Social Media & Crisis Communications: PodCamp Toronto 2015

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RED ALERT Social Media & Crisis Management Mark Farmer PodCamp Toronto 2015

Transcript of Social Media & Crisis Communications: PodCamp Toronto 2015

RED ALERTSocial Media & Crisis Management

Mark Farmer

PodCamp Toronto 2015

Today

● What happens when a crisis hits?

● What to do.o What to watch

o How & where to listen

● What not to do.

● How do you respond?

● “Live fire” exercise(s).

50 shades of crisis

● Protests

● Crime

● Accidents

● Natural disasters

● Infrastructure

● Industrial espionage

● Safety

...and more!

Where are you going to hear it first?

● Online?

● Word of mouth?

● Other?

Where are you going to hear it first?

● Online?

● Word of mouth

Here’s how I heard about it one day

So what do you do?

● First things first.

Know who’s in charge

Know who’s in charge

● Protocol

o Chain of command: do you have one?

● Who’s monitoring? Who’s “got the ball?”

● Who speaks for the institution at times of crisis?

o Usually media relations / mainstream media enquiries

What’s the first step?

How

● Dashboards

● The digital channels of mainstream news outlets

● Twitter

o Specific individual accounts

o Searches

o Hashtags

Dashboards

Where to start?

Where to start?

Where to muscle up?

Widgets

The most important widget

Who you gonna listen to?

Local media - online channels

Twitter

● Specific sourceso Pre-set - some of the previous sources, and others.

o Discovered organically during a crisis. Don’t forget to capture these sources for monitoring the next time.

● Twitter searcheso Keywords

o Hashtags

● Hashtags are important

The power of the Twitters

Outside the dashboard: specific sources

● Will vary from industry to industry.o Reddit

o Facebook

o Niche channels / platforms

Meet my little friend

X

Outliners

Another helper?

Dark site

● Dropbox / Google Drive / Trello, whatever

● Pre-prepared responses

● Content calendar

● Documents you can work up together & share

Canned Messaging

● Can sound inauthentic

● Can be the basis for real-time messaging

● Especially if you need to get it out to other

people / other departments quickly

What’s missing here?

● Your own properties

Responding

● How do you respond?o Get something out there ASAP, if only to say “we acknowledge it -

we’re working on it.”

o That doesn’t mean you need to respond to everything ASAP, or

provide information you’re uncertain about.

o You don’t have to respond to every question or comment - it’s whack-

a-mole and as people see you responding, they’ll ask more questions.

o Focus on correcting misinformation and getting your message out

there.

Your friend: the screen cap

● If people are saying things that are offensive,

threatening, etc., you want a record. A screen cap is a

good idea - shows the provenance, date, etc.

● You may also want to copy & paste text.

● But I’d make the screen cap your first priority.

Reporting

● Synopsis

● Recommended Actions

● Detailso Important players / influencers.

o Reach (demonstrated by shares, RTs, etc.)

o Sentiment (NOT automated sentiment)

Synopsis

● This is going to management.

● What is management during a crisis?

● BUSY.

● What do you need to do with your report during this

time?o Cut out everything that isn’t essential.

o Prioritize.

o Treat it like a journalistic exercise - the inverted pyramid: put the most

important thing at the top.

o But above all else, remember to be brief and to the point. It’s a crisis

report, not a term paper.

What do you not do?

● Hop onto every comment right away.o Correct things that are manifestly untrue and significant.

o It’s ok to say “I’ll need to get back to you.”

o Provide an ETA if so.

o Update that ETA if you don’t meet it. Lets them know you haven’t forgotten about them.

● Don’t feed the trolls.

Negative comments

● When should you delete? What are the criteria?

o Obscenity?

o Threats?

o Racism / sexism / homophobia?

o Criticism?

o Solicitations?

o Off-topic content?

Negative comments

● When should you delete? What are the criteria?

o Obscenity?

o Threats?

o Racism / sexism / homophobia?

o Criticism?

o Solicitations?

o Off-topic content?

Why not censor?

● Authenticity

o Trust

● Screen captures

o Once you say something online, it lives forever

● Instead, know when to take things offline

o When someone is hectoring you.

o When it’s a customer service issue.

o “Deal direct” with people.

YorkU policy

•A reminder to all our fans about the use of / activity on our page.

This Facebook page is intended to provide users with interesting, useful information and news about

York University, and we welcome your interaction with us with your comments and questions. It is

intended for the use and enjoyment of all members of the YorkU community. However, posts that do

one or more of the following actions may be subject to removal, and may also result in the account

posting said content being banned from this page:

- Feature off-topic content, spam or third-party advertising / promotions.

- Violate individuals’ privacy.

- Incite hate, or violate the Ontario Human Rights Code.

Thank you.

Why?

● If you remove negative comments simply because you don't want to see

them, your communications come across as inauthentic.

● If comments are abusive, out of context or otherwise contravene your

policies, they can be taken down, and you can state the fact that you're

doing so.

● If a comment isn't complimentary to you, but is otherwise inoffensive, it

shouldn't necessarily be removed.

What’s your policy?

● What’s yours?

● Depends on your business

o Government

o Education

o NGO

o Big business

o Entrepreneur

● Don’t wait for a crisis to come up with this.

“Live Fire” Exercise Part 1: The Report

“Live Fire” Exercise Part 2: The Page

Thank you

● @markus64

● slideshare.net/Markus6464

● webheresies.com

● ca.linkedin.com/in/markfarmer64