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Managing Blog-Driven Crises

My colleagues Ian Barr, Darren Leroux and I participated in a conference last week on blogging and corporate communications. I see that Ian beat me to the punch in posting about one of the panels he attended. The session I sat in on about "managing crises in the blogosphere", brought to light some interesting stuff for any company which finds itself the target of a blog assault.  (As an aside, there was agreement in the room that 'blogosphere' is a ridiculous word and should be excised from the online lexicon.) I took away a singular set of ideas (thanks in large measure to Christopher Barger from IBM's corporate communications group whose blog, ironically, I can't find!) which can help guide strategy for managing an aggressive blogger.

The conversation taking place today in the blogosphere -- there's that awful word again -- is individual, with a character and language all its own. Blogs by their nature are personal and passionate. More important for managing corporate reputation, they are also inherently viral.

So . . . a company responding to a blog-driven attack can't do a number of things:

  1. It can't reply with the formal authoritative tone and voice of the corporate news release.
  2. It can't respond with full corporate force (as the French might say a bas les avocats!)  . . . or it can if it wants to go to war with a wider, more hostile blog world.
  3. It can't go it alone. The best defence for a company is other people coming to its defence.
  4. It can't assume the CEO or another senior executive is the best person to "speak" online about the issue. In fact, as Barger pointed out, sometimes the best spokesperson online may be the lowest ranked person who can reasonably be expected to know something about the issue being raised by the rogue blogger.
  5. It can't believe that winning the blog skirmish means winning the war. The issue won't disappear because what starts online, remains always online.

To counter five "can't dos" I will have to come up with about twice as many rules of the road for managing blog-hosted attacks.

Anyone care to kick it off?

 

Published 12 December 2005 20:29 by Boyd Neil
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Comments

  • Niall Cook said:

    Interesting question, Boyd. I offer some suggestions in the post linked below.
    December 13, 2005 11:37

  • Christopher Barger said:

    Hi Boyd - good post, and I think you're right on about the "can'ts" of corporate responses to blog attacks.

    I'll suggest a "do" for dealing with blog attacks: Do get involved with blogs and with bloggers long before you have a crisis. If the first time a company's engaged in conversation in the blog world is when it's trying to defend itself against an attack, who could blame a community for being skeptical about the response?

    On the other hand, a company that has been a willing, open and balanced participant in the larger conversation, and has established itself as a trusted member of the blogging community, will probably be given the benefit of the doubt -- or at least given the chance to air its side of a story to open minds.

    It's just my opinion, but I'd argue that any company that first forays into blogs when it's trying to respond to an attack is quite possibly entering the game too late.

    Just a thought. Oh - the reason you can't find my blog is because my 'official' business-related one is behind the firewall in the IBM internal blogging community for our employees.

    Thanks for posting this - and I'm glad that you enjoyed the session. I did too, and it was good to meet everyone.
    December 13, 2005 22:36

  • Boyd Neil said:

    I agree, of course. Unfortunately, many companies are still a long way from sorting out what it means exactly to be a "willing, open and balanced participant in the larger conversation."

    It would help if individual corporate communicators themselves became more familiar with blogs through their own forays into the blogging world.
    December 14, 2005 16:18

  • Philippe Borremans said:

    Hi Niall,

    One of the most interesting topics around I think.

    Every time it seems to come down to (active) listening, finding out the real issue, making corrections as soon as possible and inform all the way... I am sure this goes for an online crisis as well. In fact if you look at Dell, Sony and the others who recently experienced this you will find that it is exactly there that they faltered. As to "how to use a blog for crisis communications", the example of Mr. Leclerc, the CEO of Magazins Leclerc in France is exemplary (see my blog).
    December 14, 2005 19:28

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About Boyd Neil

Boyd Neil is senior vice president and national practice director, corporate communications, Hill & Knowlton Canada.
 
 
Copyright 2005-2006 Hill & Knowlton