Facebook Live and Crisis Management: The 24 Second News Cycle
[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] If you follow this newsletter or attend one of our crisis management and communications seminars, you understand the urgency of getting your side of the story out in the first media news cycle. If you’re not ready to quickly roll out your messages when a crisis strikes or an issue […]
Horse-Race Journalism Dominated Primary Media Coverage
The media love to tell “horse race” stories. And if you’ve been watching/reading about the presidential race over the last year, you’ve seen a lot of them. While horse race stories are certainly legitimate storytelling “frames,” we’re not sure democracy is best-served with an overabundance on that particular frame. From Poynter in a piece written by […]
How Live-Streaming a Police Shooting Could Change the Narrative
When a police officer fatally shot her fiancé, Philando Castile, during a traffic stop in a Minnesota suburb, Diamond Reynolds responded the way she knew how: She calmly live-streamed the aftermath of the event, reciting on Facebook Live what happened in the car seat next to her. In doing so, she punctuated a national paradigm […]
The Dividend of Crisis (Yes, There Is One)
[By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications] If you want a recent wonderful example of an organization doing well by doing good, you need look no further than West Virginia’s Greenbrier Resort, which was at the epicenter of that state’s recent historic flooding. West Virginia was declared a federal disaster area after torrential rains swept through the […]
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 […]
3 Lessons From General Mills During a Product Recall
A brand’s worst nightmare: product recall. For brands in the food industry, customers’ health and safety are on the line and any recall situation can turn bad. Every brand should treat a recall situation as a crisis – even if nothing bad has happened yet. Taking the right steps in a recall situation can help protect your […]
McDonald’s and ‘The Founder’: What to Do When Your Brand’s in an Unsought Spotlight
From PRNews Online: “The Founder,” set to open in the U.S. on Aug. 5, is the latest in a string of movies to examine an American corporate institution and the visionary figure behind it. Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs were given the Hollywood treatment (twice for the latter); now it’s Ray Kroc’s turn, the man […]
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 […]
Top 5 Mistakes Businesses (and Governments) Make in Disasters
According to the UK-based Business Continuity Institute, the top 5 mistakes that businesses and governments make when preparing to respond to, mitigate and move forward from disaster: 1. Failing to define worst-case scenario. 2. Failing to to fully understand the risks associated with its operation, and then failing to take the necessary steps to mitigate those risks. 3. Neglecting […]
How One Restaurant Critic Took on the Food Fables We’ve All Been Fed
Laura Reiley’s first investigation was a small one. But it proved to be a nibble into something much bigger, a story the Tampa Bay Times’ food critic took on this week. Four years ago, over dinner at Tampa’s famous Bern’s Steak House, Reiley listened as the waiter expounded on specials that came from the restaurant’s […]