According to AOL’s Daily Finance site, BP has lost ALL of its $20 billion in brand value as a result of the Gulf spill. It’s No. 1 on the “10 Biggest Brand Disasters” in 2010. They examined the companies’ actual financial figures, along with any negative PR the companies may have received during the first half of 2010 to arrive at their conclusions.
Click here to read more and take note of how much reputation and bad PR play into these rankings.
Is your reputation-management up to speed? How about your rapid-response mechanism in the case of a crisis? Bad news can happen quickly and cause as much – if not more – damage to a mom-and-pop on Main Street just as easily as it can to multi-nationals on Wall Street. Some basic tips:
1. Review your crisis plans and make sure they include a communications component that addresses media relations, customer communications and internal communications for employees.
2. Be proactive in promoting yourself and your business; a cushion of months of good news is very, very valuable in terms of public perception when the message goes negative.
3. Listen to employees and really hear what they tell you regarding customer comments or interactions. A casual conversation with a customer can provide real “ear-to-the-ground” intel that you can use to keep a minor difficulty from becoming a more damaging problem. If you hear it more than once, it might be in your best interest to investigate and determine if it’s a pattern of problems that you can resolve before it hits the front page.
4. Keep your message consistent and put your best spokesperson on the job. Everyone must sing off the same sheet during a crisis – and please, let it be the truth. Also, if your CEO doesn’t do a good job with the media or in front of large groups, that’s OK. Get him/her some training now or put a lower-level executive on-camera if an unexpected crisis hits. Try to avoid using your main PR flack though – it almost always rings hollow. People want to hear from the person in charge, not a hired gun.
5. Don’t shut down social media. The “viral” aspect of mass media today is here, and here to stay. Do not close comments on your Facebook page or get aggressive on Twitter. Keep to your message and let people vent. Correct inaccuracies but know that social media is just the personification of word-of-mouth. You wouldn’t walk into someone’s living room and demand they stop talking about your business – that’s counterproductive. The same goes with social media. Engage in the conversation and get your message out there even if you have to eat some crow and admit a mistake was made.
My final bit of advice: Simply accept that in today’s break-neck news cycle and social media vortex, most crises are beyond your control to limit in terms of your reputation. Don’t lose your temper. Ride it out the best that you can and get back to what you do and do it well, as quickly as you can. Eventually everyone will get bored and move on to something else.
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn


