PR 101

Anticipating how to handle a crisis before it occurs should be a key part of any company’s business plan. The one thing social media has probably made more difficult is crisis communications. A company now usually has minutes, possibly no more than an hour, to prevent a small crisis from growing into a major disaster. A response has to be immediate – within those same minutes of the crisis.

There is no alternative, no other option.

Here in my city of Milwaukee is an example of what happens when the crisis is more nimble than the responders. A suburban mall found itself the victim of what was apparently a flash mob that wreaked havoc throughout the shopping center. Then mall management made things worse by the way it responded

Businesses need planning and practice to be ready for a practice. A business has to have a crisis communications plan in place long before the crisis happens. To ensure the plan works when needed, it has to be rehearsed constantly.

Think about it. Fire Departments, police departments, the military and a host of other agencies constantly train. They do it so when they have to go into action everyone knows what to do.

Here’s what happened to Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa, WI. I should note that it is one of the top shopping destinations in the Milwaukee metro area and is almost always crowded. In this case, I think the flash mob organizers decided that the crowd of shoppers would be the perfect audience for their “performance.”

For those who have not heard the term flash mob, Wikipedia defines it as a “large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.”

At Mayfair a group of several dozen teenagers raced through the mall, knocking over displays, running up and down escalators, which scared customers and staff. Mall management said the event was too organized to have been a spontaneous occurrence. They suspect it was organized via Facebook, Twitter or any number of other sites. Adding to the commotion was an apparent attempted robbery in the mall parking lot. Authorities have not said if the robbery was related to the flash mob but a shot was fired, which caused even more panic among. Luckily no one was hurt.

Mall management said they monitor social media sites to ensure things like this don’t happen. They said they were able to stop a flash mob planned for two days before Christmas. In that one, a group of high school students was planning on dancing in the mall.

If mall management is monitoring social media, someone fell asleep at the switch on the disruptive flash mob. For something this large, there had to be multiple posts on Twitter and Facebook. That’s how the word gets spread, by constant repetition across the web. Someone should have caught this.

It is possible the word was spread via text message. Unless you work for the National Security Agency, or some other federal investigative agency concerned with terrorism, those messages cannot be tracked. In that case mall management would not have had advance warning.

Even if Mayfair management did not have advance warning, the ball was still dropped after the incident. The flash mob happened Jan. 2. Mall management waited until the afternoon of Jan. 3rd to respond which meant for 24 hours Mayfair Mall lost control of its brand. In social media years that’s a lifetime. The mall was being defined by the hundreds of comments most of them negative made on social media sites and to the local media

When Mall management finally did respond, they did it by issuing a press release. Kind of like using a carrier pigeon to get the message out. What management said was just as bad.

Most of the statement condemned the group who disrupted the mall. It wasn’t until almost the end of the statement that management said: “the safety and security of our guests are always our top priorities.  We will not tolerate any behavior that compromises that safety.  As a result of this incident, we anticipate that there will be operational changes as well as consequences for those involved.”

What the statement should have said was that security was being increased immediately and there would be an even stronger policy governing when teenagers could be in the mall. The mall later did announce that it was changing its policy regarding when teenagers would be allowed in the mall. But that happened after the initial flurry of reports on the incident, which didn’t have the effect it would have had if the mall had made the announcement on the same day as the incident.

Plus Mayfair competitor Bayshore Mall announced changes to its policy for teenager access at the same time. There have been no incidents at Bayshore so that mall looked proactive. Mayfair suffered by comparison.

In other words, management be nimble, management be quick, or the business is going to be burned by something a lot hotter than a candlestick.

The headline on this piece is one of the most basic marketing communication rules on the books. Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase more than 250 years ago in his Poor Richard’s Almanack. Like much else of what Franklin had to say,“ three can keep a secret if two are dead” is still very applicable today.

Yet, it still amazes me that in this digital age of electronic sharing of everything people have not internalized that rule. It hey did, it would keep them of trouble of their own making. Not following that rule will always lead to public relations problems and a lot of collateral damage.

The latest person to fall victim to a failure to pay attention to Franklin’s aphorism is U.S. Navy Capt. Owen Honors. Honors’ career was derailed because of a series of videos he made when he was the executive officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise. According to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper, “The videos were a series of profanity-laced comedy sketches that were broadcast on the USS Enterprise via closed-circuit television.” Some were described as homophobic.

Did Honors think no one was ever going to talk about this to an outsider? But as Ben said, secrets just cannot be kept. In Honors’ case, almost 6,000 men and women who crew the aircraft carrier saw these videos. The odds were better than even that someone was going to talk.

I not am going to talk about the content of the videos or Honors intent in producing them. I am not seen the videos. From everything I have read, Honors was a rising star in the Navy. He apparently was an excellent leader slated to become an admiral. Perhaps he one day would have become Chief of Naval Operations – the overall Navy commander. Not anymore.

This entire situation is about how the videos were perceived and the fallout from their release. There are numerous stories talking about how the videos show the sexist, homophobic culture that the writers claim permeate the military. Again, I have no idea if that’s an accurate picture of our fighting men and women. I would say not from own experiences dealing with our armed forces. I do pro bono work for groups that work with veterans. I married into a military family. I have a lot of experience with our military.

However, truth does not matter, only the perception. I tell this to clients all the time. Perception is reality as far as the outside world is concerned. That’s why you have to be careful because the odds are very good that what you view as an off-hand remark could come back to bite and bite hard.

Remember, this is the era of social media. What once might not have spread beyond a city block will now zip around the world in minutes. Once the problem is out of the box, there is nothing that can be done to put it back.

As Capt. Honors unfortunately found out, it is not just the individual who will get burned. It can be an entire organization.

HowHH

A lot from people who are just beginning to work with social media ask me: “how do I get a lot of followers?”  My reply is “why do you think people should follow you?”

I see a lot of confused expressions. People have seen so many ads from self-described social media “gurus” promising thousands of followers with only a mouse click or two. Those charlatans have people convinced that building a list of followers is as simple as picking up a gallon of milk. My question always comes as a shock.

The answer is both simple and complex. In order to build a good list of followers, you have to provide something that will be of interest. A blog or an informative website is a good place to start. In other words, content is king. I am going to talk about blogs because I think a blog is the foundation of every successful social media campaign.

Don’t think providing interesting content is enough – it’s not.

This blog has several thousand which took a long time to build That readership took a long time to build. I have been publishing now for almost two years and I am proud to say this is the 137^th blog I have written and published.

The growth has been organic. In other words, people found me. I post my blog links on a number of sites, but that’s the equivalent of posting a billboard.

My readership numbered in the 10s of people for the first couple of months. I hope my readership grew because people found what I wrote interesting. I pushed this blog on every site that would let me. That led to curious people checking it out.

If they liked what they found, they told others. Those people started to read me and they spread the word. You get the idea. That support – for which I will always be grateful for – led to potential clients seeking out my business. That in turn led to clients hiring me.

None of that would have happened, or continue to happen, if I had not given people a reason to follow me. They will stop following if I don’t continue to give them something they want.

Writing a blog is not easy. I have an advantage in that I have been a professional writer for most of my adult life. I am used to cranking out copy. But first, I have to come up with a topic. That is not always easy.

It takes me at least four or five hours to write the blog and another hour to rewrite it. If the blog is a false starter – if I don’t like the topic after all, or the copy is just not flowing – add in a couple of hours to find another topic.

After that Heather Asiyanbi generously proof reads and edits it. After a half an hour making the corrections she has made, it takes post takes another 30 minutes or so to get ready post. Actually posting takes about an hour, give or take. It is a large time investment.

It is worth it though. First I enjoy writing blog because my core skill. For me, writing is more of an avocation than a job. I cannot imagine doing something that doesn’t involve writing.

Second, people seem to enjoy it. I average about 10 comments a blog, posted both on the blog and on various social media sites. Also, it gets retweeted a lot, something else for which I am also very grateful.

Third, it gets the word out about my business and myself. I have had clients contact me because of the blog. That is very gratifying.

If you want more followers, give people a reason to do that.