This is a survival guide for a digital communications response from a web outage to stolen client data. This post’s tone is light-hearted, but the reality is quite serious. No failure, no matter how improbable, is impossible. Proactive planning of your communications in the cases of specific problems before they happen can be the difference between an understandable downtime and utter disaster.
A glance at communications disasters and debacles from a major apparel brand’s scramble for recovery after a week-long web outage to the Twitter lampooning of stumbling oil giant BP, highlights how unforgiving our ‘always connected’ consumers are of any lax, or lag in communication, and how potent the improbable can be.
Five years ago your team could take a day to evaluate, prepare and disseminate the official response for almost anything. Today’s digital powered public demands instant response (or they’ll start making one for you.) They want a response now, and they want it across the plethora of channels they use. The only way to respond on your public’s instantaneous deadline is to have planned your response before the panic.
Zombies at your door: A Proactive Digital PR Party game
The goal of this PR party game is to form effective communications procedures for the situation presented, no matter how ridiculous. Zombies are a fun starting point because the situation is a) ridiculous and b) pushes the limits of communication.
As a game, it’s a great way for your team to have some fun without trust falls, not that there’s anything wrong with trust falls. (There is.) As a practice, this skill and forethought puts your organization in a state of readiness so that you can respond clearly, quickly and effectively to any situation.
The Case of Zombies:
Zombies have descended on your facility, making you, your products and services unavailable until the hordes recede. You may be back up and running at daybreak, or the curse of Romero could take your business down permanently. You’re not sure.
Aside from a cricket bat or S Mart chainsaw, your plan should include these 5 key elements, and be built with my number survival-school secret for preplanning success.
5 Essentials of a proactive communications plan.
#1: The Communications Technology Channel List:
List the communications channels available should a specific situation arise. List them, and provide instructions and any essential access information. Presume you won’t be around to run the PR show, and make it easy for those left behind with your situation specific binder.
In case of Zombies: Communications options are severely limited. Internet is relegated to smart phone use (which many, but not all of your customers have.) You have access to traditional media through phone, but how would you put out a press release?
The goal is to have a think about the channels that our down. If we’re planning a response to a web outage, we can’t plan on a newsflash on our homepage. If your web server is down, there may be a chance that email is down as well.
#2 Communications Channel Specific Prewritten Messages:
Have your press releases drafted, have all 120 characters of your Tweets pre-written, have your Facebook status updates prepared and any statements you’ll be phoning in scripted.
Yes, you’ll have to edit when the hordes actually take to the streets. Editing is much easier than starting from scratch when you’re in a crisis situation.
The goal is to have clear messages now to ensure a timely response later. You don’t want to be late with a response for the sake of having it perfect, and you certainly don’t want to rush a blurb like ‘I just want my life back.’
#3 Communications Interaction Strategy:
Don’t ignore social media. Trust that social media won’t be ignoring you. Sure, you may have a gray-matter starved undead banging at the gates, but he is nothing compared to a former fan of your service suddenly being denied, and feeling ignored.
Best practices include scheduled social check intervals, and pre-planned Twitter search phrases to include your brand and information relative to the current situation.
Be sure to include guidelines for response that best match your brand’s culture.
#4 Key Communications Contact List:
The full contact information of your favorite thought leaders. This might include your contacts at CNN, key bloggers, community leaders and dear Aunt Beatrice.
If you’re making an honest effort to recover and resume, this is your list of bards. As an apparel company, you may be including popular fashion bloggers in the same list as popular lifestyle magazines, and maybe higher on that list given your immediate need for a message, and their immediate ability, zombies permitting.
The goal is to have all contact info, not just your contact’s preferred methods. If you’re left without email access, your bard’s Gmail account is fairly useless.
#5 Apologies, White flags, and Offers:
Where applicable, have your white flags prepared. If you’re an experimental beverage and weapons manufacturer and your test simian becomes patient zero in a zombie outbreak, know ahead of time what your response to that will be.
Industrial plants can spring leaks, client data can be stolen, and transports can go wrong. If there is a possibility that a something can go wrong and be your fault, be prepared for it. Remember that social networks are incredibly hostile towards sugarcoating and spin. Digital communications success is more often found in transparency.
Survival School Secret for Preplanned Communications Success
When creating these strategies, be as creative and pessimistic as your character allows. Invite other people to be miserable and pessimistic with you. Draft as many possible (not probable) business killing scenarios that you can. Jot down disasters like a server outage, severe weather, stolen client information, and some things that don’t begin with S. Have some fun imagining all the ways your service could get knocked down. For best results, complete this task on a Monday and call it therapy.
Your first plan should be the plan for the most ridiculous scenario on your list, no matter how unlikely it is. Plan for zombies. This will help build the energy and problem-solving attitude you and your team will need to build your successful pre-post disaster strategies.
Some opt to plan for each scenario (hurricane, flood, fire, ice storm) while others plan in more general terms (severe weather.) Be creative with how badly things can go wrong, and plan your communications responses accordingly.
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Tags: Avoiding disaster form downtime, communication strategy, corporate social media, customer service, facebook, Marc Frechette, public relations, social media, twitter
wow. Great post Marc. Granted i might be biased but to include Zombies in anything ups the overall value.
[...] There seems to be an uncanny love of zombies. [...]