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

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

3. 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.

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

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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.”

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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

16. Shameless Plug