Crisis management in the digital age

Over the past few years, social media has had an impact, whether bigger or smaller, on people, communities and businesses and has brought certain undeniable changes with it. Even if its revolutionary and groundbreaking effects have been exaggerated by some, one thing that social media has definitely transformed is the way in which we communicate with each other. Which means that the way we discover information and share it is also transforming.

Today's social channels are more influential and powerful than their predecessors and they insure the rapid diffusion on public opinion. In this new digital age, news of a negative event or incident has the potential to spread faster that any crisis experienced by previous generations has. All of these things lead to organisations modifying not only the way they are handling, planning and implementing crisis management, but also the way they perceive and understand what a crisis is.

One of the first things that companies need to figure out is what they define as being a crisis on the web; what is the tipping point when an online event triggers or develops into a crisis for that organisation? Once that is cleared up they can start thinking about planning, both proactive and reactive, for the appropriate crisis management solutions.


Two years ago, Brian Solis talked about reinventing crisis communications for the social web and suggested that "many, if not a majority of potential crises are now avoidable through proactive listening, engagement, response, conversation, humbleness, and transparency." The crisis management model he put forward is based on listening, observation and conversation:

This model is a proactive one that aims at reducing the need for reactive responses and crisis communications programmes.

Monitoring becomes absolutely essential in the social web and companies must be sure to set up 'digital listening posts' on all relevant platforms. It is essential to have social media channels set up and the more credible they are (number of followers or friends, quality of information), the better the company will be able to make use of them in a crisis situation or for the prevention of such an event.

Timothy Coombs said that "the rapid evolution of new media often results in the practice of public relations getting ahead of research." This applies to crisis management where the relevant literature in the field has been slow in catching up with the challenges that social media is imposing on it. This gap is mostly filled by bloggers who look at the latest ongoing case-studies (such as Toyota or Domino's Pizza) to draw conclusions and develop or adapt rules and theory.

PR companies and professionals have also had to adapt to these new realities and incorporate digital services in their crisis management offers. According to Eddie Bensilum (who was a guest speaker in the course's Corporate PR module) from Regester Larkin, all the main principles of crisis management have stayed the same, but some of the rules, especially when it comes to credibility, are different.

Social media can be either a trigger for a crisis or it can work as an escalating factor for an already existing one. Due to its unstructured nature it can severely complicate the activities and actions of crisis management. Social media creates new structures and circles of trust and it requires up-skilling and different resources to be used in the crisis management process. However, it can also be an asset for the organisation; social media can help identify potential crises sooner and, thus, prevent them from escalating further, or it can take an incipient issue for the organisation and transform it into an opportunity to shine in front of the stakeholders.

Social media adds a new dimension to crisis management, as there are now larger groups involved and a lot less time to act. News, especially negative ones, travels much faster than through traditional channels and it has a much wider reach. If before a company could buy some time while the reporters researched the story, the facts were checked, the copy edited, the newspapers printed and delivered to the public, now all it has are the 30 seconds it takes to write a 140 character message on Twitter or the 30 minutes it takes to compose a blog post. And the reach that potential blog post or Twitter message could have can go beyond what traditional media can achieve.

It has become the job of the crisis communicator today to take notice of all these things, course correct the rules, strategies, tactics and tools to be used, while still following the same management principles that have paved the way to success in the past.

CSR - modern business strategy or just the latest lobbying tool?

One thing that a lot of times gets regarded with even more cynicism than PR is corporate social responsibility. More so since lately an increasing number of companies have integrated CSR into their PR departments and have defined the practice of CSR as a PR function. CSR falls under the remit of public relations practitioners in their 'boundary spanning role' (described by systems theory - Grunig and Hunt, 1984).

Much debate has arisen around this topic, and our two teams in class this week didn't fail to bring a spark into their heated discussion while trying to decide whether: 

"Attempts to align companies or brands with good causes are mere window dressing and companies should stick to the business of making money."

One of the main factors that lead to the rise of CSR is globalization. With the new knowledge-based economy emerging in the early 1990s appeared human rights, environmental and labour abuses which led to the anti-globalization demonstrations at the end of the 20th century. The result was that companies from all sectors and industries had to implement new policies and reform their business following the new social responsibility trend.

Whether it is viewed as superficial window dressing or as a genuine, new ethical approach of conducting activities, CSR is a reality of today's business environment and more and more organisations are embracing it. It is hard to tell whether 'caring' and 'responsible are just the latest must haves for brand image or a true shift in attitude has occurred. My guess is that both are true depending at the organisation we look at.

 This could be the reasons why the value of CSR programmes and initiatives in terms of public recognition varies from company to company. And it could also be why in a lot of cases they do not provide returns to match the inputs. Certain corporations, although successful in their field, will never inspire credibility in their CSR initiatives. This might be due, for one, to the overall 'dullness' effect that CSR programmes tend to have embedded within them. Secondly, cynical reactions, based on past experiences with companies, are a big problem for CSR initiatives and severely undermine the value of these efforts. These programmes will barely receive any recognition, while other campaigns, equally worthy, capture the attention of the media and other stakeholders, making the investment worthwhile.

 It all comes down to how well the PR department has managed to build and maintain the corporations' reputation and how well they managed to promote, raise awareness and attract attention to said CSR initiatives.

The truth about CSR, like with most contemporary PR issues discussed in this class, falls somewhere in the middle. A lot of companies use CSR programs as a lobbying tool, a fashion statement or a means of winning favours with government. This doesn't mean that there aren't just as many organisations who truly embrace responsibility for the impact that their activities have on the environment, employees, communities, and all other members of the public sphere. This is why I cannot agree with the debate's proposition - although it might be true for certain companies who are unwilling or incapable (due to their field of activity) of associating themselves with good causes, there are a lot of organisations who've truly embraced these initiatives and communities everywhere have profited from them. And if more corporations would fall under the previous category then employees, consumers and entire communities would be happier, more loyal and ultimately more productive and beneficial for the organisation.

 References:

J. Grunig, T. Hunt, Managing Public Relations, Thompson Learning, 1984
Michael Regester, Judy Larkin, Risk Issues and Crisis Management, Kogan Page, 4th edition, 2008