Ten to fifteen years ago, other than the occasional interruption of radio and possibly TV news, many crises worked across a timeframe of a day or a couple of days. This is a luxury that no longer exists due to the complexity and immediacy of today’s media and, of course, social media.

There are now news cycles within news cycles, media within media, and enthusiastic amateurs that can spread a story faster than Tiger Woods can make an apology!

So how can brands plan to adapt to the ‘Micro news cycle’ so that its own activity does not amplify that which can be controlled or ignore that which will be shared?

There are a few simple rules to apply here:

Know the influence of the audience
Part of the issue some have is that they can’t make the same association in terms of credibility with, for instance, a tweet as they can with an article in a national Newspaper, so a social media audit should be the first step in any crisis planning activity. Brands need to know the authority of their potential promoters and detractors, and what really constitutes influence.

Don’t wait until the crisis to communicate
Apply the same principles of developing relationships with influential social media contributors as you would with the traditional media. Engage, communicate, involve, and if possible meet.

Put processes and protocols in place
Using the knowledge developed through a media and social media audit, ensure that crisis plans developed take into account some basic metrics that relate to social media, so that the team can distinguish between a crisis and basic background noise.

Adapt and take advice
The hard and fast rules are that there are no hard and fast rules, just a changing landscape that requires the brand to be flexible, open, communicative and relevant. In the heat of a social media frenzy, one bad move can spread like wildfire so testing responses internally and with advisers is essential.

Remember one tweet won’t build a brand but it might bring one down…

Contact rhodri.harries@kaizo.net for further information.

On Wednesday Kaizo ran a successful messaging session with 300 top executives from across Europe for a large multinational corporate. The team pulled off the challenging task of capturing all 300 on video as a way of helping them to develop key messages. The activity also demonstrated that new technologies (in this case, Flip Videos) make it easy for everyone to use video to present themselves and the brands/ companies they represent not just in campaigns but every day. And it’s crucial as this is what customers will expect very soon.

Take the example of my 2 year old. She has a weekly video call on Skype with my parents, both in their late seventies, sunning themselves in Cape Town, which far from being confusing for her (or them for that matter), is accepted as being the norm. And when her baby brother was born recently, it was a video of the two of them playing that the Grandparents were asking for.

Accessible technology has enabled brands to turn into everyday broadcasters, and the audience is ready, waiting, willing and able.