Expect the best, prepare for the worst….

I just finished Jeanette Walls’ period piece Half Broken Horses (BTW I would highly recommend it, she’s a great writer).  In the book, this theme keeps coming up as central to the main characters personality.  I thought of this as I was watching and reading BP’s reaction to the horrible mess unfolding in the Gulf threatening to possible take down the company as well as a lot of shareholder wealth in the UK and throughout the world.  It became clear that when a company does not own their brand within social media channels, anyone can hijack it, especially spoofing it in a snarky way.   You can just look at @BPGlobalPR, which was setup to get BP’s attention on the crisis in the gulf, and now has 162K followers, including me.  The @BP_America page setup to provide news on the oil spill response effort only has 14.5K followers.  Does that mean more folks are interested in poking shots at the company’s efforts than the actual response from the company?  Or does it mean that they are not happy with the company’s response or lack thereof and will continue to take shots at them in a way to express their dissatisfaction? Whatever way you slice it, BP’s handling of this crisis using social media for PR crisis management was a little too late.  In their study on company engagement, The Altimeter group and WetPaint slotted them into the Wallflower category, which includes those companies that are involved in a low number of social media channels with below average engagement.  This comes across in the BP’s social media channel where the theme is broadcasting messages, not engaging in dialogue.  It’s hard to think how any company could ever come out of this type of situation with a positive public image.  Never the less, it cements the position that companies, especially those that may potentially be dealing with a large-scale public crisis, need to prepare for the worst.

What does this entail?

• A thorough understanding of ALL your stakeholder groups:  identifying influential members, key opinion leaders, etc.  These are the folks who can be pivotal in disseminating messaging both positive and negative.

• Scenario planning disaster recovery (look at the worst cases) and how to deal with situations as they might come in including a range of possible outcomes.

• Investigate how to establish, an honest dialogue with the public through social channels.  For example, a coal company broadcasting messages that basically say, “we are your future, deal with it” is not productive.

• Learn humility. Many companies are coming to grips with a lack of understanding around social media and how information gets disseminated on line.  It’s a tough space to get your hands around and especially since it’s changing continuously.  “We don’t know what we don’t know” is a common one I have heard from many start-ups but rarely from large corporations.  It’s understandable.  I imagine it would not instill a great deal of confidence in shareholders but its exactly what needs to be done to level set the online discussion and enlist the help of your community.  Help is available if you provide the right mechanisms to harness collective wisdom.

• Realization that whistleblowers can come from anywhere at anytime.  Commonly available technology allows anyone to capture improper activities and make it known (and broadcast it) instantly.  In an age of connected, real-time data, diligence is required to get out in front and face it head on i.e. no longer can you simple disregard it and hope it dies out naturally.

• Containment is not an option.  Information propagates instantly on the net.  If you try to squash information by legal or other means, it will most likely pop up in several other places fairly quickly.

In my class at Carnegie Mellon, we take a look at two fantastic case studies of PR response to crisis – one done well and another, well, not done so well.  The first is the “The Ranger Station Fire” which details how Scott Monty from Ford swiftly and efficiently addressed an issue that arose between a community of Ford enthusiasts and corporate bureaucracy.  The other is “Motrin Moms” where a commercial designed to appeal to an important stakeholder group wound up alienating them and causing a severe backlash.  In the first example, by understanding the propagation of information online and responding to it immediately a potential backlash to the company was diminished and the new levels of dialogue were created.  In the second example, by not benchmarking and paying close attention to response from social channels brand and company damage ensued.  Also an opportunity to create some benefit out of the chaos was squandered.

I think its naïve to say that if BP went through some of these exercises they could have avoided this current PR calamity but I’m pretty positive that many other companies can learn from their shortcomings and be prepared to deal with significant crises if and when they occur.