By Cassy van Eeden

With advent of the Internet and social media platforms, many companies are not sufficiently prepared or even aware of the impact an online PR crises can have, says Gini Dietrich, CEO of Arment Dietrich and co-founder of Spin Sucks Pro. “The web provides a way for stories to spread like grassfire,” she says.

Be prepared

Ronelle Bester, managing director of Red Ribbon Communications says, “Whilst there is no cookie-cutter solution that can be applied to all online crises situations, there are certain measures agencies can take to better equip them to diffuse a range of potentially explosive outcomes.”

South African PR expert Janine Lloyd, speaking to Publicity Update, said that, “The biggest thing I find is that companies are not ready for the crisis when it happens. In the online space it happens at lightning speed so this makes the situation even more pressurised.”

Lloyd says the best way to deal with any online PR crisis is to be prepared. The best way to be prepared is to a have a plan in place.

Have a plan

“An online crises plan is absolutely critical for all brands and companies and high profile individuals,” says Lloyd. She recommends having a “well-documented, actionable, understood and tested response and crises communications framework for digital channels”.

Dietrich explains, “It used to be you’d hire a PR firm and have them write a crisis plan that was then put in a drawer and revisited once a year. An online crises plan wasn’t even considered.”

Lloyd says that an online PR crisis plan should include team responsibilities, identifying risks and channels of communication, a method for analysing the scale of the crisis, “as well as a formal process, escalation procedure and response guidelines”.

What about right now?

It is quite possible that you are reading this article in the midst of an online PR crisis, at which point it is too late to prepare or plan. In this instance, Lloyd recommends that the PR strategist or agency avoid shooting from the hip or using aggression or bullying to get things done. She also advises being cautious about assuming people will support you and to not make excuses or claiming that no one is available for comment.

Dietrich says that your first priority should be to address the problem swiftly by communicating. She says that the sooner you get the story under control, the less damage the person or company’s reputation will face.

“The most important thing I advise clients to do is to get all the information first: what happened, when, to whom, how did it happen?” says Lloyd.

Lloyd says the next step is to determine the scale of the crisis and respond accordingly: “This includes who delivers the communication and which channels of communication you will use.”

Every minute counts

Lloyd says to always keep in mind that “all the above happens in minutes or hours, not days”. She continues, “This is the biggest mistake people make in the online space, they take too long to respond. It is perfectly okay to prepare a holding response or statement while you investigate the facts, she explains, “but it is never okay to just ignore comments and queries in the digital space.”

The final step in the management of any online PR crises is to monitor and evaluate the situation closely after you as the PR manager or agency have released comment, says Lloyd.

Have you ever experienced an online PR crises? Do you have a plan in place? Let us know in the comments below.