Crisis Communication and Social Media

What is Crisis Communication?
Crisis communication is a PR function. It is a management of perceptions during the time of crisis which instead of dealing with the problem, it is about the communication that takes place during the time of crisis. Crisis communication involves the tools such as press conferences, media relations and social media.

Today I'm talking about the importance of incorporating social media in company's crisis communication plan and how a company inform the audience about their crisis via social media.

 What are the importances of include social media into crisis communication? There are:

1. Social media allow two-way communication between the company and the public. Public can  get the response from the company for any crisis and any question they have.
2. Social media is immediate, real time and coverage. It allows company to update and inform the public immediately about the crisis happened to the public, it is different with the press conference which take some times to prepare and invite the news media.
3. Social media has broad target audience that can be reached at once. For example a company Facebook page has a big number of followers, therefore after the company update about the crisis on their social media, they can straight away reach the audience at the one post.
4. Social media have the ability to provide details about the crisis, as well as relevant links to further information. Company can post the updates of the crisis briefly and provide a hyper link for the audience to click into and look for more detailed information about the crisis,
5. Social media can reduce the panic among the people as it can be updating immediately. Public will keep looking at the update of the company in social media to know more about what is happened, how is the process and so on.

Here is an example from Codero, a web hosting company which experienced a power outage that affected their server and leaving their clients' websites down. Codero responded directly to their clients through Twitter, YouTube and Facebook throughout the next several days. Although there were many complaints about the websites being down, there were positive referrals to their followers by the clients who were satisfied by the customer service they received.

Twitter

Facebook

Codero's Facebook page did not receive as many responses from their client affected by the power outage as their Twitter account. However, they not only made an update directly on Facebook about the outage, but also directed customers to watch real-time discussion of the situation on their Twitter accounts and linked to blog posts which contained the YouTube video update. They also updated their fan page to update consumers for assuring them that they were working on a comprehensive analysis of what went wrong and ways they would prevent such an outage from affecting their customers in the future.

**For their YouTube updated I cannot show you all as they set is as a private video.

*Source from here

New Media Planning

Today post will have slightly different presenting. Thank you for visiting my blog :)

Handling Online Feedback, Reviews and Dissatisfaction

This post is going to talk about how one company had successfully engage its negative online feedback in a proper way.

Before giving you all an example, I will like to give some tips about how to properly respond for the negative online comments.

1. Respond Appropriately-- do not blame the people who comment negative feedback on your page for a false or misleading comment. What you need to do is pay attention to what is been said, then respond in a balanced, appropriate and professional way.

2. Be Brief-- reply in a short comment such as "we're sorry you experienced this, please call our customer service to talk about it in detailed" and give contact details is better than reply in a long essay for saying something improper.

3. Remember that Everyone is Reading Your Responses-- not everyone will comment on your site but they are reading those comments. Therefore, you have to reply for those positive or negative comments no matter how to show how caring, thoughtful, and engaged your business is, and how it solves potential problems.

Here is the example I'm giving, it is from Jimmy John's, a sandwiches company that provides delivery service.

A customer David is complaining about that he ordered from Jimmy John's but waited for so long time still hadn't receive his order and since his house was only 4 minute time travel from their store. He wrote his feedback onto JJ's Faceook page. After that, JJ had reply him in only a short period of time and in a proper way. 

At the end, JJ had appeased David and he was satisfied with their replies. 

Online Spokesperson

What is Spokesperson?
A spokesperson is someone who give your organization human form. It is effective that spokesperson connect with their audience, The spokesperson does not just read a statement, he/she is the statement.

The Criteria of a Good Online Spokesperson:
1. Stay within the scope of your responsibility--a spokesperson  must know what should do and what shouldn't.
2. Tell the truth--a spokesperson must not tell the lie to the audience
3. Follow up on issues-- a spokesperson must know and keep updating about the current issues
4. Expect criticism--a spokesperson must ready for any criticism at any time.

Example of a Good Spokesperson

Bill Cosby for Jell-O

The television actor and comedian has been a long time spokesperson for Jell-O products. In 2002, it was announced that he held the record for the longest continuous celebrity spokesperson for a product. In 2011, Cosby was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame. He was one of the first African Americans to appear in the United States as a spokesperson for products (he has been embraced by many other brands as well). As a spokesperson, Cosby has been commended for his credibility and believability thanks to his warm and fatherly personality, which helps provide an authentic-sounding endorsement of the products he speaks for.

More about Bill Cosby click here :)