16.074 -->
01:00:19.347So we talked about HR and customer service and the board.
01:00:19.347 -->
01:00:22.803So there's a half-day training and there's also live scenario testing.
01:00:22.823 -->
01:00:26.985So we not only create the crisis plan, we actually test it and stress test it.
01:00:26.985 -->
01:00:37.279So you will come out of that process with an incredibly robust social media crisis plan that should and you know, and will in fact protect you in the future.
01:00:37.279 -->
01:00:50.262Now, our rate card for that is five thousand five hundred pounds, but we are doing a webinar offer, limited time, for 5,000, 4,999, 5,000 pounds for that.
01:00:50.262 -->
01:00:53.431So if you're interested in that or you'd like to know more about that, do let us know.
01:00:53.431 -->
01:00:55.482That's the sales bit over, don't worry.
01:00:55.482 -->
01:01:11.252So, businesses with an effective crisis plan if we're breaking this down, breaking down 60 slides into one key lesson they're more likely to bounce back faster, with less damage to their profits and reputation.
01:01:11.252 -->
01:01:17.000View it like an insurance policy the more prepared you are, the less damage you are likely to face.
01:01:18.443 -->
01:01:19.004Thanks, guys.
01:01:19.004 -->
01:01:21.089We'll be sure to see you soon.
01:01:21.089 -->
01:01:22.820So thanks very much, and we'll catch you later.
01:01:22.820 -->
01:01:23.621Enjoy the rest of your day.
