Judith Goetz Director of Marketing & Public Relations Heritage Museums & Gardens

What is a Crisis? The dictionary defines it as a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger

Crises of Recent Note Corporate crises unfold at lightning speed in the digital age. Companies suddenly find themselves on the defensive because of criticism online: United Airlines deals with a public outcry after a video showing a passenger being violently dragged off a flight goes viral, and Equifax is criticized for its handling of a security breach that compromised the personal information of potentially 143 million Americans.

Crises of Recent Note (cont’d) Adidas learned the hard way when they sent an e-mail following the event congratulating Boston marathon participants In the e-mail, the subject line was: “Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!”

Crises of Recent Note (cont’d) Adidas immediately issued an apology, acknowledging brand #fail, and the crisis didn’t balloon Effective communication during a crisis can make the difference! In responses and retweets, their audience debated and even defended them. Because of the quick response by their comms team, they were able to show genuine remorse in their apology, and their message was welcomed by their community. Effective communication during a crisis can make the difference between quickly resolving the situation and it becoming a nightmare.

You Need a Plan … As social media makes these moments ricochet around the web like never before … you don’t have the luxury of calmly sitting back, assessing the situation and then deciding on a solution You need to be ready before it happens

Six Principals for Success These 6 principals are some of the elements that will need to be baked into your communication plan – things you should have in place before a crisis arises: Crisis communication plan Designate a single point of contact Employees are your front-line Identify and know your stakeholders Have boilerplate language ready Create a social media crisis communication plan In responses and retweets, their audience debated and even defended them. Because of the quick response by their communications team, they were able to show genuine remorse in their apology, and their message was welcomed by their community.

Crisis Communication Plan Create a plan that works for your organization – everyone is different Establish a notification system – update phone tree Practice your plan or meet with the people who will implement the plan Prepare for the unexpected -- Cover all the bases: media, social media and stakeholders.

Designate a Single Point of Contact Designate a single point of contact for the press Identify and train your spokespersons The CEO/Executive Director is not always this person – use them to convey important messages

Employees Are Your Front-line Effective internal communications can help ensure worker safety, minimize damage to your brand, return your workforce to productivity and build trust among employees

Identify and Know Your Stakeholders Identify and know all of your stakeholders – don’t leave this to assumptions Who, in a crisis, do you need to communication with in order to minimize the negative reputational impact on your organization? Board members, Investors, Trustees, Volunteers It is important to evaluate this by department – Development might have a different list than your CEO

Develop Holding Statements Have emergency boilerplate language at the ready: “We are investigating all available resources in uncovering what happened and will share more information with you as it becomes available.”

Build and Effective Social Media Plan Social media needs its own crisis communication plan: You can’t apply the same rules to a social media crisis as you can to other crises and expect it to work Knowing what’s being said about you online often allows you to catch a negative “trend” that could turn into a crisis Make sure you talk with your employees about commenting online … Don’t forget your website! Don’t forget your website: - Too often an organization is in crisis and there is no mention of the crisis on the organization’s web site or social media. This leads to wonder if the organization has something to hide by ignoring the crisis in its own digital channels.

Navigating Crisis Communications Crisis communication is a tricky thing to master. Successful crisis communication requires a lot of thought and preparation Don’t leave it up to chance Sit down with your organization’s leadership team ahead of time Crisis communications is a tricky thing to master. Successful crisis communication requires a lot of thought and preparation. Those who do it well do so because they were prepared, not because they got lucky. So don't leave it up to chance. Sit down with your organization's leadership team and begin to think through and create a communications plan.

Final Thought … Do the work now … so that when a crisis strikes, you can focus on what matters most: Communicating effectively and efficiently with those who matter most to your organization

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