Tag: crisis communications

Best Practice Advice for Handling Crisis Communications

We seem to live in an increasingly contentious world these days. Unfortunately, it’s also a world where news travels fast; bad news travels especially fast. The speed of communication in the 21st century is fueled by “citizen journalists” and crowdsourcing. Everyone and anybody can have a platform these days. And just about everyone these days is armed with smartphones that offer the ability to capture, record, and share whatever may be going on around them. Sometimes that can create positive exposure for companies and their senior leaders and spokespeople.
Sometimes that exposure, unfortunately, is negative and viral.

Continue reading “Best Practice Advice for Handling Crisis Communications”

The Potential Perils of Tying Your Brand to a Real Person

There are numerous examples of company names tied directly to an individual. That person is often the founder but could also be a key personality. Even our current president achieved a great amount of fame by attaching his name to everything from hotels and golf courses to steaks and an online university. Naming a company after an individual can add some personality to the brand and make potential customers feel a more personal connection to that brand. We know who the frontperson is; we know what they look like; and we know a bit about their personality and character.

But that isn’t always a good thing. Continue reading “The Potential Perils of Tying Your Brand to a Real Person”

Best Practices for Correcting Potentially Costly PR Missteps

Public relations can be a tricky business. Issues can emerge very quickly and unexpectedly, and just as quickly become very public. Both experienced PR professionals, as well as non-professionals forced into a PR role from time to time, have to think on their feet, acting on both instinct and experience. Particularly in a lightening-fast communication environment, it’s not surprising that there are often mistakes made by PR professionals and others in the public eye.  Continue reading “Best Practices for Correcting Potentially Costly PR Missteps”

Simple Guidance for Talking to the Media (Even in Tense Situations)

Regardless of one’s politics, it is fair to say that the current presidential administration has caused a great deal of controversy on many fronts, creating fresh headlines nearly every week. One of the most visible manifestations of this has been the attention paid to the president’s communications team. Fans of late night are no doubt aware of former press secretary Sean Spicer’s combative press conferences, Saturday Night Live’s parodies of those press conferences, and Spicer’s disdain for those parodies. Spicer’s interactions with the news media were one of the most talked about aspects of the young administration.

Then his replacement came on the job — for a total of 10 days. Continue reading “Simple Guidance for Talking to the Media (Even in Tense Situations)”

Is There Such a Thing as Negative Publicity? We Think So.

We’ve all heard the old adage “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” The rationale for this is that even if the portrayal of your brand or organization is negative, you’re sticontent marketing, content management, newsjacking, social media, digital marketing, SEO, online marketingll getting your name out there. But let’s be realistic. Nobody wants negative publicity. Even if it does mean getting your name out there, it really can be quite bad.

There’s no magic bullet to make bad publicity simply go away once it happens. Still, there is a simple formula to deal with negative publicity. Continue reading “Is There Such a Thing as Negative Publicity? We Think So.”

Crisis Communications: Be Prepared for Anything

by Linda Pophal

I was a public affairs director and director of corporate communications in the energy and healthcare industries; in both cases we had well-developed crisis response plans and conducted drills regularly. While helpful, the drills were really not sufficient to prepare us 100 percent for the crises that came up. These included major power outages in the energy industry, major medical incidents that brought large numbers of people to the hospital and generated widespread media attention, and employee relations issues. Surprisingly, what turned out to be our most widely covered and most contentious issue while I worked with the healthcare organization was Continue reading “Crisis Communications: Be Prepared for Anything”

If You Won’t Share Your Story, The Media Can’t Tell It! (So Don’t Get Mad When They “Get it Wrong”!)

This morning I received a response from a media rep I was working with to connect with a source for a story that has the potential to reflect negatively on the organization–a rather large organization. After working with her for about a week, she sent an email that said: “We’re going to have to pass on commenting. Sorry.”

As someone who has also been in her shoes, on the other side of the great divide between organizations and the media, I’m sure that she is.

I’m sure she knows, just as well as I and other communication professionals do, the problem Continue reading “If You Won’t Share Your Story, The Media Can’t Tell It! (So Don’t Get Mad When They “Get it Wrong”!)”