Crisis communications or reputation management is one of the most important and highly visible areas in the entire public relations profession. The lack of crisis communications skills can inflict great damage on a company of any size. e,g. Arthur Andersen, Tylenol, Union Carbide, FEMA.
How has reputation management changed with the development of blogs?
The blogosphere adds speed, complexity and size to reputation and crisis management. Don’t underestimate the ability of a blogger to turn your world upside down. Expect it, plan for it, and plan your response. Online Reputation Management should be a key focus for all orgnanizations unfortunately, in the PR world it is still over looked.
The blogosphere’s record is permanent, its half-life is far longer, and big mistakes are punished more quickly and ruthlessly. The existence of some 17 million blogs today has made the blogosphere the world’s largest and most influential form of interactive media.
Small, unknown blogs can link or syndicate to larger, more influential blogs, which in turn can rapidly supply researched story leads to the 24-hour, traditional media. Those stories, once legitimized by the mainstream press, are then spun back out into the blogosphere, where tens of thousands of bloggers rebroadcast mainstream news with their own comments, which then begets more comments and perhaps more revelations, and the cycle begins again.
The Internet has made a permanent record of all media since the mid-90s. The Blogosphere now makes a permanent and highly searchable vehicle for all commentary since roughly 2003. Research it, respond to it, and take proactive charge of your reputation. Don’t let others write the history books without sizeable input from those who lived it.
Knowledge of the tools is as important as knowledge of the players. It is imperative that PR practitioners, as well as any company spokesperson empowered to communicate in a crisis, is knowledgeable about the blog technology.
In the permanent record department, one must keep track of an ever-changing toolset of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) methods, blog syndication resources and other tools designed to bring the best and most timely information in front of the most well-informed reader.
Knowledge of the tools of blogging is utterly necessary to understand and inform your strategy for what the blogosphere represents.
Know the difference between a crisis and a nuisance. Know if you are in the right and defensibly so. Know the capabilities of your opponents, including their ability to organize opposition and to distribute. Consider separate crisis blogs for investors, buyers and other constituents.
Finally, use common sense. The blogosphere dramatically expands the reach of your audience, which means the potential for more supporters, as well as more detractors. Its immediacy and permanence also means that it will have lasting importance.
Know when you’re in a crisis and respond accordingly. Don’t abuse the tools of the blogosphere or you can find yourself in a crisis defending your crisis management.
http://www.globalprblogweek.com/2005/09/23/terpin-crisis-blogging
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