From the Melissa Agnes Crisis Management blog:

• 5 Must-Do’s When Leveraging Twitter in a Crisis
• 4 Ways to Handle Negative Online Reviews Against Your Brand
• Reddit: The Source of Many Social Media Crises and Issues
• Social Media is the New Face of Disaster Response (Infographic)

Other articles from other awesome professionals:

• Following crushing tornadoes, help and hope spread on Twitter
• San Francisco Embraces Social Media During Earthquake Drill
• Vine represents another level for citizen journalism
• Language for Twitter in a Crisis Part I

The Social Media Crisis Management Toolkit

The Social Media Crisis Management Toolkit is your guide to online crisis management planning.

This Toolkit will help you in the beginning stages of creating a solid social media crisis management plan for your small to medium sized business. Learn more here!

The post Weekly Roundup of Awesome Links: Week of May 20 2013 appeared first on Melissa Agnes Crisis Management - Online Crisis Management Firm.

With this recent natural disaster, and many more looming ahead of us around the world, I thought the below infographic was quite timely and interesting.

It takes a look at how individuals harness social media in each type of natural disaster: storms, extreme temperatures, floods, epidemics and earthquakes. It’s certainly not surprising that social media has become the new face of disaster response. Take a look:

University of San Francisco Online Master of Public Administration

The post Social Media is the New Face of Disaster Response (Infographic) appeared first on Melissa Agnes Crisis Management - Online Crisis Management Firm.

Don’t let the dated look fool you. Founded in 2005, Reddit has since grown to be a substantial source of news with a powerful online community that has proven to have quite an impact when used against or for a brand, situation or cause.

What is Reddit?

Reddit is a platform on which people can submit content and redditers “vote on which stories and discussions are important. The hottest stories rise to the top, while cooler stories sink.”

Chris Tynski has said that:

“Reddit enables the individual, and gives literally anyone who has something interesting enough to say the ability to reach millions.”

And he’s not exaggerating. We’ve seen the full force of the Reddit community in recent issues and online crises such as the Applebee’s social media issue and, even more recently, that of Amy’s Baking Company.

Reddit’s power comes from their communities

The power lies within the tightness of the Reddit communities. With millions of unique visitors each month logging in from hundreds of countries around the world, when a Reddit community has something to post, say or a cause to actively protest or voice out against or for, the world is going to hear them.

Reddit’s activity for the month of May 2013

What does this mean for your crisis management?

Reddit has proven to not be a platform to disregard. There is strength in numbers and Reddit definitely has numbers! Even if it is not a platform on which many of your customers or your target audience can be found, that doesn’t mean that you should disregard the platform or its potential for social disaster.

I recommend that you investigate the platform, determine whether or not your audience plays an active role within a Reddit community and, whether the answer is yes or no, be sure to keep a watchful eye on the platform in association with your brand. It’s important to be aware of the different platforms out there and the potential risks and benefits they may have on your brand. And with 69+ million monthly visitors and 4K+ active communities, Reddit is definitely one to keep an eye on!

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What’s your general view about what companies should do if they feel they are being unfairly maligned on Yelp? Same for doctors being unfairly maligned on medical sites?

This is a great question since so many brands and professionals have been experiencing these types of maliciously-intentioned reviews lately. The answer, of course, depends on the situation. But having helped many doctors and brands through this type of negative online situation, the following are some suggestions to consider when faced with this type of unpleasant attack:

4 Ways to Handle Negative Online Reviews Against Your Brand

First thing’s first, attempt a removal
If you can prove that the review is false and was created with malicious-intent, then the first step is to get in touch with the platform and attempt to have the wrongful accusations removed. Although this is usually easier said than done, it’s still worth a try.

Your online reputation should go further than review sites
Rather than leaving it all up to the public and channels on which you have little to no control, focus on building a strong, positive online reputation. The focus here is to outrank the negative. To begin, make sure that your corporate website is properly optimized and then focus on having profiles on other SEO friendly platforms such as Linkedin, About.me, Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Yahoo Answers and other industry specific websites.

Encourage happy customers to leave you positive reviews
Find creative ways to encourage happy clients and customers to write positive reviews about your brand/products/services on the same and other review sites. If you have a long stream of legitimate positive reviews, the negative ones will not have precedence. Don’t be scared to get creative when doing this!

Be aware
It’s important to Google yourself and your company, products and services on a regular basis, in order to be aware of what is being said about you online on review sites and others. The more aware you are of your online reputation, the better chances you have at detecting and correcting falsehoods, rumors and potential crisis situations before they begin to spread and go viral.

And remember, if your brand consistently offers quality customer service and aims to always build relationships with your audience and clientele, than a couple maliciously-intentioned reviews won’t overpower a consistently reputable brand. You can’t please everyone, but you can control the way you and your team handle situations and strive for excellence. However, there’s no denying that those negative reviews can be stressful and potentially damaging, so be sure to focus on building your positive online reputation and enabling yourself and your team to be aware of these issues in real-time.

The post 4 Ways to Handle Negative Online Reviews Against Your Brand appeared first on Melissa Agnes Crisis Management - Online Crisis Management Firm.

“If you do nothing else in a major event other than providing near continuous tweets about what you know and what you don’t know, in 140 character bites, you will still be the communication champ. “

And how right he was in saying so! From the Boston Marathon Bombings, to The Atlanta Public Schools Shooting and even the KitchenAid rogue tweet fiasco, we’ve seen what excellent Twitter communications in a crisis can do. To the contrary, we’ve also seen the many repercussions that countless brands have faced after failing to leverage Twitter in a crisis.

There’s no way around it: Embrace Twitter and learn how to leverage it in a crisis

Twitter is here to stay and is on the fast track to becoming the leading force in news coverage today. Not sure how true this statement is? Consider this: within 3 hours of the Boston Marathon Bombings, Twitter had more than 500,000 tweets with the hashtag #bostonmarathon - not to mention the amount of tweets with different or no hashtags about the attack. This just goes to show what a powerful and driving force Twitter has become, and will continue to be. Understanding how to leverage this powerful platform within your crisis communications is critical for your brand’s successful crisis management.

That said, here are 5 tips for leveraging Twitter in a crisis

1. Begin by enabling your team to properly and efficiently monitor the Twitter-sphere for any mentions of your brand, products, services and team members. This includes monitoring tweets, mentions and hashtags in real-time, followed by being able to filter through the many mentions, questions and discussions that will be tweeted to and about your brand in a crisis. (Here are 2 useful monitoring tools you may want to check out: Twilert and CrisisVu)
2. Whenever there are new updates and information to report, and even when there aren’t, tweet it. Link to pages with more detailed information when appropriate, and make sure every update is tweeted with the appropriate hashtag(s).
3. Keep an eye out for developing rumors and speculation, responding and politely correcting each one before it begins to be retweeted and develop into another serious issue within the crisis.
4. Let your audience know where to follow you for updates and information on the crisis. There’s no sense in tweeting and communicating if no one is listening or knows where to look for you.
5. Have pre-approved 140 character (less is better) holding statements and messaging ready to go before a crisis strikes. You can tweak and make changes as needed, but having pre-approved messaging goes a long way in the midst of a crisis.

Twitter is not going anywhere and absolutely needs to be a part of your crisis communications plan. Being prepared with a minimum of the above five must-do’s in a crisis will take you a long way in being seen as, as Gerald put it, a “communication champ”.

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Have an awesome weekend!

From the Melissa Agnes Crisis Management blog:

• Now Illegal in 3 More States: Employers Cannot Request Passwords to Employee Social Media Accounts
• Cyberbullying: Monitoring Tools and Tips for Parents
• 9 Ways To Make Sure Your Brand Becomes the Laughing-Stock of the Internet
• Update on Rona’s Huge Customer Care Fail

Other articles from other awesome professionals:

• Researchers Review Boston Bombing Social Media Activity
• Social Media Crisis vs. Social Media Issue: A Mis-Diagnosis Can Launch Your Brand into a Crisis
• Should You Really Communicate Immediately In a Crisis?
• White House in crisis: any lessons here?
• Vine – the good, the bad and the ugly

The Social Media Crisis Management Toolkit

The Social Media Crisis Management Toolkit is your guide to online crisis management planning.

This Toolkit will help you in the beginning stages of creating a solid social media crisis management plan for your small to medium sized business. Learn how here!

The post Weekly Roundup of Awesome Links: Week of May 13 2013 appeared first on Melissa Agnes Crisis Management - Online Crisis Management Firm.

Along with the follow-up I’ve promised you, I have a few additional points and issues that I’d like to address. They aren’t any earth-shattering take-aways, but as the devil is in the detail, they are important behaviours that I wish to strongly advise against.

Update on Rona’s Huge Customer Care Fail

Once my blog post about the unpleasant situation I experienced at a Rona store was published, I finally received a reply from the company. This reply first came on Twitter and was the best response I had yet received, take a look:

Read from bottom to top

The call did in fact come that afternoon. Someone from the head office called to apologize for both the situation and the way I was treated, and to ask if the store owner could call me to get more details on the events that happened. I was told that I would receive the store owner’s call that afternoon.

The call finally came the next afternoon, but from another store manager rather than the store owner. During this call, I heard many more excuses on how the item must have been placed there by a supplier or customer, because it would not have been placed so insecurely by a Rona worker.

Lesson 1: In truth, it does not matter how the accident happened, but only that it did. Instead of continuously repeating that it was not the store’s fault, simply own up, apologize and move on. I appreciated the call, but I would have appreciated less of my time being wasted on excuses.

So up until here, I was happy to have heard from the head office and the store itself and although I was tired of excuses, I felt that they apologized and I was happy to hear their promise to reevaluate their internal procedures for dealing with such high-risk situations. From there, I thought the situation was over. If only they had quit while they were ahead…

Adding insult to injury

Yesterday, I received an email from Rona’s Senior Director of Communications and Public Affairs. The email began by apologizing again – good start – but continued to explain (ahem, more excuses) how they encourage their team to be sincere, but not to apologize publicly due to the potential risk of a liability lawsuit. The woman on the other end of the email, a Mrs. Laberge, continued by agreeing that “In the case you describe, our community manager lacked empathy, I’ll give you that” (truthfully, she could have left out the snarky “I’ll give you that” remark). She then continued with more excuses of how the case should have been dealt with in-store but how there wasn’t enough time. She concluded her email with a link to a document that supports her mission to not subject the company to liability lawsuits (which is a very interesting document, if you’re interested in reading it).

Lesson 2: Quit while you’re ahead and, seriously, enough with the excuses!

Within my reply, I told Mrs. Laberge that I understood her concerns, though there are two courts that she needs to be aware of and prepared for: the court of law AND the court of public opinion. I warned her that hiding behind such excuses are not enough and I pointed out that the mistakes that were made would have been very bad for the brand’s reputation had they experienced a more serious issue, or worse an actual crisis.

After another small exchange, I was finally left with an email that insinuated that I had fabricated the entire incident to test the brand and gain a client, (great! injured AND insulted. Way to go Rona!) and her closing words were as follows:

“As I said to my CEO yesterday during our AGM, it does not matter how well we plan the outcome, how well we do or how good we speak, journalists will decide what fit their agenda and judge us accordingly.”

Within this last email is where the real lessons lay.

Lesson 3: Do not add insult to injury and come out with accusations. I understand that people do test brands, but under no circumstances is it wise to let out such accusations without a hint of proof. All they ended up doing was offending someone who really did experience a head injury in their store, and made this Senior Director of Communications and Public Affairs come across as even more insincere and uncompassionate than the brand had already proven to be.

Lesson 4: Yes, it’s true that you cannot please everyone. However, that should not be your excuse to not even try. Their in-store customer care was a fail that was met with an online customer care fail. Before hiding behind yet another excuse as to why it’s not important to even try, begin by putting the correct policies and procedures in place, training your staff and doing everything right. Only once you’ve at least tried to do everything right, can you come to terms with not being able to please everyone (DKNY is a beautiful example of this). And further more, it is not the journalists you should focus on, but rather your customers, fans and followers (which I was). Do that well and the journalists will praise you and use you as a good example for others.

Lesson 5: Train your Senior Director of Communications and Public Affairs! Such amateur mistakes should not have been made by someone with the title of Senior Director of Communications and Public Affairs.

The post Update on Rona’s Huge Customer Care Fail appeared first on Melissa Agnes Crisis Management - Online Crisis Management Firm.

After it aired, Amy’s Facebook page was slammed with nasty comment after nasty comment, which is something we’ve definitely seen happen time and time again, on different brand pages. However, something we don’t see often is a reaction that is so classless and despicable that we could actually label it trolling… from the brand itself. Check it out:

Hard to believe that these posts were actually posted by a company to their fans and audience, isn’t it.

Before I went to bed last night the company’s Facebook page had 33,000+ fans. This morning, the count has reached well over 45,000. People are liking the page, not because they believe in the company, but because they want to see what vulgarity and nonsense will come out of the owners’ mouths, and they want to see it right within their mini-feed. It’s the same reason people flock to follow Twitter pages when they get hacked.

Speaking of hacked, guess what the two owners of this distasteful company did a few hours after posting the above posts… They deleted all of the above and replaced it with the following message:

I just love how they begin this message by saying “obviously”! It’s hilarious and extremely sad to see that still today, some people just don’t get it. But from what we’ve seen on TV and straight through to the Internet, these people don’t just not get it online, they just don’t get it straight through to the core of themselves and their business.

So, as I “obviously” don’t need to point out what Amy’s Baking Company has done wrong, let me instead highlight some key things to do if ever you’d like to make sure that your company becomes the laughing-stock of the Internet!

9 ways to make sure your brand becomes the laughing-stock of the Internet

1. Have zero concern for etiquette or quality production or service
2. Make sure that the whole world sees how little concern and care you have
3. Don’t take lightly to positive criticism or the generous help of others
4. Always think that you and the way you run your business is top-of-the-line and in no need for improvement
5. Publicly state how much better you are than your customers and fans and how little they mean to you
6. Blast your customers, fans, followers and audience whenever possible. Swear at them, insult them and just plain be as rude and obnoxious as you can be
7. When all else fails, delete and lie to cover your mistakes
8. Never apologize
9. When all is said and done, go dark. Everyone will forgive and forget in no time at all

Update May 16, 2013:

After receiving a tweet that may or may not have come from Amy herself (if not, it came from a spoof account), I am adding a bonus point:

10. Attack every blogger and reporter who has written about your epic fail. It’ll help you put more fuel on the fire and continue to be the laughing-stock!

The post 9 Ways To Make Sure Your Brand Becomes the Laughing-Stock of the Internet appeared first on Melissa Agnes Crisis Management - Online Crisis Management Firm.

My friend and colleague (and frequent contributor to this very blog!), professor Karen Freberg, was recently interviewed on the subject of cyberbullying by Wave3 News. Within the interview, Karen gives some powerful tips and tools that parents can use to monitor what their children are doing and going through online, without actually having to like or follow their children on all or any of the social networks they may be active on.

Some of the tools Karen mentions within the interview are tools that you may even be using for your own professional online use and monitoring. Tools like socialmention.com and Statigram are an excellent place to start, along with Samepoint and Nitrogram.

With an average of 5 out of 30 high school students having been a victim of cyberbullying in the past 12 months, being equipped with these easy-to-use and efficient tools for monitoring and keeping an eye out is a real help for parents and teachers alike. [Tweet this now!]

A big thanks to Karen for helping to spread the word on this important issue – and for listing this page as a recommended resource!

For a quick overview of the above listed tools, watch Karen’s interview and excellent Cyberbullying and monitoring advice below:

The post Cyberbullying: Monitoring Tools and Tips for Parents appeared first on Melissa Agnes Crisis Management - Online Crisis Management Firm.

Editor’s Note: The following is an important update, by the wonderful Judith Delaney, on the three new states who have recently passed laws making it illegal for companies to request social media passwords from employees.

Back in January of this year, Melissa and I both published a blog post informing you that the states of California, Michigan, Maryland and Illinois had passed laws making it illegal for companies to request social networking passwords, or nonpublic online account information, from behind the “social media wall” from their employees or job applicants. (Read my article here and Melissa’s article here for a refresher)

As we continue to move through 2013, three more states: Arkansas, New Mexico and Utah, can now be added to the “original” four, having passed new legislation restricting employers’ access to employees and job applicants’ personal social media accounts.

As this is an important issue for both employers and employees to be aware of, below you’ll find a summary of these three new laws.

Employers cannot request social media passwords from employees in the following states

Arkansas  

Act 1480 (the “Act”) signed by Governor Beebe on April 22, 2013 (currently no date when law becomes effective), prohibits an Arkansas employer from requiring or requesting a current or prospective employee to:

• Disclose one’s username or password for a personal social media account;
• Add an employee, supervisor or administrator to the list of contacts for such an account; or
• Change the privacy setting of such account

The Act also prohibits employers from the ability to retaliate against a current or prospective employee for exercising their right of refusal under the Act.

Penalties for violation of this Act: Penalties for violation are fines ranging from $10 to $100; 6 months in prison; and/or a misdemeanor conviction.

This Act does not prohibit employers to: View publically available information, including postings on social media sites, or inadvertatently receive an employee’s login information. An employer may also require access to an employee’s social media account if it is reasonably believed to be relevant for ediscovery based on a formal investigation by the employer of allegations of an employee’s violation of federal, state or local laws or regulations, or the employer’s written policies.

New Mexico

New Mexico’s law was signed into law on April 5, 2013 and goes into effect July 1, 2013.  As with Arkansas and some of the other state laws, this law also prohibits an employer to request or require a prospective employee to provide a password in order to gain access to the prospective employee’s account or profile on a social media site, or to demand access in any manner to such account or profile.

This Act does not prohibit employers to: Unlike other state laws including Arkansas, New Mexico does not prohibit an employer from seeking access to their current employee’s social media account or profile.  It also does not limit an employer’s right to:

• Have policies regarding work place Internet, social networking or emails use;
• Monitor employees’ usage of the employer’s electronic equipment; or
• View publicly available information about a prospective employee or employee

Utah

Utah’s law, known as the Internet Employment Privacy Act (“IEPA”), was signed by Governor Herbert on March 26, 2013 and becomes effective May 14, 2013. The IEPA is very similar to the Arkansas law and other state laws as it prohibits employers in the public and private sector to:

• Ask an employee or prospective employee to disclose login information for that person’s personal Internet account; and
• The ability to retaliate against a current or prospective employee for exercising their right of refusal under IEPA

Penalties for violation of this Act: The IEPA creates a private right of action for aggrieved employees or prospective employees to recover up to $500 in damages.

This Act does not prohibit employers to: Under IEPA, an employer may:

• Request login information to its own electronic communication devices, accounts or services;
• Discipline or discharge an employee for transferring any proprietary or confidential information of financial data of the employer to the employee’s personal Internet account, unless written permission has been provided to such employee by the employer;
• Investigate  misconduct involving the use of the employee’s personal Internet account;
• Restrict employees’ use or access of certain websites while using employer owned electronic devices or computer networks;
• Monitor, review, access or block electronic data and communications stored on the employer’s electronic devices or networks;
• Screen certain employees and job applicants; and
• View publicly available information about a prospective employee or employee

What you should take away from these new laws

As an employer in some or all of the 7 states noted so far, if you have not done so already, review your policies and practices to make sure that you are in compliance with your state law in not asking prospective and current employees for information that you are prohibited from asking.  This should be done not only to protect you as the employer from violating state social media legislation, but to minimize your risk of violating state and federal anti-discrimination laws, if you view an individual’s race, national origin, religion, age, disability or other protected information.

Editor’s note: As these new laws form around social media and online privacy, it’s extremely important for companies, as well as employees, to know what they are and are not allowed to do or request – you’ve seen the penalties for violating these laws, some go as far as including jail time. However, it is also important to understand what is not included within these laws (as stated above). The more you protect yourself, your company and your employees, the less risk you face internally and externally, and the stronger you and your team will be, which has an infinite of benefits as you see here often on this blog.

Our promise to you

As more of these online laws form around the world, you can count on this blog for having current updates and summaries of what to look out for, what to know and understand and what to take away, in order to maintain an organization that is compliant with new and developing online laws, and to minimize your internal and external risk. Click the following links for more information on social media law and/or online privacy laws.

Disclaimer:  The information contained in this article is provided only as general information and may or may not reflect the most current developments legal or otherwise pertaining to the subject matter thereof.  Accordingly, this information is not promised or guaranteed to be correct or complete, and is not intended to create, or constitute formation of an attorney-client relationship. The author expressly disclaims all liability in law or otherwise with respect to actions taken or not taken based on any or all of the content of this article.

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