MAY 21, 2009

Social Media Club - DC Panel On Crisis Communications

Last night, I participated in a panel on crisis communications and social media for the Social Media Club of DC’s monthly meeting. It was a lot of fun, and an honor to meet my co-panelists - Dallas Lawrence, head of Levick Communication’s Digital Media Practice; Andy Carvin, Senior Strategist for NPR; and Jon Eick, author of the So Good Blog and Online Brand Manager at New Media Strategies.

I love this topic - how companies can use social media in crisis situations. I thought the panel was valuable because we had a couple of different perspectives - Dallas and me from the agency side (people trying to defuse crises); Andy from the media side (people reporting on crises); and Jon, who represents the agency side at work, and is a detached-social-media-observer through his blog, which focuses on food marketing.

I’ve been reading through the tweets from the event, and the following points raised by the panel seem to have resonated best with the expert social media audience:

• Every negative attack is the start of a conversation.
• Companies get a lot of credit for experimenting with social media- it’s a fairly forgiving community.
• Being a part of the community online from the start can diffuse a crisis before it starts.
• It is much easier to convey the pain of not using social media than explain the benefits of social media to some corporate leaders.
• Don’t forget the importance of using social media internally to communicate with employees.
• Don’t wait till the storm hits - have a plan in place to handle a crisis in advance.
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Not everyone is on Twitter, not everyone is on Facebook.
• You have to be there all the time on a consistent basis for social media to work.
• Not every social media tool is right for every company.
• Don’t feel like you have to have the last word in a dialogue.
• Silence is never an option with crisis communication. Say something, even if you’re saying that you can’t comment.
• Companies should have how-to guide for employees to use social media, not what-not-to-do guide.

Jeffrey Levy summarized the panel at his Government 2.0 blog last night. He talks here about how to use the learnings from last night in a government setting:

[G]overnment agencies badly need to get going with listening strategies.  If we don’t at least know what’s being said in social media channels, we can’t possibly respond.  This goes far beyond traditional newspaper clips.  One of my goals for the near term is to set something up so we know what’s being said about EPA online.

One thing I think gov’t agencies have to be careful of is to ensure that our messages are truthful.  We can’t ever be seen as creating propaganda.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t respond to inaccuracies and tell our story.

Thanks to the excellent, engaged audience, and to the organizers - @valerieelston and @annagabbert!

Here are two videos from the panel:

Six social media steps for crisis communications
How to respond to negative comments to your social media

Dallas and I will be presenting next week - similar show - at the Washington Women in PR’s monthly lunch on 5/27.