How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring

How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring Tracking Media Coverage to Avert Disaster Before, During, and After a Crisis February 2007 by Chip Griffin Abstract Given shrinking news cycles and an explosion of news and information sources, media monitoring makes a real difference in crisis communications when it becomes part of the crisis communications plan. Integrating effective monitoring at all stages of the crisis – before, during, and after – helps to facilitate better planning, implementation, and afteraction analysis. Contents 1. Before the Crisis a. Detect signs of a crisis b. Identify key media outlets c. Understand Existing coverage d. Establish a trusted dialogue 2. During the Crisis, Get Access To: a. Stories in Target Publications b. Conversation Evolution c. Message Travel Patterns d. Story Tone and Content 3. After the Crisis a. Find Flare Ups b. Lessons Learned www.CustomScoop.com This report is provided to you courtesy of CustomScoop, a leader in customizable media monitoring technology and services. For more information about how CustomScoop can help your company with media monitoring, please call us at (800) 538-6420 or visit our Web site: www.CustomScoop.com. CustomScoopTM and ClipIQ are trademarks of eOutreach Solutions, LLC. How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring |2 Today’s Crises Occur at Broadband Speeds Managing your brand’s reputation in a crisis becomes more challenging every day, given the explosion of information sources accessed by consumers and key constituencies. With reporters, columnists, producers, bloggers, and even average citizens writing or broadcasting about a crisis within minutes of becoming aware of it, the spigot of information you must be aware of can seem never-ending. Worse, these individuals may even be the cause of the crisis in the first place if they jump on incorrect or misleading information and use the media megaphone to trumpet it to the masses. Effective crisis communications depends on timely and accurate media monitoring efforts to understand the messages being communicated to the public. By arming yourself with the knowledge of how information is being interpreted – and what friends and foe alike are saying – you can be better prepared to respond rapidly and proactively communicate your own messages. Like all crisis communications, much of it comes down to planning ahead. Media monitoring plays a vital role at all stages of the crisis: before it occurs, while it is ongoing, and in the aftermath. Deploying the right search terms and consistently reviewing and analyzing results from any of the many interactive clipping services currently available will help you weather the storm, or perhaps even help you avert a crisis. The news cycles of yesterday where you had time to field media calls, prepare a response, hold a news conference, and still deliver your message on the evening news or in the morning paper have passed us by. The Internet provides all media outlets – large and small – with the ability to publish and broadcast on a 24/7/365 schedule. News cycles can now be measured in minutes, not hours. Failure to detect and respond to crises can do considerable damage to a company, its brand, its reputation, the morale of its employees, and ultimately to the business itself. Once the media reports the story, the public now has the opportunity to offer its own opinions in near real-time fashion. “Consumer generated media” in the form of blogs, message boards, reviews, and other online comments can often swamp a brand in the midst of a crisis. In the days of Walter Cronkite, you might make a remark to your spouse on the couch or perhaps pick up the phone to call a friend. If you were really outraged, you might even write a letter to the editor of the local paper and hope that it got published. Today, consumers can have their opinions in front of thousands of people just minutes after they hear the news. Jonathan Bernstein, an expert with considerable experience in crisis communications and proprietor of Bernstein Crisis Management, calls the current environment in the new media space a “cross between tabloid journalism and a gladiator competition.” He contends that Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring “I-reporters,” as he calls those who create online media of all kinds, blur the lines between amateur and professional, traditional and untraditional. Developing an internal system to handle the information flow across all media and deal with it effectively is one of the greatest challenges of any crisis communicator’s job today. Fortunately, a number of providers offer effective media monitoring that matches the realtime nature of today’s news cycles. |3 Media Monitoring Before the Crisis To butcher an old saying, “preparedness is next to Godliness.” Perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch, but you get the point. Companies can’t wait until a crisis occurs to begin to monitor media coverage. Developing a strong reservoir of media intelligence in advance provides a solid foundation to any crisis communications plan. Key elements of your pre-crisis media monitoring plan should include: Detecting signs of a crisis before it occurs Identifying key media outlets likely to write about your company Understanding the tone of existing coverage Establishing a trusted dialogue with reporters and bloggers Detect the Crisis before it Occurs Obviously, this is easier said than done. Not every crisis can be known in advance and some level of surprise is likely. The crash of an airliner or an industrial accident can’t be accurately predicted in advance (and if it is, your corporate counsel is a better source of advice than any PR shop!). But other events can show early warning signs that may be picked up through careful media monitoring. For instance, take the case of Kryptonite bike locks. In 2004, that company was hit with the allegation that one of its locks, the Evolution 2000, could be picked with a simple ballpoint pen. The charge appeared not in the mainstream media, but on a bike enthusiasts’ message board. It was subsequently picked up by bloggers who included a link to a video demonstrating the ease with which the supposedly secure lock could be defeated. Influential PR blogger Steve Rubel analyzed it succinctly when he wrote on his own blog: “Before I go on with the story, think for a moment what might have happened had the company been listening and using monitoring tools and had learned of this incident while it was in this early embryonic stage. They might have been able to have prevent what happened next.” Eleven days after the Kryptonite story broke in the blogs, the New York Times picked up the story. Still, the company had failed to notice or respond. As Steve says, if they had Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring effectively employed a comprehensive monitoring strategy, they likely would have had an opportunity to eliminate or at least mitigate the threat before it mushroomed. Regrettably, they failed to do so and reports suggest that Kryptonite lost millions of dollars in the process. Complaints from individuals about consumer products such as these are but one example of the kind of crisis that can be detected through careful monitoring. Restaurant chains might keep an eye out for posts of diners who report feeling ill after a visit to see if patterns develop that might require attention. Pharmaceutical companies can read reports on patients’ blogs that suggest possible adverse side effects. Software companies might detect security or other concerns in advance of formal media reports. |4 Identify Key Media Outlets Effective media monitoring will enable you to expand your existing media lists by identifying those outlets that have published or broadcast stories about your company, products, and people. Most companies – even in a crisis – are unlikely to receive widespread coverage in the mass media. For small to medium size enterprises that make up the lion’s share of companies in the United States, niche players in both online and traditional media will play an important role in covering a crisis. Media monitoring can be used to uncover relevant sources that might otherwise be overlooked. Monitoring to discover these new outlets requires a bit of creative searching. Simply looking for your own company name will likely bring up only outlets with which you are already familiar. Instead, you will want to use names of competitors or search terms related to industry issues in order to identify new targets for your media outreach efforts. These efforts can be especially effective in examining the blogosphere. As noted previously in this paper, blogs have the power to greatly accelerate any crisis. By identifying key bloggers to target with communications in the midst of a crisis, you will be better prepared to stem and eventually turn the tide in your direction. Understand the Tone and Content of Media Coverage Most companies have a decent understanding of their own press coverage, at least as it relates to the volume of media mentions. Many media monitoring services permit you to go much deeper in your analysis, however, so that you have a truly comprehensive understanding that will help you to communicate more effectively in a crisis. For instance, many services will either rate clips for you or provide you with the tools to note whether each story is positive, negative or neutral. Though you may believe that you have a good handle on this at a macro level today, you may well be surprised at the results Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring once you assign quantitative measures rather than merely anecdotal evidence or gut feeling. Understanding how your company is perceived before the next crisis hits will help you to craft a better plan that takes these feelings into account. If you have a reservoir of good feeling to tap into, it can take the edge off of many crises when handled properly. On the other hand, if the perception is more negative, you will know that you should take steps before a crisis occurs to begin to repair that damage. But you will also know that you need to account for any skepticism when you are developing and implementing your cross communications plan. Most services also enable you to gather a wealth of other data on your media coverage to help you create a more effective plan. For example, by knowing whether you receive more coverage in blogs or traditional media, you may be able to better anticipate what will happen in a crisis. Perhaps there are certain verticals that cover you more than others. Or maybe your analysis shows that you are better perceived in daily newspapers than on blogs – these are facts you can use to your advantage in a crisis. Developing understanding of your current media coverage will help you immeasurably when a crisis hits. |5 Open Trusted Dialogues before a Crisis Opening the lines of communication to reporters and bloggers before a crisis will help ensure your messages are effectively conveyed once disaster strikes. Media monitoring will help you to identify those individuals with whom you should speak, but when used creatively it can also help to provide meaningful topics for those conversations. Human nature dictates that we tend to trust acquaintances more than strangers. If a blogger or reporter hears from you for the first time when you are in the midst of a crisis, they may not know how to weigh what they are hearing. It may well make them more likely to embrace criticism or attacks from those whom they do know. After all, a company under attack can’t be trusted, right? The wealth of monitoring tools available will help you to find interesting tidbits to pass on to writers before the crisis occurs. For instance, you might use your media monitoring service to find industry news that isn’t appearing in major sources. You can then take that information and pass it on to bloggers as an FYI. These need not be stories directly related to your company (in fact, it is better when it isn’t) but is of interest to the person you’re sending it to. This helps demonstrate that you can be a trusted resource for information and are not always “shilling” for your company or client. Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring Sharing information and opening trusted dialogues will also help to position you as an expert. It may create opportunities for the reporter or blogger to reach out to you when working on other stories to solicit background information or even commentary. The stronger your bonds to those who will influence public opinion during a crisis, the better positioned you will be to help avert disaster. |6 Media Monitoring in the Heat of a Crisis With the phone ringing, email flooding, and the boss hollering, the last thing you have time for in a crisis is to try to sort through the spigot of media coverage by hand. That’s why an effective media monitoring solution must be a cornerstone of your crisis communications plan and should be in place well before the crisis occurs. When bad news breaks you don’t have time to set up a monitoring service; it needs to be at the ready for your use. As noted above, there are many things you can do with a media monitoring service to better prepare you for a crisis. But no matter how much preparation and planning you do, there will always be curveballs you need to address. Often those curveballs will be thrown at you by traditional or new media outlets and the best way to be aware of them is to have a comprehensive monitoring strategy. In a crisis, you must be certain to keep an eye on traditional sources of information like TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. But in the Internet era, you must be at least as vigilant with new media sources and blogs (if not more vigilant). Determining in near real-time what’s being said and how it is being communicated will provide you with a vital edge necessary to weather the crisis. During a crisis, you should seek timely awareness of: Stories in key targeted publications The evolution of online conversations Patterns of message travel Tone and content of stories Find Key Stories Quickly The most obvious use of media monitoring during a crisis is to find important stories as quickly as possible. But how do you do that when you’re drinking out of a fire hose? How do you figure out what’s important and see it ASAP? Fortunately, recent developments in media monitoring technology make this easier than ever before. Based on your pre-crisis planning and monitoring (you did do that, right?), you can build targeted media lists in many online news clipping services and use those to filter Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring your results. So if any story appears in those targeted publications, you can receive immediate notifications. But what about stories that are in important publications that for whatever reason weren’t on your media list? Some services permit you to create media lists based purely on the characteristics of the news source. For instance, you could create a group based on circulation of some minimum number, or target just wire services, or blogs with a specific traffic ranking. Or maybe you only want to know about those stories that mention your CEO by name, or that repeatedly name your company. The level of flexibility now available will help you see just what you need when you need it. Which brings up the question of how to get the most timely notification. Again, many of today’s media monitoring services offer tools to keep you in the loop whenever and wherever you are. Instant alerts can usually be configured so that as soon as the service finds a story that matches your criteria it is immediately emailed to you. Some even support special formats designed to be sent directly to your Blackberry, Treo or other portable email device. With these options, you can be certain to know when something important breaks. |7 Track Online Conversations In a crisis, the volume of content of blogs and other consumer generated media will often dwarf that provided by traditional broadcast media and print publications. Depending on your company, industry, and target audience, it could even end up being more important to the successful outcome of the crisis plan. In any event, it will be important to track and understand what conversations are occurring online. More so than what’s included in traditional media reports, you have some level of direct influence on these new media formats. Many, though not all, provide the opportunity for you to comment directly on any written or spoken content. Frequently, this ends up providing a company with what effectively becomes real-time “letters to the editor” or corrections that readers or listeners will see as soon as they see the original content. That ability to engage in direct response and conversation opens up a world of possibilities in a crisis communications situation. But first you must find these discussions and that’s where effective online media monitoring comes in. Using free or commercial products, companies have an unprecedented ability to get very timely access to discussions about the crisis while it is underway. By engaging bloggers and their audience through comments or other forms of direct and transparent dialogue, you can now have a greater voice in the direction the online conversation takes. You must carefully weigh how to respond to various conversations, of course. Some are worth diving into, while others are best left alone. Jonathan Bernstein advises monitoring Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring critics “to see if they either (a) draw the attention of your stakeholders and/or (b) start to achieve high search engine ranking.” (For more on this and other advice on crises in the Internet age, you can read his white paper “The I-Reporter – Born of the Web” at http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/docs/i-reporter.html.) Weeding through the vast volumes of information has become easier with the evolution of search technologies that attempt to weed out spam and focus in on the most relevant content. By ensuring that your monitoring service has the right terms in place before a crisis begins, you will be ready to jump in feet first to the conversation as soon as it begins to occur. And if you have built in pre-crisis dialogues with key bloggers, now is the time to take advantage of the trust and rapport you have built to help mitigate the current crisis. |8 Discover Patterns of Message Travel The rapid flow of information online can prove to be a blessing or a curse. By using media monitoring technology to filter through vast amounts of data, you can turn that information flow to your advantage. Utilizing real-time monitoring, you now have the ability to discover emerging patterns of message travel through traditional and new media. What does “message travel” mean exactly? It’s the concept that there are certain news sources that serve as a catalyst for additional coverage from blogs or media outlets. For instance, there are certain bloggers, commonly referred to as the “A-List,” who will see their posts frequently linked to by other prominent or up-and-coming bloggers. There are also traditional media outlets, such as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, which have a similar effect on their brethren. When you see a story appear in any of these key locations, you can expect that it will gain traction and see the light of day in many more places before the story is spent. While some of these originators will be obvious to you based on common sense or your past experience, there’s little doubt that each crisis will reveal another outlet or blogger that has this sort of influence and impact. Since many crises will entail more than one round of coverage from key outlets, you should take advantage of the first wave of stories to find those individuals who are demonstrating that on that particular story at that particular time are having the impact of being at the edge of the megaphone. As subsequent waves move forward, you can then be sure to communicate your message vigorously to those influencers to help guide the flow of messages throughout the rest of the media. Understand the Tone and Content of the Coverage During the peak of the crisis it is unlikely that you will be able to get truly real-time information on the tone and content of the media stories and blog posts related to your challenge. However, as the crisis recedes, you will have increasing access to this data from media monitoring and analysis providers with whom you may already work. Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring |9 Understanding which specific messages are being communicated and how they are likely to be perceived will be an important part of determining how to best conclude the crisis. Should you be seeking to prolong the story in order to help your audience better understand what happened? Or are you better off letting sleeping dogs lie? Frequently, companies discover through careful, in-depth analysis that the messages communicated through the media do not present nearly the negative impression that may at first be thought. Often stories, when read with dispassion by those not in the trenches, will have an entirely different meaning than the crisis communicator may have believed. For example, I recall working on an account for a major retailer some years ago handling crisis PR. Our team was looking at an issue of a young child who went missing in a store and was the apparent victim of an attempted abduction. The story started out as a “kidnapper tries to abduct kid at local retailer” story, but went on to describe the successful implementation of a “Code Adam” style plan that was in place to foil such attempts. In this case, the plan worked and the child was reunited with his parents. Those most familiar with the crisis were understandably upset about the notion of someone being the victim of an attempted kidnapping in the store, but in reviewing the clips it became clear that the overall tone was much more positive toward the retailer by talking about the success of the kidnapping prevention program. Obviously, it would not be a net positive to the store, but it was much more net neutral than anyone would have at first believed. The sooner the crisis team can have access to information about which messages are being communicated and with what tone, the better they can react to the crisis. In addition, it helps the company in crisis determine the best way to help wind down the media coverage of the event. Monitoring in the Aftermath of a Crisis You can take a deep breath when the crisis concludes. You can even probably go home and get a good night’s sleep for the first time since the crisis began. What you can’t do is stop monitoring. Depending on the scope of your crisis, you may well discover that it becomes a gift that keeps on giving. In other words, blogs and even mainstream media outlets may continue to mention the crisis well after the fact. In some cases, misinformation or disinformation may continue to be spread. Watching for the Rebirth of the Crisis By working with your media monitoring provider to establish search criteria specifically tailored to the terms used as part of the crisis, you can be sure that you are quickly alerted Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring | 10 to situations where it continues to raise its head. Controversy loves to live on and you will have to use the information you acquire through monitoring to determine whether and how to respond to continued mentions. In some situations, you may have little choice but to ignore it, otherwise you may reignite a problem that is merely simmering. In other cases, you’ll want to stamp down rumors or correct misstatements as soon as possible so the smoldering embers don’t come back to life. This is an area with which I unfortunately can offer firsthand experience. A company that I founded had a moderate PR crisis. We addressed the issue head-on, admitted mistakes where they exisited, changed corporate policies, and engaged in a transparent and open conversation with bloggers about the issue. Unfortunately, the issue was politically charged and continued to receive attention long after the original crisis, usually with very few facts. Indeed, it was almost laughable at times how preposterous the ongoing allegations became. The conversation was all occurring at a very low volume on small, political blogs. We made the decision to ignore those postings since experience showed they didn’t want to engage in conversation but were more interested in ad hominem attacks. Ironically, even after the company closed its doors and no longer existed, the charges continued to fly. Those making the accusations didn’t even notice that the company wasn’t around anymore to engage in the alleged activity. Learning from the Last Crisis Successful crisis communications requires learning from past experience. Effective media monitoring and analysis helps contribute to this process by providing a greater understanding of how new and old media alike perceived the company’s efforts. By assessing the tone and content of all of the stories covering the crisis, the company can have a better comprehension of what went right and what could be improved. Post-crisis media analysis demands a thorough level of analysis, perhaps even beyond what the company prepares on an ongoing basis to measure its public relations efforts. A report should be created that covers the full scope of the crisis media coverage and provides a clear assessment of that coverage. It should include breakdowns by different media types to determine whether some area of the communications plan was more effective. It should also incorporate different messages in order to evaluate whether some were more powerful than others. The comprehensive media analysis of the last crisis then becomes the foundation for adapting the ongoing media monitoring strategy to take advantage of lessons learned. The media list can be revised based on the input of the media analysis. New targets for ongoing trusted dialogue can be established. And an assessment of the early stages of the crisis may help establish better early detection criteria to help avert disaster in the future. Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring Crisis Communications & Media Monitoring Go Hand-in-Hand | 11 In reviewing the recommended steps to make crisis communications more effective through sound media monitoring practices, it should be clear that the two fit together naturally. Especially in today’s age shrinking news cycles and exploding volumes of news and information available to the public, timely and accurate clipping services can provide a company with a vital edge in weathering a crisis. To achieve maximum effectiveness, these media monitoring efforts – like crisis planning itself – should be an ongoing effort. Trying to launch a monitoring effort in the midst of a crisis will consume time that the company doesn’t have and result in a program that fails to meet the essential needs of crisis communications. When paired properly and used at all stages of a crisis – before it occurs, while it is ongoing, and after the fact – media monitoring can prove to be a very effective tool in the crisis communicator’s arsenal. It helps with targeting media outlets, developing messages, detecting problems, and guiding strategy and tactics. # # # About the Author Chip Griffin serves as the CEO of CustomScoop. He has more than 15 years experience in the business of public relations and public affairs. In that time, he has specialized in marrying technology and innovation with sound communications practices. He has developed a range of knowledge by working on crisis communications, grassroots PR, internet advocacy, and marketing communications. In addition, his background includes stints in government, with a PR agency, and as an independent consultant. He has been blogging since 1999 and has been published in a wide range of traditional and new media publications, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Miami Herald, and numerous magazines and web sites. A serial entrepreneur, he has been a founder or co-founder of more than a half dozen different companies. In addition, he is currently the Managing Director of AOS Ventures, a small group of angel investors that targets seed stage companies in New England. He is a graduate and active supporter of American University. He splits his time between Washington, DC and New Hampshire, where he lives with his wife and two sons. Copyright 2007 How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring | 12 About CustomScoop CustomScoop, a leader in customizable media monitoring technology and services, delivers relevant market intelligence to its customers in public relations, marketing, sales, investor relations, and competitive intelligence. CustomScoop’s solution utilizes proprietary software and an extensive database of sources to deliver in the areas where traditional news clipping services fall short: speed, accuracy, and detailed reporting. CustomScoop is headquartered in Concord, NH. For More Information or to Try CustomScoop for Free CustomScoop offers a 2 week free trial of ClipIQ, its robust online news clipping service. Sign up to receive customized news briefings, daily. Stay informed without needing to stay glued to your desk. Take advantage of our reliable, cost-effective system that reviews online news sites around the country. We gather the latest relevant information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and deliver it right to your desktop. http://www.customscoop.com Copyright 2007