Press Release: 01 Jan 2012
How to get risk management onto a boardroom agenda – and keep it there
Setting out to `make the board listen’ is a mistake: we should aim instead to be ‘giving the board a message it needs to hear’. The success of any unplanned un-budgeted business continuity management initiative is attributable to alignment, presentation, content and networking. It requires us to become skilled salespeople as well as risk management experts. Presentations skills to the fore, please. Communications planning is vital.
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Press Release: 01 Dec 2011
You decide how far you want to go, and how quickly, dependent on other priorities and opportunities in the organisation…
Assess your opportunity/risk
To realise social media's full potential, the trick is to "know thyself" in order to recognise the opportunities (and anticipate the challenges) your organisation faces in each new stage of social media maturity.
We can help:
- Diagnose the highest priority social media opportunities for your company
- Provide directional guidance on next steps and benchmark against peers
Create a basic policy
A good social media policy will outline the Do's and Don'ts of social media in a clear, direct, and accessible way.
We can help:
- Apply a policy template, which contains the fundamentals of a social media policy
- View a library of policies from other organisations, including those in highly–regulated industries.
Build a strategic plan
Many companies dabble in social media without a clear purpose. Fortunately, the path to a great strategy is pretty straightforward. Your "right answer" will be based on the relative importance of the core things you can do with social media.
We can help:
- Guide you in developing a strategy that fits with your business needs and stakeholder behaviours
Monitor your profile
Monitoring your image and truly listening in social media is the foundation for all proactive strategies and is important (from a reputation risk perspective) even when you're not pursuing a specific strategy or tactic.
We can help:
- Give you the inside scoop on monitoring options
- Teach you how to translate monitoring data into an effective communications strategy
- Guide you on how to respond to negative commentary in social media.
Make the case
Despite the low budget resources required for a social media presence, many senior managers are sceptical that investments will deliver tangible returns and worry about the risks. A few key tactics can help you overcome this resistance — as well as ensure that you win buy-in for a solid rationale.
We can help:
- Create a presentation to educate your executive team
- Build a business case for internal social media
- Conduct and document competitive benchmarking.
Select channels
Rather than jumping onto the flashiest new site or tool, smart companies work back from their desired business outcomes to select social media platforms that best align with strategic opportunities.
We can help:
- Select social media platforms that are right for you
- Show you best practice channel examples
- Access social media measurement framework and popularly cited metrics.
Provide constructive guidance
Leading companies don’t just prescribe and prohibit, they also provide employees with helpful tips on interacting in social media channels (whether company–sponsored sites or external sites). This guidance will clarify expectations for employees, minimising malpractice or confusion.
We can help:
- Enhance participation in the social media space
- Boost enthusiasm and confidence in online engagement
- Balance company quality and culture standards with personal style.
Coordinate activities
Cross-functional collaboration on social media doesn't have to be chaotic. We can give you tips and tools to help streamline your management of social media activities.
We can help:
- Provide you with a social media "task force" template
- Outline the skills and organisational model successful companies are applying for social media management.
Press Release: 28 Jun 2011
How to…use social media in a crisis
With the growing use and influence of social media - and sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (and many more) changing the speed at which breaking news can travel around the world - the use of social media can play a significant role in the evolution of a crisis – or even turning a risk into a full-blown crisis.
Forward-thinking companies are increasingly aware of this and requesting training in the management and potential use of social media in their crisis response.
Best practice crisis management digital framework in four steps:
Monitor and audit conversations and identify key influencers so that you can see who is saying what and their impact. You can't stop discussions, comments or leaks from happening but, by taking these steps, you can ensure that you know what’s being said, by whom and their level of sentiment. This puts you in a much better position to be able to tailor your responses in a way that allows you to actively engage stakeholders.
- Conduct online monitoring – daily, hourly, weekly reports at different stages
- Develop list of online influencers (internal and external) – create outreach and ongoing response strategy
Create, in advance of actually needing to activate them, relevant and timely content based on your stakeholder needs in pre-prepared digital formats. These can then be swiftly disseminated across social media channels based on the unfolding scenarios. Your communications process will have to be configured to respond fast, so it is important to ensure that activity and engagement levels are planned in advance. For example, consider if you need to…
- Set up an online collaboration site – to share and manage communications strategy
- Create a set of digital materials presenting package of key messages
- Set up a dark /crisis site
- Set up a blog
- Set up a branded Youtube channel
- Agree internal communications response, structure and process
- Establish Social Media Engagement Guidelines, including tone of voice.
Engage your online audiences transparently. Use credible and direct channels to provide the answers they are looking for, such as regularly updating your website homepage, activating your dark site, which creates a searchable response mechanic, and activating other channels such as a Twitter handle for responses and redirects. Of course, the actual engagement should be in direct correlation to the various scenarios outlined in the digital crisis activation plan. For example, if a key stakeholder is publishing comments on their own website or blog, then engage using the same channel.
Promote the dark / crisis site and, in so doing, de-optimise unfavourable online content by creating search keywords and terms (consider using key word marketing for this) and releasing positive (wholly accurate) stories, if appropriate, in addition to the ongoing engagement strategy. If appropriate, this will have the effect of pushing negative content, connected with the crisis, further down the search engine rankings. This mechanism should be used with care and without cynicism or it can back-fire.
Press Release: 07 Jun 2011
So often, we have been asked `how is social media relevant to my business?’. Or, still to this day, ‘Explain to me why I should spend time and money on this craze?’
Social media is more than just a fad. The speed, reach and directness of social media can offer significant benefits to companies and brands in building and protecting reputation, and increasing market share and value. But it needs to be used wisely and with a clear strategy, directly related to your business priorities and the rest of your communications approach.
Here, we provide 10 reasons why you should consider using social media as part of your communications strategy:
1. Own your brand’s online presence
If you don’t create and own your brand’s online presence, someone else will, so doing nothing is not really an option – and you would not consider abandoning all ownership rights anywhere else.
2. The cost is mainly time
While engaging in and maintaining social media dialogue takes a certain amount of time, the majority of tools and platforms are completely free of charge.
3. The media landscape is changing
With constant technological change – from internet enabled TV to increased mobile web usage – businesses must leverage social media to maintain competitive advantage.
4. The “born digital” generation
A rapidly growing number of people are born into a digital world. These people are future customers, employees, investors, stakeholder etc…can you afford not to talk their language?
5. It’s instant and transparent
No messaging vehicle is better suited to fast and transparent communication with stakeholders. In a crisis, responding fast can help to limit the spread and impact of negative or misinformation.
6. It gives you an ‘unedited’ voice
While you cannot control what is being said, you can influence discussions by having a voice that allows you to provide an unedited point of view.
7. Viral power
While traditional media still wins on credibility, its lifespan is short and viral power limited. Social media content is searchable, accessible and has a long lifespan, giving it incredible viral power.
8. Authenticity and personality
Social media enables you to talk with customer and stakeholders, not at them. Embrace it in this mindset and you’ll nurture a very different kind of relationship than those who treat it like a broadcast tool.
9. The medium of choice
Clearly, social media is big, and it's still getting bigger. At the latest count, worldwide internet users are spending 4.6 hours using social media each week, compared with 4.4 hours using email.
10. It’s common sense
It makes sense to be present and accessible: if you are “out there” more, more people can find you!
Press Release: 20 May 2011
Countdown to the Olympics: is your business ready?
Our Razor team of risk and crisis experts are busy working with various clients to advise on the risks associated with the period before, during and after the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, taking place across London, and the country, next summer.
At a seminar held at our London office this week we invited City-based CEOs, risk managers, property managers and others with a vested interest to hear two senior Met Police officers outline the realities of what this will mean for our capital and for its commercial residents. The BBC’s Security correspondent, Frank Gardner, also summarised the threats from terrorist bodies and how the media are likely to deal with these. (See full details of the seminar on the attachment.)
In short, this is the largest public event ever to occur in London , with an unprecedented global media audience and a massive influx of people and risks across the City - far beyond the bounds of the Olympic Village.
Seminar participants were enthusiastic to learn about practical measures they could and should take to prepare for risks ranging from traffic and commuter disruption to protests and terrorist threats. Boardroom responsibilities were also discussed.
Key messages of the session included:
- The Police can’t do it all in terms of security – they rely on positive cooperation with business
- Major landmarks and Olympic venues are not the only ones that may be targeted – smaller and less secure venues may also feel some impact, including City office buildings and retail units
- Commuter disruption is very likely – businesses need to offer advice to employees on accessing London and remote working
- Mobile and IT reception are likely to be affected or even to go down – a simple tip would be to make sure all employees have an international roaming facility
- It’s not just the Olympics-related challenges that businesses need to anticipate and pre-empt – there will also be the Queen’s Jubilee and other major events and pressures in the capital, so security resources will be stretched and problems could attach to any aspect of London life
Business directors have commercial, legal and moral obligations, including a duty of care to their staff: risk assessment and planning should start now.
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Press Release: 25 Mar 2011
PR Week
Proactive risk management, woven into external comms and brand management, is on its way.