The influence of Social Media in Crisis Management: Where does the practitioner sit?

We all appreciate the magnitude social media has blended with our everyday lives. People are spending their energies feeding the social media wheel with all sorts of emotions. I recently came across a sign in an office space which read ‘In case of fire, please rush to the emergency assembly point, before posting a picture of the incident on social media’. It was a glaring reminder of how much social media can push people into taking certain actions even when their life is under threat. It also drew me to reflect on how social media can quickly break news as it unfolds.

The reign of Social Media

Social media has literally taken over the control of information flow. It has literally empowered the public to create news and shape information. It has also made the job for public relations and crisis management practitioners both exciting as well as a little more challenging. Practitioners have lost a substantial amount of control over message dissemination - there is more public control on the type of information they want to engage with, and its sharing. Social media has changed the pace at which news breaks. Coupled with a 24/7 news cycle, it is now a different ballgame for practitioners, altogether.

In the event of a crisis unfolding, organizations are more exposed and vulnerable to the power and influence of social media than ever before. With social media, people can amplify a crisis within minutes whilst you are scaling the walls of bureaucracy to issue a statement. It can only take a tweet from a crisis victim or a bystander, and within minutes the incident is transmitted ten thousand times across the globe.

Where does the practitioner sit?

The manipulative influence of public messaging and the associated interpretation of a crisis event underline the need for practitioners to get on their feet as quickly as possible and take hold of the messages as the crisis escalates. The worst mistake is to think and hope that the social media frenzy will die down on its own – yes, it will eventually die down, but what about the reputational damage caused whilst you are wishing, hoping and procrastinating? The battered reputation will stay with your organization and may have irreparable damage to its corporate profile, business operations, and profitability. The way you handle a crisis will sway your public's opinion, either in favour or against your organisation. So hoping and wishing has never been a strategy.

Leveraging your Social Media

Social media has, on the other hand, accorded practitioners an opportunity for a two way by-the-second communication to engage with the organisation’s public during events of crisis in nature. It is an opportunity to feed the social media wheel with information that will shape public interpretation of the crisis and their perception of the organisation during turbulent times such as crisis moments. As soon as social media platforms gets busy with your crisis, responsible persons have to immediately activate their organisation’s crisis response arsenals. A quick content analysis of what the conversation on social media is all about should help shape your responses and communication content.

As practitioners, it is necessary to clearly spell out roles and responsibilities for people in your crisis management team. Whatever roles assigned, never forget the role for monitoring social media and sense-making of its content. By any means, avoid contradicting statements from leading persons in those roles. At least have a line of thought to derive statements from – this can best be mapped from the organisation’s response contained in the press release.

Apparently, having the courtesy to continuously engage your public with information on new developments around the crisis situation, goes well with your crisis response. Building an effective flow of information is an essential ingredient in cultivating confidence and trust with your public, as well as helping them achieve sense-making of the crisis itself. It also reflects the organisation’s sense of care for both its reputation and its stakeholder’s emotions and safety. Additionally, caution should be taken in the choice of words and the tone when sharing your information to avoid inflaming the crisis situation or infuriate crisis victims. Most importantly, get your facts correct.

Energise your team, and match your words with action

Managing and putting together a crisis response action, in general, can quickly sap the energy from the crisis management team. Apart from the organisational spokesperson, it may be wise to engage top level management in crisis communication activities - someone the public holds high, and is in a position of influence. Further, any promises made in your statements must be relevant and match your deeds. AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crisis presents a very successful picture of this approach. When the crisis occurred, the Chief Executive Officer, Tony Fernandes was present throughout the crisis, answering questions alongside Government officials and constantly engaging stakeholders on digital platforms. His presence matched the promise he made that he was ‘..not going anywhere’.

When your organisation perceives that it is time to press the crisis panic button (i.e organizational issues are blowing up into a crisis), it is very necessary for practitioners to inform the organisation's employees as quickly as possible - as opposed to letting them get the surprise from social media. That can have ramifications on the organisational culture and its dynamics.

Public relations and crisis management practitioners should understand that with social media, information is no longer for the privileged few. Practitioners ignoring social media around an unfolding crisis would be doing their organization a huge disservice.

#CrisisManagement #SocialMedia #PublicRelations #PJElwyns #ReputationManagement #BrandReputation

Leadership and Crisis Management

Crises are inevitable in modern environments, the substance that should matters most to leadership is; what type of crisis will occur, when, and how leadership will respond in managing the crises. The increasing competitive environment, increased human activities, and demands for better living continuously place individuals, organisations, groups, and governments in situations susceptible to crisis. In such situations, leadership (self and group) plays a critical role in shaping how crises are handled.

In April 2010, bp’s drive to increase its profitability and sustain competitive advantage in the oil market resulted in what is famously known as the Bp Deep-water Horizon oil spill. This crisis resulted from an explosion on bp’s oil drilling rig, in which 11 people died and 17 were injured. The oil spill caused a massive environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico, affecting tourism and livelihood of the people of the gulf. The behavior of Chief Executive, Tony Hayward who demanded his 'life back' and chose to go on a holiday during the crisis period was perceived as bp being out of sync with the crisis situation at hand. The CEO’s inability to handle the crisis effectively cost him his position and did further damage to the ‘beyond petroleum’ brand reputation. This highlights the importance for organisational leadership in managing crises effectively.

Leadership is significant in the overall (organisational) direction and becomes more eminent where an organisation undergoes crisis situations. Thus far, a leader’s behavioral dispositions in crisis situations are critical cues on how the overall entity will respond to an unfolding crisis. The importance of leadership approach during crises illuminates the rationale that crises shape people’s perception of their leaders. Unfortunately, while modern (organisational) operating environment is far much prone to crises than any other time before, many leadership training do not prepare executives for crisis management.

This is even exacerbated with the fact that most leaders perceives crises as a catalyst for problems, (and not as an opportunity for learning and creating a new beginning), because crises disturb an (organisation’s) stability by creating potential for loss of business; loss of reputation; and endangering organisational present status. However, (organisations) cannot effectively deal with crises situations without effective leadership. This suggests that in responding to crisis, leadership assumes ‘the buck stops here’ attitude, and is responsible for the overall attitude the entire organisation attains in resolving challenges.

A very good example is that of George W. Bush. Returning from a reputation sinking recounting of Florida presidential ballots debacle in 2000, G.W was mostly perceived as a weak president and his approval rating was the lowest of any winning team. However, closely followed by the 9/11 attacks, G.W took an aggressive stand against terrorism, sounded more resolved and decisive, became eloquent, and sided with the people. His action not only engaged a world crusade against acts of terror, but also endeared him with the people. His approval rating immediately went up.

Crisis management strategies that an (organisation) may adopt may not only be prompted by organisational environment factors, but are also closely knitted with the efficiency of prevailing leadership.

#CrisisManagement #Leadership #PublicRelations #PJElwyns #ReputationManagement

Persuasive speaking that engages your audience

Organisational Engagement

Every day we spend a good fortune of our time trying to make an impression of some sort on others through our behavior, speech and overall demeanor. We want to influence others into liking us, our ideas, and our agenda. This process takes the form of persuasion - or influencing others into certain actions or behaviors. We mostly achieve that through speaking or conversation.

“I always try to put my ideas across but every time I do so no one seems to pay attention, or worse off they are, often times, shot down before they are even analysed.” Does this sound familiar? Yes it can be frustrating when we can’t successfully cut our ideas across to others.

Persuasive speaking is an art that has been around since human existence. It has been sharpened over the many years, and is still very necessary for closing business deals, winning votes, and in marketing of ideas, and brands, among others. Systematic persuasion appeals to logic and reason, delivered with attractive language choices, thought-through ideas, emotional variation and great packaging (speech). Understanding this explains why persuasive speaking begins with understanding your audiences, their thought grounding and the topic.

For example, let us assume the ‘complainant’ above is talking about board room office meetings. Indeed it can be difficult to break into a discussion if you are not prepared with your thought. That is why it is very important to prepare for those moments: know the agenda, think through the topic, and visualise scenarios. Your contribution in the meeting can remain relevant if it is relevant to the discussion; it is a new idea to the discussion; a rare thought, or a new perspective, among others. If you think through these before contributing, you beam with confidence and will always win your audience. People will always look forward to your contribution every time that opportunity opens up for you. In this instance, you can gain ‘thought leadership,’ driving opinion and agenda on the discussions.

Public Engagement

The art of persuasive speaking is believed to have been perfected by the Greeks, who emphasized rhetoric and articulation as the highest standard for a successful politician. The frequent philosophical arguments in the assembly and the market places (agora) proved as catalyst for sharpening the art of persuasion to influence adoption of an idea or an argument.

Let us consider this aspect of speaking in the sense of delivering a public speech – being making a presentation, preaching or holding particular rally. In all these, and many more, the purpose is to persuade the audience into buying our thoughts, facts and ideas. Public speaking is an art and like any other piece of art, perfection is achieved through practice. Stumbling or struggling with public speaking should not define people with a passion to learn public speaking as failures. Many people will mention of struggling with making presentations, whilst the audience will tell them that they made a beautiful presentation. Often, it is that aspect of their mirroring someone in their speech delivery that weighs on their set expectations against their performance; such that they often believe they were not up to scratch. It is important to be oneself in one’s presentation.

A few other techniques can also be learned in speech delivery. Posture, eye contact, and voice level among others, are some important aspects one has to take into consideration when making a presentation. Posture can have a positive or negative energy to speech delivery. The way that you move your body and limbs will have a major influence on how your audience perceives you and your delivery. When presenting, and in a standing position, an ideal stance is with your feet close together and your weight evenly distributed between them. It is important not to grow roots - don't stand in one position, but try to inject movement as you speak. It is also important to remember to make eye contact with the audience before your presentation or delivery begins. Take the whole audience in with one glance. When presenting, eye contact with the audience will enable you to read the audience and be able to adjust your presentation accordingly.

A successful presentation can also suggest the presenter was audible enough to be heard by his audience. Effective presentation also enhanced with a well-controlled voice, with variations. Variations in the tone of the voice suggest the importance of points in the presentation, and the emotions attached to them. This has an effect to keep the audience alert throughout the presentation.

Physiological Reaction

Last but not least, it is important to appreciate that that any public speech delivery is a mammoth task in itself. The challenge is that, within fractions of a second during the delivery, you have to organise your thoughts, choose which words to use, how to weave them into sentences, and above all dealing with the butterflies flapping in your tummy. Further, you have to gauge your audience from time to time to determine if your speech is drawing the intended reaction, or if it is resonating with them, and if is still capturing their attention. Tell a story with your presentation – build it up in a way that it captures their attention - every one may not remember a good presentation, but everyone remembers a great story.

When the adrenaline goes up before a speech, it has the potential to dampen ones preparation. The more constructive action to derive from that situation is to turn those nerves as your turn-on switch. Ride on the wave, and look at them as a sign that you understand the enormity of the task before you and use them as a guide to guard your delivery.

Remember, for any successful artistic delivery, practice is important.

#Publicrelations #Leadership #Negotiation #PJElwyns #ReputationManagement