Digital Crisis ManagementRun - DMC

with Gary Angel and Scott K. Wilder

2

Gary Angel, President of SemphonicCo-Founder and President of Semphonic, the leading independent web analytics consultancy in the United States. Semphonic provides full-service web analytics consulting and advanced online measurement to digital media, financial services, health&pharma, B2B, technology, and the public sector. Gary blogs at http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel

Introductions

Scott K. Wilder – SVP – Social Media Architect, Edelman Digital

Currently SVP/Social Media Architect at Edelman – Digital. Founded and managed Intuit’s Small Business Online Community and Social Programs. Before Intuit, Scott was the VP of Marketing and Product Development at Kbtoys / eToys, the founder and director of Borders.com, and held senior positions at Apple, AOL, and American Express. Scott is also a founding Board member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. He received graduate degrees from New York University, The Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University

3

Overview

What we will cover:

This will be a good webinar if….you’ve gained some insight into how to monitor social networks and how to mobilize a DCM plan

This will be a good webinar if….you’ve gained some insight into how to monitor social networks and how to mobilize a DCM plan

4

Now you have heard the science part

Now lets look into artful human side

5

Definitions

What is Crisis Management?

• Actions taken by an organization in response to unexpected events or situations with potentially negative effects that threaten resources and people or the success and continued operation of the organization.

• Includes the development of plans to reduce the risk of a crisis occurring and to deal with any crises that do arise, and the implementation of these plans so as to minimize the impact of crises and assist the organization to recover from them.

• May occur as a result of external factors such as the development of a new product by a competitor or changes in legislation, or internal factors such as a product failure or faulty decision making, and often involve the need to make quick decisions on the basis of uncertain or incomplete information.

Source: dictionary.bnet.com

6

7

Some crisis management situations….

• Someone threatens to take legal action against a company

• Someone famous says your product stinks

• Your website stops working

• A customers credit card was charged before the product was shipped or --- the product never shipped

• Your company didn’t provide truthful information

• An employee decides to create an unflattering video of themselves

8

Famous Case Study: Dominos Pizza Two employees ‘YouTubed’ themselves putting pizza up their noses

Video attracted almost 2MM views (and of course comments, etc.)

Dominos responded: Tweets from corporate

President on YouTube

Domino felt the Social Viral pain right away

Was inspiration for new Domino Commercials ‘We are learning..”

9

1990s

• Someone calls the call center and says “I am going to take legal action against your company”

• Rep forwards call to legal

• Legal huddles with corporate communications and makes a recommendation to senior management

• Senior management contacts the CEO

• VP of customer service or legal responds

• Major newspaper might pick it up and publish an article

10:00 am

12:00 noon

1:00 pm

2:00 pm

Next day

Next week

10

2010

• A few simple Tweets can become…

11

2010

12

Don’t be the odd man out

13

“You have been alerted about a problem, now what? Who are you going to call?

14

1. Crisis Management is a team sport

15

2. Establish an ‘on-call’ Crisis Management team • Thinks happen fast and when you least expect it

• Establish cross-functional team consisting of legal, finance, customer service, marketing, product development, etc.

• List should consist of each person’s cell, home, email and IM addresses

• Team should designate individuals to be on call over the weekend and after hours

16

3. Do an occasional ‘Fire Drill”.. Or Mock Drill

17

4. Be prepared for Triage• Understand how different issues get prioritized

• Understand how different channels get prioritized

• Understand what type of customers, users you will work with first

• Establish different types of response Immediate – requires real – time response

Delayed – can inform customer that team ‘is working on’

Expectant – can inform customer that they should expect response by ….

Minimal – individual can handle

Monitor – don’t do anything – but monitor the situation

18

4. Be prepared for Triage

Determine severity of issue/crisis and who will be involved

Diagnoses problem, but at the same time, give team a heads - up

Have written responses for multiple channels ready Create some use-case scenarios

Write up different responses for Twitter, Facebook, Chatrooms, etc.

Include script for reporters or influential bloggers

19

5. Develop ‘Contingency Plan’

• Develop use case scenarios for back up plan (s)

20

6. Don’t fear your biggest critics• Reach out to them

• Talk to them real time – unless they prefer email

• Listen to how they are describing the problem

• Let them know someone is listening

Do you remember this person and how he was won over?

21

7. Ensure your online vehicles are ready Determine designated real-estate on websites for key messaging

Have a stock pile of content Tweets

Blog entries

Determine where on Facebook and LinkedIn you will message items

• Leverage existing relationships --outreach program to press, analysts, online journalists, and influential bloggers

• Set up process for ‘keyword’ buy (and also work on SEO’)

22

8. You don’t have to always apologize..

BUT…

23

Sometimes it pays to apologize

• "However some evidence indicates that compensation and sympathy, two less expensive strategies, are as effective as an apology in shaping people’s perceptions of the organization taking responsibility for the crisis because these strategies focus on the victims’ needs. The sympathy response expresses concern for victims while compensation offers victims something to offset the suffering.“

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_management

24

9. Conduct Post-Mortem after the storm• Round up the extended team – even if they were not involved in the last crisis

• Write down learnings

• Record how you improve

• Implement a continuous improvement mindset

• Continue to listen, watch & learn to see if your tactics have paid off

25

10. Continue to monitor, audit,…

• Supplement your current monitoring – with keeping a careful eye on players involved in crisis and the platforms used ..

• Scan the web…..on an ongoing basis

• Leverage ‘internal and external experts’

26

Moral of the story

1. Things keep happening faster and faster

2. Easy for people to pick up on an issue and broadcast to others

3. Easy for ‘complainers’ and ‘detractors’ to become celebrities

4. Crisis Management is not ‘one event in time’

5. Attacks can happen at anytime, anywhere

6. Leverage your community to let you know if there’s a problem

7. Crisis management requires a plan, ongoing practice drills, and ongoing monitoring (before, during and after)

8. Part of this is ‘brand building’ and ‘brand maintenance’

9. Think beyond Social Media : )

10. Have open forum on your site/property where users can provide feedback

27

Thank You.. Questions?

• Gary Angel:

> gangel@semphonic.com

> Blog: http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel/

• Scott K. Wilder

> scott.wilder@edelman.com

28

seo