|
by Ken Mocabee
Blogs – short for web log – have
emerged as important public relations and crisis management
tools over the last few years. Unfortunately, many companies
don’t understand what blogs are, how they work, and
their potential value - and danger.
If you are new to blogs, and take a cursory look at them,
you might come away with the idea that they are mostly fluff
with too much boring talk about cold coffee and what their
dog did. This is much like what we saw in the mid ‘90s
where people would spend hours and hours posting their CD
collections online as if someone actually cared.
But blogging is evolving and becoming increasingly important,
especially during a crisis. To ignore blogs is to ignore a
potentially valuable resource that can be employed in various
ways during a crisis to get your message out.
The first thing to realize about a corporate blog, especially
in a crisis environment, is that this is not a personal forum.
Blog tools allow for instant publishing of information, and
once it is “out in the wild” there is no calling
it back and you’ll have to live with whatever you publish.
Therefore, all blog copy should be thoroughly vetted for accuracy,
tone, and message before publishing, including legal.
One of the biggest decisions you will have if you decide
to have a blog is if you will allow people to respond to your
blog posts. Initially your reaction might be that allowing
the public to respond would open you up to criticism, and
you would be providing the forum for it. But you have to know
that people will post their opinions, vent, rant, etc. anyway.
By having this on your blog you can monitor things
much more closely, respond instantly, squelch rumors and correct
inaccuracies. If you do allow public responses you should
make sure you monitor things extremely closely for abusive
or inflammatory posts. Even better, moderate the blog site
and screen all posts for abusive language and content before
they go live.
In summary, if you are not using blogs in a PR crisis you
are missing an important avenue for your message. Used correctly,
they can be a very effective method of getting your message
out.
|
