Guest Speaker: Melissa Agnes; Crisis Communications Specialist

Guest speaker, Melissa Agnes (Twitter: @melissa_agnes), visited my social media class this morning all the way from Montréal, Canada via Skype. She is a well-spoken and well-educated crisis communication specialist who is the president of Agnes + Day Inc.; which is crisis intelligence firm that is based in New York City & Montréal. For more information and a definition of crisis communication see my blog below, “It’s a Crisis”.

Agnes's Firm's Website 

She began by discussion the important difference between an issue and a crisis. She defines a crisis as, “a negative event or situation that threatens to have a direct negative impact on an organization’s reputation and/or bottom line”.  An issue however, can very quickly escalate into a crisis but she defines it as, “a negative event that does not threaten to have a direct negative impact on a company’s reputation and/or bottom line”.

Agnes advises companies to respond to the crisis or issue at least 15-20 minutes from the time that it develops an online presence, because of not the story will get way ahead of them. One of the more important things to remember when handling the problem is to LISTEN to what people are saying, and respond accordingly. Most companies are quick to say that responding in the short time frame of 15-20 minutes is impossible, but Agnes provides a few helpful reminders:

• People are not looking for all the facts right away, they just want recognition of the company’s awareness and that they are looking into it.

• Write sincere and sympathetic posts. Don’t have the legal department post this.

• Promise the public that they will hear directly from the company when there is more information to provide. Giving them a time period for when they can expect new news helps to calm them down. 

• Having a “holding statement” prepared for these type of events is helpful for being able to respond promptly and be on top of the situation. 

• Twitter is the #1 social media platform that people look to for news. Take advantage of this by creating a unique hashtag that people can use to refer to your crisis.

For more information and insight into the world of crisis communication I strongly recommend visiting Agnes’s blog, http://agnesday.com/blog/.