Macali Communications Blog

New Crisis Communications Planning System

Mindful of the Tiger Woods and similar golf brand crisis, Macali Communications is launching a new crisis communications planning system to help golf brands prepare for and navigate crises to manage and enhance their reputation.

As we have seen, it takes a minute to ruin a reputation and can take a lifetime to regain it. Many golf brands and sponsors are woefully unprepared to deal with potentially crippling crises. This isn’t just a big brand challenge or opportunity. Any brand’s reputation and business can be at risk without an effective crisis communications plan.

In this era of hyper-competitive mainstream and social media reporters, a crisis communications plan can be valuable in effectively reacting to and managing brand reputation crisis. Our new system will efficiently and thoroughly prepare a company and brand of any size to anticipate and manage any communications crisis, using mainstream and social media strategies and tools.

The system consists of a crisis communications audit, strategic plan and training based on these seven fundamentals:

· Philosophy & position -- the value of being open, responsive, sincere and professional.

· Anticipation – identifying the worse case scenarios and capabilities to address them.

· Policies & procedures – how, who and when the brand speaks to build trust.

· Spokesperson designation and training – how to establish that the spokesperson’s words matter and are trustworthy.

· Messages & materials – how to prepare valuable and pertinent messaging and template statements, releases and Q&A for social and mainstream media.

· Allies network – identifying and building alliances and creating communication systems to help allies help you during a crisis.

· Followup & response system– systems and procedures on how to update the media, influencers and public in timely, responsible manner.

As Tiger Woods, Northern Trust and Toyota have painfully learned, during a crisis is not the time to create a plan. While we might not know when and how a crisis might hit, an organization and brand can have confidence that it has an action plan, training and strategies to manage it. 

Macali Communications is a marketing and communications company specializing in helping brands and companies succeed in golf marketing, public relations, branding and social media. Macali President Kevin Donnellon has worked for major corporations and brands including Procter & Gamble, Citibank, Gatorade, Wilson, Quaker Oats, Lands’ End, Sears, Prince and Miller. 

 

Eight Steps In A Winning Media Coverage Formula

Getting media coverage is a piece of cake, right? Think again.

In my 30+ years, I have learned that getting media coverage, large or small and in mainstream or social media, requires a winning formula.

My opinion is affirmed by David E. Henderson, former CBS news executive, strategic communications consultant and author ot two exceptional books -- Making News and Making News in the Digital Era.  

 

Henderson cites the media coverage success (New York Times, Reuters, AP, ABC, CNN, etc.) of the non-for-profit Tahirih Justice Center and its founder Layli Miller-Muro. The Center provides pro-bono legal assistance on behalf of immigrant and refugee women and girls.

Miller-Muro’s consistent success proves that respect for reporters and this corresponding formula have transformed her as a novice into a powerful expert at generating media coverage:

 

1. Treat news releases only as a way to maintain awareness from reporters. Never expect a story to result from sending a release.

 

2. Focus on a few journalists with whom you have a relationship – to pitch stories to or ask for advice – avoiding mass outreach.

 

3. Give reports timely and relevant legitimate story angles with personal stories that illustrate your point.  

 

4. Craft a page of five to 10 sentences – talking points or messages – that you want to say in an interview before even speaking with a reporter.

 

5. Develop healthy and respectful working relationships with journalists, which means being immediately responsive to their calls, respectful of their deadlines and corresponding in a professional manner.

 

6. Readily admit when you are not an expert on an issue and refer journalists to other sources who are.

 

7. Before speaking to reporters, look up their past coverage and understand their likely biases.

 

8. Ask the journalist to use the name of your organization when quoting you, so that your comments are best put into context.       

That’s a winning formula that can work for a cause, a brand or any organization.

 

Global Time On Social Media Sites Soars; Up 82%

Where's everyone hanging out and likely engaging brands and organizations?

Well, more and more are on social networking (Sns) sites, according to research leader Nielsen. 

The company reports that global consumers* spent more than 5.5 hours on Sn sites (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) in December 09, an 82% growth from same 08 period when users were spending just over 3hours on Sn sites.

Other report highlights:

o Overall traffic to Sn sites has grown over last 3 years.

o Sn sites and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent in December, followed by games and instant messaging.

o Facebook (FB), with almost 207M unique visitors, was the top Sn destination in December 09 and 67% of global social media users visited FB.

o Time on FB rose with global users spending nearly 6 hours per month on site.

o US people continue to spend more time on Sn and blog sites with total minutes increasing 210% and average time per person growing 143% over year-over-year.

o FB and Twitter outpaced the overall growth for the Sn category growing 200% and 368% respectively.

o Twitter continued to be fastest growing in Dec 09 as unique visitors increased 579% over year-to-year with 2.7M UV in December 08 to 18.1M in December 09.

So, brands and loyalists, keep building exposure and connections on Sn sites. That's where customers and influencers are hanging out and likely engaging you and your competition. 

* Global data compromises these countries US, UK, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.  

   

Nine Smart Social Marketing Blogs

Here's another question I get often. What blogs will help teach me about social media marketing?

I find these blogs smart and very insightful about using social media effectively to build brands and business:

o Jeremiah Owyang

o David Meerman Scott

o Paul Gillin

o Chris Brogan 

o Debbie Weill

o Dan Zarrella

o Charlene Li

o Tamar Weinberg

o Katie Paine

Enjoy learning from these blogs. As always, I welcome any suggestions you might have on other smart blogs.

  

Four Excellent Social Media Marketing Resources

We all get the question. Where do I start to learn about and stay current on social media marketing?

In addition to books from my most recent post and blogs covered in an upcoming post, I use these four excellent resources to keep current on social media marketing trends -- especially on strategies, successes and measurements across all industries.

Each resource is robust, insightful and on the leading edge of social media marketing opportunities and issues. They are published at least daily and you can receive as emails and RSS feeds: 

o Smart Brief on Social Media.

o SocialmediaBiz.com.

o Marketing Profs.  

o Mashable

They are a combination of daily online newsletters, blogs and reports consolidating the latest news in social media.

I have been lucky to use news and information from these resources for proposals, presentations, orientations, seminars and to build my best practices.

I know there are similar resources out there and welcome any ideas and insights. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.   

11 Great Social Media Marketing Books

PGA Show social media seminar attendees asked me about helpful social media books. 

I highly recommend the new practical and powerful Social Media Marketing Book by Dan Zarrella and:

1. Secrets of Social Media Marketing by Paul Gillin

2. New Rules of Marketing & PR, David Meerman Scott

3. Digimarketing by Kent Wertime & Ian Fenwick

4. The New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg

5. YouTube For Business by Michael Miller

6. Facebook Marketing For Dummies

7. How To Really Use LinkedIn by Jan Vermeiren

8. Socialnomics by Eric Qualman

9. Groundswell by Charlene Li

10. Marketing to the Social Web by Larry Weber

 

Next post will suggest bloggers and other sites to help build your social media expertise.

 

Twitter Core Users Becoming Engaged

Twitter growth rates slowed in 2009, but the good news is that the Twitter core base has matured and generally have been members of the site for longer, making them more engaged. 

This is one key finding in the just released HubSpot State of The Twittersphere Report.

Twitter users are following more feeds and being followed more in turn:

o Now users followed 170 profiles, on average, compared with about 45 in July 2009.

o Users had an average of 300 followers in January 2010, versus about 70 in July 2009.

o Today, the average user had made 420 Twitter updates, compared with 120 in July 2009.

Twitter users are including more complete information in their profiles such as location, bio and Web addresses. 

Twitter is becoming more international as Sysomos reports that less than 51% of tweets were from US; down from 62% in June 2009.

Brazil saw the greatest user growth, rising from 2% in June to almost 9% in December. The UK, Canada and Germany round out the top 5. Interestingly, Indonesia is sixth.   

London tops the most Twitter users followed by Los Angeles. New Yorkers were the most active tweeters, accounting for 2% of all posts.