By Josh Cline

In crisis public-relations – whether in a corporate or political context – there is an effective, recognized method to limit damage and salvage reputations. Former Congressman Anthony Weiner, to his obvious detriment, did not use it at all.

For those who may not know, the website BigGovernment.com published a report on May 28 stating that Weiner had sent a sexually-suggestive photo on Twitter to a young woman who was “following” him. On June 1, after the story had flooded the mainstream and digital airwaves for several days, the representative gave a series of interviews to media outlets about the issue.  Read more...

By Josh Cline

In social media, there is no such thing as “off the record.” And General Electric may have discovered this rule — but much too late.

On March 24, the New York Times published an article stating that GE had not paid U.S. federal taxes on the $5.1 billion in profit last year from its domestic operations. In response, the company’s PR account on Twitter started tweeting about the alleged inaccuracies in the story. (Interestingly enough, all of the tweets that day were on other topics even though the NYT story had just broke. The article was not mentioned by GE until their first tweet of the following day.)  Read more...

Every PR crisis management expert will tell you the three elements of good crisis response: be quick, be accurate and be consistent. These elements are critical. Twitter and the “real-time web” is one important channel that is immediate. The rest is up to you.

Act now

As soon as your alarm bells ring it is “go time.” Whether your response is denial, apology, excuse, attack or justification, it must be quick and relentless. As long as you’re not a politician, forget about the “no comment”.  When your organization’s reputation is on the line, you have no excuse but to defend it. Sometimes tweeting about a slander can even send your own followers to fight for you (that is, of course, if you have strong rapport with your followers). Publicizing a slander against you (say, in a blog) gives you more credibility and shows you are confident and have nothing to hide.  Read more...

If your business or organization is faced with organized opposition that is damaging its reputation, undermining public confidence and jeopardizing its operations, then you are in good company. Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and Nike are only three among a vast number of companies increasingly finding themselves facing very vocal, very well organized, and often well-financed critics.

In fact, protest has become a multi-billion-dollar industry involved in political lobbying, staging boycotts and related events, sponsoring ballot initiatives, advertising, and in the most extreme cases, engaging in environmental terrorism. Activists usually go after large, highly visible multi-national targets, but smaller, community based businesses and organizations are no longer immune.  Read more...

If you haven’t already noticed, crises of national and global scopes are being reported by mainstream media and tweeted and blogged on an almost daily basis these days. The crises are being generated by once highly respected brands, such as Toyota and Johnson & Johnson, and the shelf life of the coverage is now weeks and months, instead of days. Even worse, in terms of consequences, the crisis bar has been raised into the stratosphere.

It is an understatement to say that the nature of crisis management and communication has changed. It has, in fact, evolved into a green-eyed monster whose stakes go way beyond bad publicity and temporary loss of public trust or reputation. Today, a crisis of any kind can be life-threatening.  Read more...