for Crisis CommunicationsMedia Intelligence

2 Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications

Table of Contents

So What Is a PR Crisis? 3About the Author 3

Crisis in the Age of Social Media 4Social Media Fuels Crisis 4Crisis or Business as Usual? 6

10 Steps to Crisis Preparation 7Step 1: Add Contingency Planning to Your Job Goals 7Step 2: Search for Early Warning Signs 7Step 3: Create a Crisis Management Workflow 9Step 4: Establish a Notification System 10Step 5: Have as Much Written Ahead of Time as Possible 10Step 6: Finalize Key Messages and Update Corporate Talking Points 11Step 7: Reset Your Benchmarks 11Step 8: Update Your Contingency Plan and File Everything Away 11Step 9: Recognize Heroes 11Step 10: Keep in Touch with Key Influencers 11

5 Tips for Addressing a Crisis 121. Never Lose Sight of Your Goals 122. Know Your Audience 133. Get Your Message Heard 134. Measure Your Impact as You Go 145. Know When to Walk Away 14

Some Notes on Working with Legal 15Don’t Be Shy, Get to Know Your Legal Advisors 15When to Go to Legal 16

In Conclusion 17

3 Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications

Let’s say you get 15 internal emails about one Google alert. Is that a crisis?

When things go wrong, people start talking. How you respond could affect your brand’s reputation for years to come. In a world where digital communications can be sent at the drop of a hat, it’s important to have a process in place and know how and when to communicate as a crisis unfolds.

And as for that Google alert, keep an eye on it. Although a single alert isn’t a crisis, if it gets amplified you’ll want to move fast. This is why, in crisis commu-nications, your most important asset is media intelligence. The alerts you’ve set should ensure

you’re the first to know that a crisis is building. As the story unfolds, your PR and social media listening tools are there to help you check the media’s pulse and your community’s reaction. As the crisis subsides, the insights you’ve gath-ered along the way will shed light on how to avoid something similar from happening again.

How we do all of these things is the subject of this guide.

But before we get too far, let’s define media intelligence and the role it plays in giving us an edge amidst escalating chaos:

Media intelligence uses data science to analyze public social and edito-rial media content. It refers to solu-tions that synthesize billions of online conversations into relevant insights that allow organizations to measure and manage content performance, understand trends, and drive com-

munications and business strategy.

Media intelligence will serve us well any day of the week, but during a crisis it is indispensable.

Chapter 0

So What Is a PR Crisis?

Yariv Rabinovitch is a content marketing manager at Meltwater. For the past 15 years, he has written for and about technology companies in the Bay Area—some of which have changed the world, and some of which are still planning to.

About the Author

A real PR crisis is a negative story about your brand that has gained momentum, has reached a critical stage, and threatens the repu-tation of your business.

4 Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications

Chapter 1

Crisis in the Age of Social Media

Social Media Fuels CrisisIf you’re a PR professional tasked with manag-ing your company’s reputation, it’s not news to you that we’ve lost control of the message. If you’re a social media expert acting as the real-time brand voice for your company, I don’t have to tell you how dynamic and chaot-ic your channels can be. Our job today is to cut through the noise and get in on conversations that matter. Remember, these conversations are happening whether we’re there to help guide them or not.

Why does social media make us so suscepti-ble to scrutiny? The obvious answer is because it’s fundamentally changed the pace, volume, and reach of news stories. But that’s not the only reason. We’ve also integrated it into every aspect of business activity—from PR and mar-keting to customer service, employee recruit-ing, sales enablement, and the promotion of workplace culture. We’ve opened up two-way communications, and any friction can spark a crisis.

When crisis hits, our audience (which probably just got a lot bigger thanks to online intercon-nectedness) expects us to respond with ac-countability, empathy, speed, and transparen-cy. Given that we can all be reached at the drop of a hat, there’s no excuse for delays. Consid-ering how much we all share about ourselves, there is also very little tolerance for putting up walls, responding in a dismissive corporate voice, or blocking people out.

In a social media crisis, there’s no tolerance for responding in a dismissive corporate voice or blocking people out.

Chapter 1. Crisis in the Age of Social Media

5 Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications

Example: Social media wildfires are now often report-ed on by journalists—and so are the measures we take to put them out.

On April 28, 2015, in the midst of unrest in Baltimore that erupted in reaction to the death of a man in police custody, Whole Foods tweeted a pic of 5 na-tional guard officers being served lunch courtesy of the grocery chain.

The reaction was immediate. Tweets started pouring in condemning Whole Food for feeding officers rather than the local community. Whole Foods responded that they were proud of their support for the national guard. But as the press was quick to report, they also took their original tweet down, issuing a statement to ABC News that their post didn’t adequately reflect the full scope of their community involvement.

This crisis started within social media. Whole Foods re-sponded to criticism by taking their original post down.

Chapter 1 - Crisis in the Age of Social Media

6 Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications

Crisis or Business as Usual?While we’ve covered how vulnerable we are, it’s important to note that not every customer complaint made on Twitter or every rumor speculated on in someone’s blog constitutes a crisis. The tools we use every day to keep up with what’s going on will also tell us when it’s time to panic.

A good media intelligence tool helps us identify crisis by giv-ing us insight into:

1. Top Influencer Participation: Sometimes the difference be-tween a crisis and business as usual is who is doing the talking. Use media intelligence tools to track key influencers, both on social media and in the press to assess what stories are picking up traction.

2. Trending Keywords: Word clouds can point us to the right answers for questions such as: Is negative chatter originating from a small but vocal minority? Is it being picked up by tradi-tional media, or, vice versa, is a story in the press trending on social?

3. Sentiment: As you assess negative sentiment, think about it from the point of view of key stakeholders. Who is most likely to be affected by a negative story? How influential are they? What are the paths for the story to grow? A good media intelli-gence tool will deliver sentiment analysis in real time.

4. Duration: We typically think of a crisis as an explosion (or implosion), at which time we encounter aftershocks of negative sentiment. But a crisis can also take a slower trajectory, perme-ating associations to your brand over time and building gradu-ally. Keep track of the trajectory of negative sentiment and test the impact of your ongoing responses.

It’s also important to note that social media and traditional media amplify each other, which means we have more sto-ries to keep on top of and more relationships to cultivate. A comprehensive media intelligence tool lets us do both.

The Curious Case of Brandjacking. We all know that it’s relatively easy for an individual to assume another’s identity online. This can happen to a brand as well. If an interloper uses our company’s name and logo and makes no attempt to distinguish them-selves from us, we’ve got a case of trademark violation. Another murkier possibility is that someone creates a parody account or takes a branded hashtag—one we’ve put out into the world to spur engage-ment—and starts associating it to negative stories. When McDon-ald’s #McDStories was hijacked, the company changed their hashtag policy. Today when we go to their Twitter channel, we see that McDonald’s no longer brands their hashtags. Instead of the familiar Mc appended to a key-word or phrase, they use hashtags such as #LovinSimpleSweeps and #SampleWholeGrains. Presumably this decision was made so that if a hashtag gets jacked and goes viral, the association to the brand isn’t so immediate and they can avoid crisis. The lesson here is to carefully monitor keywords and phrases to make sure they aren’t being used against you. To learn what you can do to protect your trademarks on Twitter, the com-pany has published guidelines.

McDonald’s lost control of the narrative on this one.

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Chapter 2

10 Steps to Crisis PreparationBe Strategic, Not Just TacticalPreparing for a crisis requires getting out of the mindset that keeps us busy all day executing and measuring our tactical goals. Just because we have a social media manager who can push your message out in 140 characters or less several times a day doesn’t mean that we have a mecha-nism to handle a full blown crisis.

This chapter breaks crisis preparation down into 10 strategic steps.

Step 1: Add Contingency Planning to Your Job GoalsAmidst your daily routine, you might not be able to design a protocol for every potential crisis right away. Pace yourself. Map out two or three crisis protocols per quarter. And make sure that accomplishing this goal is part of your performance review.

TIP: Modern media intelligence tools allow you to measure your performance based on the exposure your communi-cations receive, their reach, quality of coverage, quality of influencers, analyst mindshare, sentiment, and share of voice. Add contingency planning to your list of measurable quarterly goals.

Step 2: Search for Early Warning SignsA powerful media intelligence tool doesn’t just monitor your brand mentions. You can use it to set up searches on any number of topics and keep on top of them in all your channels.

Start by making a list of the kinds of messages you’ve already put out that have met resis-tance. At any point, this same resistance might come back, get amplified, and take on a life of its own. You’ll also want to talk with your sales reps, customer support, and legal counsel on issues that they’ve encountered. Once you’ve made a list of crisis triggers, create news and social searches for them.

Don’t get caught off guard. PR pros should add crisis contingency planning to their list of measurable quarterly

goals.

Chapter 2 -10 Steps to Crisis Preparation

8 Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications

TIP: Set up thresholds for search results you want to get immediate alerts on. These could include your most sensitive topics or most im-portant influencers. As part of your day-to-day activities you’ll want to delve deeper, but these are results you want to make sure to look at in real time as they come in.

To help you get started, here are some examples:

• Executives: Journalists, analysts, and sometimes even custom-ers pay attention to what high-ranking executives say and do. And so should you. Keep on top of their Twitter and Facebook feeds, what videos and blogs they post, and how everything they are putting out into the world is received and amplified.

• Competitors: Pay as much attention to competitor brand mentions as you do your own. Their crisis could easily become yours. And if a competitor decides to come after you, you’ll want to know about it first and respond be-fore others have a chance to amplify their message.

• Industry news: Sometimes a crisis will hit you by association. By keeping track of how your industry is perceived and any events that might impact it (such as natural disasters or newly introduced legislation) you are prepared to address these issues as an industry leader.

• Events: Keep track of trending topics related to the event to help prevent speakers and reps from getting caught with their guards down.

• Controversy: A media intelligence tool enables you to keep track of any num-ber of business and political keywords. You’ll know when hot-button topics are trending and get ready to explain your position on them before you are equated with the fallout they’ve generated.

• Complaints: Make a list of their complaints and keep an eye out for them in your search results. Once an influencer amplifies customer concerns, they can be cemented as “expert opinion,” and your credibility can suffer longstanding damage.

Chapter 2 - 10 Steps to Crisis Preparation

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Step 3: Create a Crisis Management Workflow

Start by outlining the steps you need to take within your company that lead up to releasing a pub-lic statement. Then assign stakeholders where relevant. For example:

1. Assess the situation – Hopefully your company has got some feet on the street to report back on your crisis with first-hand insights, but use media intelligence to understand the full scope of the commu-nications landscape and all of the points you’ll need to address.

2. Assign duties within your team – When you’re engaged on multiple fronts, you’ll need to man various stations. Decide who will manage influencers, keep the executive team informed, serve as liaison to other key stakeholders (including partners, customers, members, etc.), and record every detail, action taken, external response, and resolution.

3. Identify key advisors – A crisis may require technical information or strategic insight that you’ll need to get from leaders in IT, accounting, HR, or elsewhere. Identify all relevant functions specific to a given crisis and how to contact them quickly.

4. Draft your statement –The head of PR may be responsible for doing this, or it may fall to the agency that the head of PR should already have on speed dial.

5. Initial review – It’s always a good idea to have the head of marketing review your statement (or the agency’s), as he or she will undoubtedly be asked to defend it.

6. Legal review – Any statement you make during a time of crisis should be reviewed by counsel to assess its legal consequences and minimize damage should legal action be taken against the company.

7. CEO review – During a crisis, your CEO (likely your company’s primary spokesperson) must be kept in the loop

Chapter 2 - 10 Steps to Crisis Preparation

10 Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications

A ___________________ at ____________________

involving __________________ occurred today at

_________________. The incident is under investiga-

tion and more information is forthcoming.1

Step 5: Have as Much Written Ahead of Time as PossibleBecause social media moves so quickly, it can hurt your brand to wait for executive stakeholders to approve detailed statements. Having something preapproved that acknowledges your aware-ness of the problem without saying too much will go a long way in putting your audience at ease. Don’t forget that how long it takes for you to get your initial response out could be a detractor’s next headline.

Here is a fill-in-the-blank statement that can be used in any number of situations:

TIP: As the crisis unfolds, you’ll probably be writing a lot of tweets. Gain some time by having the basic ones ready—and load them into your media intelligence platform, already pointing to the contacts and channels that need to receive them.

1 This statement was drafted by Northern Illinois University’s NewsPlace.org within their recommended Crisis Communication Plan.

Step 4: Establish a Notification SystemBreak down your audience, both internal and external, into key stakeholders and list the best channels to reach them. Chapter 3 explores in detail how to communicate with and engage your audience as you respond to a crisis.

TIP: When a global crisis takes place, such as a devastating earthquake, global compa-nies will sometimes stop all activity on their social channels as a show of respect and soli-darity. If you’re a smaller brand you may want to do the same for crises that affect where you live and operate.

Chapter 2 - 10 Steps to Crisis Preparation

11 Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications

Step 6: Finalize Key Messages and Update Corporate Talking PointsOnce the worst is over—but before you reach for a beer and put it all behind you—you’ll want to craft your final word. Explain what your company learned from the crisis and how you’ve adapted your processes, policies, or products accordingly. Remember, people will want to know you’ve taken action, not just paid lip service. You can then update any relevant company-wide talking points.

Step 7: Reset Your BenchmarksA crisis will throw your goals out of whack. Go back and look at where your sentiment, me-dia impressions, key themes, and reach were before the crisis and ask yourself: Is the goal to get back to where you were before things went wrong? With your new visibility can you turn bad press into good press and up the ante on your brand?

Step 8: Update Your Contingency Plan and File Everything AwayFine-tune your contingency plan for this crisis so that things go more smoothly if anything similar happens again.

Step 9: Recognize HeroesDetermine the best and most appropriate means for recognizing the heroes involved in the crisis situation.

Step 10: Keep in Touch with Key InfluencersDuring the ordeal, you identified influencers who showed you that they really care about what your company says and does. As vocal as they were when things went bad, they could also become your next champions. Media in-telligence enables you to keep track and stay in touch with them with mes-sages that will resonate. You may want to wait a while before reaching out, but a follow-up story a few weeks or months down the road might do your company some good.

Tip: To create a final report on the crisis, ex-port the media intelligence dashboards you used (including the high and low points in coverage sentiment, geographic reach, and share of voice), add some context to each one, and create an illustrated timeline that shows: the crisis being triggered, your reac-tion to it, and what’s been done to ensure it won’t happen again.

When all hell breaks loose, you’ll want to be able to refer to a clear document crafted during times of relative quiet. It will help you regain your bearings, stay organized, and enforce due process. Download a media intelligence worksheet for crisis management to help you spot early warning signs and be prepared should a crisis hit.

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Chapter 3

5 Tips for Addressing a Crisis1. Never Lose Sight of Your GoalsAs things escalate, get yourself prepared to move fast. One of the first steps is to know who you’re talking to and how to best reach them.

Keep in mind that you’ll be measured on:

• Speed: Even in the best of times, people want results fast. Acknowledge the problem quickly and deliver updates as you address it.

• Transparency: It’s getting harder and harder to keep secrets. Getting ahead of a crisis means sharing what you know and being open about your commitment to a solution.

• Relatability: You will also be judged by how easy you make it for people to find and understand what they want to know. Your media intelligence tool will indicate if your message is sticking (reach), how people feel about it (sentiment), and if it’s being amplified (engagement).

Southwest Airlines was first to report the story and was commended for getting ahead of the crisis.

Example: Getting ahead of a crisis might just mean that you’re the first to reveal it. When a Southwest Airlines flight to LaGuardia Airport in New York skidded on the runway and landed nose first, the airline posted news of the accident on Twitter and Facebook within minutes, promis-ing updates. Within minutes, they received thank yous for their openness. If a crisis is going to come out either way, and you already know about it, why not get credit for having the integrity to bring it to the public’s attention?

2. Know Your AudienceThat said, different people care about different things. Customize your message and the channels you use to reach each stakeholder group.

Stakeholder

Customers

Investors

What to Look For

Customers are usually most directly affected by a crisis. You need to understand to what extent the crisis has negatively impacted them and how many customers are unhappy.

A crisis can have a negative impact on your company’s stock price. Find out how the financial community is reacting, taking this into consideration when you communicate with investors.

EmployeesEmployees act as representatives, or brand ambassadors, for your company. It’s important to provide them with corporate-approved messaging and monitor their public-facing communication regarding the crisis.

Influencers“Influencer” has come to designate bloggers, social celebrities, analysts, and journalists. Among the first two, some might be established advo-cates for your company, and some detractors. Media intelligence lets you know who is likely to be on your side.

3. Get Your Message HeardMedia intelligence also allows us to find the best ways to amplify our message. Earned, owned, and paid media each play a unique role in making ourselves heard:

• Earned media: Go to your social media channels to communicate directly to your followers. If your message affects them, you can count on them sharing it with their community. At this point journalists may be paying attention to these channels too. If your message resonates, you’ll get more positive earned media through them.

• Owned media: Your website and emails are both great ways to provide information. Make sure that the scale of the crisis is reflected by the prominence you give to it on your site. Ask yourself if it merits a home page banner or just a mention on your company news page.

• Paid media: On social, you can consider whether to replace scheduled paid media (like spon-sored posts on Twitter) and use those slots to address the crisis. Paid media can help you target your crisis communications to the people who are most affected or most vocal in their criticisms.

Chapter 3 - 5 Tips for Addressing a Crisis

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Chapter 3 - 5 Tips for Addressing a Crisis

Tip: During a crisis, com-municate with your au-dience using the same channels you always do. Centralizing all relevant information on your website even though your audience is used to hear-ing from you on Twitter or YouTube will inevitably leave them hanging and dissatisfied with how you handled things.

4. Measure Your Impact as You GoDon’t forget to gauge how your updates are being received. A media intelligence platform enables us to track how people are responding and how sentiment is shifting.

When used well, media intelligence can pro-vide us even more granular views. As your crisis takes hold both in social media and in the press, you can use your media intelligence platform to compare by keyword and sentiment what’s being said on social vs the press vs other key players who are trying to shape the message (for instance, your competitors or govern-ment officials). Doing so can help you target your own commu-nications and customize them further by channel and audience.

5. Know When to Walk AwayThere is no such thing as shutting down a crisis that’s being played out on Twitter or Facebook. As we’ve seen, your audience will demand that you engage in dialogue. Blocking them from the outset from posting to your feeds will only drive them to others, where they’ll be sure to comment on your strong-arming tactics. But it’s also important to know when to leave the con-versation. If you’ve made all the points you can make, but there is still a vocal minority of detractors who are saying the same thing over and over again, any response you give them will just add fuel to the fire. Stepping away removes the target and gives them less to react to.

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TIP: Prior to social media, companies often got away with the mindset of “Let’s issue an official statement and be done with it.” This approach is no longer a viable go-to strategy. However, at some point, it may become your best option.... That’s why monitoring the conversation to understand whether it’s a good idea to keep it going is critical. Facebook has provided a set of crisis management guidelines. While they encourage dialogue, they also provide instructions for deleting posts and blocking users. These are drastic steps in an age of transparency, but they can be effective (and warranted) as a last resort.

Earned, owned, and paid media each play a unique role in making yourself heard during a crisis.

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Chapter 4

Some Notes on Working with LegalCrisis can leave your brand open to attack. It can also leave your business open to legal conse-quences.

Don’t Be Shy, Get to Know Your Legal AdvisorsAs mentioned earlier, you’ll want to build a bridge with your legal team as part of business as usual, so you don’t have to start from scratch when things get hectic.

Marketers sometimes feel that legal would like for us not to say any-thing—ever. And this might (justifiably) be the case during a lawsuit. But an experienced lawyer knows that market-ing’s job is to promote the businesses, and

during times of crisis, this means safeguarding its reputation. Working with counsel during a crisis will help you find the best way to ensure that your audience feels heard and that you are taking responsibility without opening yourself up to a lawsuit as a result of your PR and marketing activities.

Tip: Getting to know your legal team can lead to interesting conversations about questions that market-ers sometimes struggle with, such as “What’s the difference between defamation and some-one just having an opin-ion?” Try it: it’s a great icebreaker.

Marketers, get to know your legal team. If you ever find yourself in a crisis, you want them on your side.

When to Go to LegalHere are some guidelines for when to consult legal, whether you’re in a time of crisis or just trying to make sure that nothing you say or do will cause one.

Go to legal when:

• Your company has been accused of doing something illegal.

• You believe that your company could be accused of doing something illegal very soon. Remember, any statement you make about events or circumstances relating to this legal ac-tion (including internal emails) could be used in a lawsuit.

• Your communications are directly targeting a competitor and shedding negative light on them.

• You are making claims about your product’s functionality or the breadth of your services. For instance, while describing how great your product is would typically be construed as opinion (and therefore not a legal liability), if you’re listing product features, counsel may want to cross-reference what you’re saying with any contracts customers sign to ensure the lists match.

• You are making factual claims about your product that you know are difficult to prove.

Chapter 4 - Some Notes on Working with Legal

16 Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications

Tip: As tempting as they may be, using certain words can open you up to unwanted scrutiny and even the threat of legal action.

Here are some examples of words to avoid: always, guaranteed, unlimited, proven, 100%, and never fails.

As marketers, we can find creative ways for touting our products without making factual claims we can’t actually prove, thus sidestepping a potential crisis.

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In ConclusionAfter reading this guide, you should have a thorough understanding of how modern media intelli-gence can shape our communications programs during a crisis—and help solve it.

Although our world is already inundated with nonstop information, a crisis situation opens up the floodgates like nothing else. Zeroing in on the best nuggets of business knowledge to help us craft and measure our efforts is well within our reach if we have the right tools and the right methodol-ogies. The great news is that one media intelligence tool can help all of our programs.

If you’d like to learn more about running smarter social media programs when crisis hits, please hop on over to some of our resources:

Meltwater Marketing Blog Meltwater Insights

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