Acting before something becomes a crisis is often the best way to deal with it. However that’s not how most businesses seem to think and in recent times I’ve been focussing a lot on how to deal with crises with social media.
It’s also something that comes up all the time in Orchard seminar training sessions. ‘What do I do when it all goes wrong?’ is a very familiar refrain.
Another stellar night of trivia saw a new champion crowned – Les Quizerables of BBC Guernsey held on through a fraught finish to be named Orchard Media Quiz winners for 2013. For the last two years the trophy has resided with Channel TV but this year, after a hard fought battle, it will be making its way across Television House into the BBC Guernsey Studio.
Over Christmas we had the opportunity to do something a bit different. Having helped the organisers of Guernsey’s festive ice rink secure the sponsorship they needed thanks to one of clients we agreed to provide some further PR support – in return for a few free tickets and a bit of free advertising.
Last night, Channel 4 broadcast ‘The Plane Crash’, a four-years-in-the-making documentary in which a research team crash landed a 170-seat Boeing 727 passenger plane. This was done for important research reasons and, presumably, to make gripping TV.
When describing my job to the uninitiated it generally goes something like this:
“Writing news releases, going to photo shoots, helping out on events.”
Going to photo shoots sounds by far the most glamorous and is usually the part that people pick up on.
“You have to be in the pictures? No? Well then, what do you do?”
2012 is election year in Guernsey and at our election themed quiz we though it very appropriate to have the brilliant minds [sic] of the local media solve all our problems by drawing up their own manifestos for the island.
There can be no question that the new world we live in presents some extraordinary challenges for businesses; some we have never seen before and others we could have easily deflected in the past… not anymore. We live in a world of increasing transparency and accountability not least in terms of media expectation. We now have both traditional media and “new” media – a true age of 24 hour news.
Businesses are expected to talk, often on issues that are less than comfortable and certainly defend their position across a range of media platforms from newspapers to broadcast, LinkedIn to Twitter. In the past, an understanding of how the media works and how to deal with them may have been a “nice to have” but now it is vital if a business is to be seen to be reputable, accountable and to have a clear understanding of their position and messages to demonstrate expertise.
Being a credible spokesperson with an ability to craft positive and controlled messages has never been more important. Hiding and not engaging with the media is not an option. Worse still is being interviewed or writing a statement without understanding the media and doing it badly. The worst is rehearsing your message so much it is the only thing you say in an interview and you come across as a bit of a robot…
The day that PR becomes regulated like a financial services product or household utility will be the day I go for an early bus pass.
The House of Lords Communications Committee this week released its report on the future of the media, in which it described investigative journalism as vital to democracy. That’s alright then.
On the face of it the timing of the report was no surprise, in the wake of much phone-tapping hysteria, resignations, closures and Leveson frenzy.