This is the first in a series of monthly interviews about Burson-Marsteller, its employees and its practices. I recently chatted with Paul Gallagher and Karen Doyne, co-chairs of the Crisis Practice and the Issue & Crisis Group about the role of digital in their practice and in a tough economy.
Digital Perspective Blog: What have you seen in the Issues & Crisis Group since the onset of the financial crisis?
Paul and Karen: Of course every company and association is under budget pressure these days. Interestingly, though, we’re seeing continued — and even increased — commitment of resources to crisis and issues management. When there’s a make-or-break situation, or the threat of one, a company must take the necessary steps to communicate effectively with its stakeholders, now more than ever. We are also doing a lot of crisis preparedness work, which has long been one of our strengths. You might expect crisis planning and readiness to be seen as expendable in a bad economy, but to the contrary, clients understand crisis planning is the only way to be sure they avoid missteps or delays in crisis response — and in today’s environment there’s no margin for error.
DP: What do you think is the most important digital element when managing a crisis?
PK: It has to start with the company’s own web presence. Their website is the face they’re showing the public, and it’s increasingly the first stop for all stakeholders, including traditional media, bloggers, employees, consumers, and regulatory and legislative staff. Especially in a crisis situation, you want to drive traffic to a website because that’s the most efficient way to deliver information, so those who go to the site have to be satisfied with what they find there. The first issue is the right level of visibility and accessibility: Should this be something on the company’s existing website or on a separate site? That’s why virtually all of our crisis plans for companies include creation of standby dark sites for use in a crisis situation. If it’s on the regular company site, should it be on the home page or in the media or consumer FAQ area? And we need to be sure the site provides the right information — or links to others that will provide it — and that the language and tone are appropriate. We’ve found that getting the website issues right, and very quickly, can make an enormous difference in the ability to manage and contain a crisis situation.
All that said, it is also very important that clients monitor blogs and social media and conduct outreach to ensure that a company’s point of view is reflected in content published. This can be a critical mechanism for driving traffic to a website and is key to ensuring that company’s influence conversations to reflect their side of the story.
DP: Can you share any success stories where you have involved digital?
PK: Most of our crisis work is kept confidential to avoid perpetuating any issues the company was facing, but we have seen many examples of digital playing a significant role in helping a client manage issues and crisis situations. For example, we used a secure workspace to help a government entity manage potential issues to ensure they didn’t escalate to crisis situations. We helped another client in the consumer packaged goods industry use digital media to sway public opinion around a frivolous lawsuit. And we recently used blog and social media monitoring to understand perceptions of stakeholders as we developed messaging for a large financial institution.
