|
The ‘new media' and the pervasiveness of online communications have changed things in crisis management.
But it hasn't changed them that much.
In traditional crisis management, the mainstream media is part of both the problem and the solution.
The fact that Channel 9 news is reporting on your crisis is part of the problem – but the fact that you have the opportunity (if you are well enough organised and can move quickly enough) to get your message out as part of that Channel 9 news story is also (potentially) one part of the solution.
The same is true in this age of “direct” online communication.
Disaffected (or stupid) employees can cause you major global problems, as some idiots have recently done for Dominos Pizzas. Hopefully you didn't have to suffer through the original video, but here is the online company response.
But remember, in the pre-internet days, the original culprits could just as easily have taken that horrendous footage to a daily current affairs program to expand the joke.
But anyway, as the Dominos example shows, if online is part of the problem then it is also part of the solution.
How many senior marketing and public affairs professionals would be brave enough to do what the Directors at Kleenmaid did after going into voluntary receivership? Develop a simple Youtube video to go direct to consumers. No media release inviting editors to find a sinister context for the messages (or indeed to completely ignore it) and no interviews inviting investigative reporters to make life tough for the talent.
You can try to control it and disable the comments (as has been done here), but once you go direct, it's impossible to stop people taking the piss out of you. Which gives people another forum for passing opinion on you.
But what are these company-sponsored videos when all the commentary about “new age media” is stripped away?
They're really just video news releases posted online where everyone with an internet connection can see them directly.
And once you see the tactic for what it is, and come to realise that online is part of the solution (and the problem) the only question left for you to answer is whether or not it is the right way to deal with your next crisis.
For some example of issues and crisis management from the Palin Communications team go to http://www.palin.com.au/ |