Tag: crisis communications
Hard-won experience has taught Ewell Smith one thing: You can never be too ready to manage a crisis and communicate about it.
The national organization that sponsors seminars, speakers, publications and webinars on the topic of crisis communications has failed to place trust in its own “best practices.” For years PRSA has had a long running disagreement that has tested their relationship with veteran reporter Jack O’Dwyer.
In a challenging economy “communication ills” seem to be growing daily, successful communicators rise to the challenge to create solutions to ease the pain. IABC Dallas, has announced that Newsroom Ink’s Ed Lallo will receive either a Bronze Quill or Award of Merit for the successful establishment of LouisianaSeafoodNews.com as a crisis communications tool during the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
A recent survey conducted by the Crisis Management Team at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and Levick Strategic Communications found approximately 60 percent of the respondent’s companies had a crisis plan in place, and just 29 percent felt very confident their organization would respond effectively if a crisis occurred – another 56 percent said they felt somewhat confident.
In the dawn of the digital social media era, PR hacks and flacks worked with computer programmers to devise an algorithm that would drive reputation-damaging stories deep into search engine archives. Using “fake” websites equipped with often-nonsensical SEO posts, damaging articles were targeted.
Let’s face it….Facebook is not the place for the public face of a company’s PR Strategy. The conversations being held on the many pages of Facebook are fleeting, have no structure, cannot be directed to a higher level and are not tied to the company’s executive agenda.
The real question behind the Burson-Marsteller Facebook Fiasco, is not why they decided to violate the ethics of public relations – for money of course, but instead did they kill brand journalism as a communications tool by failing to effectively address the crisis after being exposed.
When the first news flash crossed the wires of a BP oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, Ewell Smith, director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, knew his industry had a potential problem. When the Deepwater Horizon rig sunk into the gulf waters, Smith realized he had a full-blown crisis on his hands.
Turning down the noise and changing the conversation is the key. The conversation, however, must not only change, but also be elevated to a higher level. To do this a communication counter-offensive must be launched.
The Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board has found through extensive research done by Cision, a leading media tracking firm, that for the months of July through September 2010, media exposure of Louisiana seafood has achieved an almost unbelievable estimated number of more than 3.4 billion repeated impressions in the United States.
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