Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Organisations are beginning to appreciate the fact that the Internet plays a powerful role in crisis management situations. Apart from the fact that it is a medium for instant communication, social networking tools like blogs have emerged over the last few years which have ramped up the ability for a message to spread.

There are numerous examples of this including coverage of the London Bombings by the general public through websites and cameraphones and the Sony DRM scandal. While many New Media experts proclaim that another set of rules govern online crisis management, the reality is that the same set apply. The difficulty for most organisations is realising how to apply them effectively.

For example if a particular website lifts the lid on a scandal, the story will typically multiply and appear on hundreds of websites before breaking through into the mainstream media. Should the organisation in question reply on every website and what should it say?

In every crisis management situation there should be one voice emerging from an organisation and it should give regular updates. Rather than tracking and becoming embedded in hundreds of conversations, the company should reply on the original site and also communicate through its on website. Websites like Pubsub, Technorati or Icerocket can be used to gain an overview of the ongoing online conversation.

The key challenge though is to try and placate the insatiable demand of the public. As Donna Traci, PR Manager at Kryptonite (a company affected by a similar online scandal), points out armchair experts don’t realise that “the Internet moves at real time but companies sometimes can’t - not ‘won’t', but can’t. If we’d announced what we wanted to do before we had the back end in place and couldn’t back it up, that would have been the bigger PR nightmare, right?” (via the Vy Blog)

The crisis should be acknowledged and regularly progress updates should be issued, but only when all the information has been confirmed as correct. This can be reflected in the BBC’s change of reporting style of crises in the wake of the Beslan tragedy. Editorial output should rank higher than speed of reporting.

Here are some other relevant posts which are an interesting read:

• How blog mobs operate - Teresa Valdez Klein
• Ape-brained Bloggers are getting on my nerves (and Wal-Mart’s) - Media Orchard
• What to do when Digg turns on you - Open

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