Assessing the Board’s Role Before the Next Crisis
From The National Association of Corporate Directors and The Wall Street Journal: As a host of threats continue to mount against organizations, more boards are weighing a broader, more proactive approach to crisis management. This is a positive development: in doing so, these boards are opening the door to adding significant value and stability to the organizations they oversee. Boards are uniquely […]
Do You Have a Crisis Communications Plan?
[By Bruce Hennes, Managing Partner, Hennes Communications, and Keynote Speaker, American Public Power Association Legal & Regulatory Conference, 2016] It’s not just terrorist attacks, explosions, active shooters, and environmental disasters. More often than not, it’s going to be sexual misconduct, data theft, unfair labor practices, OSHA complaints, mergers & acquisitions, layoffs, accusations, or employee fraud […]
Trick or Treat! Outrage Masquerades as Principles in Crisis Management
Why are organizations punished in the Court of Public Opinion for violating ethical principles when they have not broken any law? Dr. Peter Sandman, a preeminent risk communications expert, says when an issue sparks outrage (and we see plenty of organizations pilloried in social media by outraged trolls every day), society becomes desperate to blame […]
Hypervigilance and the Digital Age
Keywords: Cyberterrorism; Hypervigilance; PTSD; Abstract: This paper discusses the development of a hypervigilant culture within the U.S., with attention-grabbing low-frequency incidents overshadowing the far deadlier but less sensational every day risks. While we now live in a modern world where people are living longer, free-er, and richer than ever before, more of us have become […]
Crisis Communications: Too Important Not to Plan For
[by Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications] As we try to hold on to the last days of summer, many organizations are well into planning for the year ahead. If your organization’s fiscal year begins on January 1, chances are you’re already hard at work on your budget for 2017. A former boss of mine used […]
The Social Media Uproar Over Harambe’s Death
Cameron Knight figured Saturday would be a good day to catch up on some weekend work. Barring any breaking news, he planned to finish a Memorial Day story and a piece on the anniversary of the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire. As the breaking news reporter at The Cincinnati Enquirer worked, he listened to the […]
6 Tactics For Leveraging Your Employees During a Social Media Crisis
From GaggleAmp: Every company of any size inevitably encounters a crisis situation at some point. Today, with numerous social media platforms, a crisis can quickly become very public and spread far and wide – well beyond your local city or even state. But, the same social media platforms that can help spread a negative story […]
4 Crisis Communications Lessons from Kellogg’s
The way an organization reacts in the first hours of a crisis will probably determine whether it succeeds or fails in regaining public trust. The way brand managers at Kellogg Co. recently esponded to the release of a video depicting a disgruntled employee should serve as a model for handling a PR crisis. When crisis […]
Engaging and Informing Employees During a Crisis
Most crisis communication plans depend at least somewhat on the ability and willingness of employees to come to work – but that assumption may not be valid. According to a Deloitte study, including employees in pre-crisis planning and keeping them updated during an organizational emergency are critical to ensuring their participation and maintaining consistent communications […]
Officials Use Twitter to Spread Information, Share Condolences After Brussels Attacks
Only four months after terrorist attacks rocked Paris, professionals’ crisis communications were put to the test as terrorists hit Brussels. On Tuesday morning, two explosions went off in the check-in area of Brussels Airport. Shortly after those attacks—at least one of which, Belgium’s federal prosecutor said, was likely caused by a suicide bomber—a third blast […]