Creating Your Crisis Response Team

Imagine, if right in the middle of an emergency, you could suddenly have your best-qualified, most experienced advisors from a broad spectrum of departments weighing in on the issue and supporting you from each of their perspectives. That’s what a great crisis team of senior-level professionals can do for you well in advance of any issues that may crop up online.

I suggest recruiting your team from these different departments because each area of expertise has a perspective that can be brought to bear on must hot issues online. Getting them to collaborate and problem-solve worst-case scenario strategies takes some time, especially in the beginning, but it shouldn’t require much of a time commitment from them once they have collaborated and formed some initial worst-case scenario action plans. It’s really smart to have them meet periodically, just to stay current on industry trends and to address any new developments before they become intense.

For best results, you should have at least one representative from each of these professional areas:

Public relations

Legal

Human resources

Executive

I suggest getting the most experienced people available to work with you to craft your organization’s crisis response system. Let them know it won’t cost them much time or effort, but you must have a plan and some possible scenarios in place before a situation heats up or else everybody works a lot harder later to contain the damage and clean up afterward.

Crisis management is largely about prevention. Few things are harder to do than suffer through an online reputation management crisis that could have been minimized or averted up front with the right crisis response system. Your crisis response team needs to craft an overall strategy that the every day team will be able to follow, as well as to be on hand should a situation escalate to a place where new decisions have to be made quickly. It’s also good to have back up social media team members trained so that you have more coverage in the event of an emergency.

Weighing in with public relations professionals

One of the coolest things about public relations professionals is that they maintain their own audiences online and tend to foster relationships with influential friends in the media. They’re great people to get to know better as you master your online reputation management.

They can help you to craft a plan for what to do via traditional media to address a situation that has gotten so hot online that it’s been picked up by mainstream media. Odds are good that they also have a long-term perspective on your company’s branding and message that you need to consider when crafting your crisis response options. They could also be aware of a long-standing issue that raises it’s head from time to time and have strategies figured out for dealing with that issue that may make sense for your online communications.

Oftentimes, PR professionals have relationships with traditional media and reporters. During a crisis, it’s important to notify them as soon as possible.

Once you recruit your PR person, take advantage of his expertise and ask him to create a glossary of probable complaints and response ideas that can be customized (rather than cut and pasted). I know this may sound like call center scripting, but your team will thank you for providing them with these goodies should they draw a blank in the middle of a situation.

Getting legal advice

If you own a small business, it’s probably beyond the scope of your budget to hire an in-house attorney, unless you have a one in the family who is generous with her time! As such, I suggest you have a look through these suggestions and keep these ideas in mind as you formulate your worst-case scenarios and what you would do if you needed legal help in the event of a crisis. If possible, it would be great to meet with one and talk about some worst-case scenarios that you have thought through. You can at least identify qualified, reputable lawyers that can help you in the event of an emergency and make sure their contact information is on hand.

If you’re part of a medium- or large-sized organization, you may be in a position to afford legal advice about your brand’s overall crisis response strategy as well as about any specific responses you make as situations arise. The larger your company is, the more likely it is (and important) that you can get legal counsel on all aspects of your crisis response strategy.

When it comes to legal counsel for your online reputation management, you should always

Include legal representation in your crisis team

Have a general plan in place in anticipation of an event happening or an accusation being made

Have the beginnings of an orderly and efficient response

If you don’t already have in-house counsel or a firm on retainer, you should decide now whom you will call when there’s a potential legal situation and make emergency contact arrangements. In times of crisis, you don’t want to have to wait until your lawyer comes back from her honeymoon in Barbados.

Engage with lawyers now to make sure you’re meeting your legal obligations in terms of compliance.

The bottom line is that the legal profession is really behind the times when it comes to deciding on issues that come up as a result of online communication. It’s probably going to be 15 years before any kind of monetary or time limits are set and can be enforced. Technology is going to continue to expand and develop, so there’s really no telling where this is going to stop — but you can bet it won’t be any time soon.

You should know what a lawyer can and can’t do for you if somebody says something ugly about you or your brand online. Slander and libel laws used to be able to protect people from attacks like these, but times have changed. The truth is . . . these days, lawyers can’t do much about such attacks — at least not before it’s way too late. The wheels of the law move slowly. By the time your lawyer has been consulted, has researched the matter, and has had time to create a case, it’s often too late. Your good name has already been dragged through the mud, and tried in the fiery court of public opinion. Before you assume your online slander/libel problems will all be painlessly taken care of by your lawyers, here’s some food for thought:

Libel/slander is terribly difficult to prove.

The time frame for a ruling typically ranges from 1 to 6 months.

You’re at the mercy of the court’s schedule.

Your legal efforts may cost a lot of time and money and result in a judgment against somebody with little or nothing to lose.

Never threaten with legal action unless you’re fully prepared to follow through. It costs you credibility.

Getting help from human resources

Now that social media is available to everyone with an Internet connection, online comments can make your employees a gold mine of support or a source of endless consternation. One of the most important things you can do for your online reputation management is to get help from your human resources department in crafting an employee policy.

In terms of your crisis team, having a senior staff member from your human resources gives you an informed perspective when online issues involve former or current employees. Your team member will know current regulations and potential human resources liabilities surrounding issues that nobody else on your team understands. They may be very familiar with the type of situations that is presented and have a standard way of responding to similar issues.

When your team formulates nightmare scenarios, be sure to include some from current or former employees, as well as situations that are intentional and accidental. It’s amazing how many online reputation issues have escalated via an employee “drunk tweeting” on the wrong account on a Saturday night!

Working with your executive team for guidance

Many times an organization’s executive team views social media as an unwelcome intruder into its formerly organized, understandable professional life. In most cases, however, having an overall crisis-response strategy in place will save a tremendous amount of time and trouble. Only during an escalating situation will online crisis events suddenly and completely disrupt your work flow.

The most important thing you can do is to embrace the process and use it to your best advantage, because the double-edged sword of social media networking potentially can bring enormous profits to your door in record time if you use the medium wisely and give it the respect it deserves.

It’s critical that you have an information hub for your online reputation management team so that you can effectively present a unified message.

Your executive team needs to collaborate on

Creating your employee social media policy

Organizing your company to best deal with crisis

Determining whom your company will inform in the event of a large-scale crisis. Some important examples include

• Stockholders

• Customers

• Newspapers

• Government officials

• Employees

Brainstorming for worst-case scenarios

Formulating policies for periodic employee training

Decide right now who will be your media spokesperson in case you are asked for blog and mainstream interviews.

If you do get asked for interviews by bloggers or media, carefully consider whether you should give any exclusives. Depending on your particular situation, offering an exclusive could give rise to speculation that you’re getting the “kid glove” treatment from a friend instead of participating in unbiased, objective journalism.