Justin Case You Were Wondering

But no matter how much you have practiced, when a serious issue strikes, it’s easy to forget what you’ve learned and even panic just a little. That’s why I wanted to share with you the four R’s – the other part of Betsey’s limeade equation that walks you through what you actually need to do strategically and tactically in a crisis situation.

Crisis communications is not just about managing the communications process during a crisis. Sure that is important and we need a plan for it. But true crisis communications is an everyday process that factors into a brand’s overall listening and engagement strategy. The “every day” is when companies build trust, relationships and advocates – I like to call it building goodwill. You can’t build those things in minutes, hours, days or even weeks when a crisis strikes. Just ask BP, Dominos or Amazon.

People often use the terms crisis and issues differently. Crisis seems to denote something huge, like a CEO having a heart attack or a life-threatening natural disaster. Issues, on the other hand, are much more common. An online customer complaint over the weekend during off hours or a competitor trying to sell their brand on your Facebook page.

You can almost guarantee it with the same certainty you can say the sun will come out tomorrow. Start discussing crisis/issues management with a group of corporate communicators and someone is going to ask, sooner or later: “How do you know when to respond to a complaint about your brand?”

It used to be you’d say limeade and I’d think of the local Sonic. And not a regular limeade, but one of those cherry limeades with extra cherry flavor and two maraschino cherries on the top. Mmm, so good. But our #FHKC office GM, Betsey Solberg, changed all that this week. Here’s what happened.

We all know how important listening is these days, right? I don’t think I have to explain the value of monitoring the Web for brand mentions, the opportunity behind direct-to-consumer conversations or what can happen if you don’t have a listening system in place. We’re to the point now where people/companies are really trying to better define their listening system based on specific needs. Part of that is keeping track of evolutions that change the listening game. And there’s a potentially huge one coming in the next few months.

What do you want your brand to stand for? That’s the first question I would ask Etsy’s PR team if I had the chance to talk with them about the best way to handle the “hate cards” issue — it’s not a PR crisis at this point — with which they are faced. If you aren’t familiar with the controversy, Shel Holtz offers a thorough explanation in this recent post. Shel tells the story of Jonathan Mast, a friend of ours, in his post and how Jonathan has tried to get Etsy to remove cards being sold on its site that appear to make fun of down syndrome — Jonathan’s daughter has DS. Since Shel wrote the post, a new set of cards congratulating women for being raped have been posted for sale.