Crisis Lessons from Boston: Trust (sort of), but VERIFY

“Journalism is the first draft of history” was the saying I grew up with. But recent events like the horrific terrorist act during the Boston Marathon demonstrate that social media, particularly Twitter, is the real first draft of everything.

The Boston Marathon tragedy showed us all how social media has redefined news. No more will people, including journalists, wait for stories and facts to be verified. Within minutes of the first bomb going off at the finish line, graphic photography, images, video and text of the aftereffects (and the actual bomb last itself) was blasting across the Internet, dwarfing any traditional attempt to gather and report facts as the event unfolded.

The result? Many early reports were flat out wrong, but were reported across the globe in traditional media. Death and injury counts varied, a mistaken report about a possible third bomb being found hit newswires, a Kennedy library fire was incorrectly linked, and on and on.

 The take-away? Social media can distort coverage and cause lasting harm if not monitored and corrected.

So if you’re a corporate communication executive and your company experiences major issues, what can be learned from the Boston journalistic mis-steps?

The critical lesson is that any crisis communication plan must have a major social media element in place that can be immediately activated. A plan should have pre-identified critical media outlets, bloggers, recognized industry experts (who are digitally focused) and other sources that can become highly quotable.

So, what recommendations can one follow in the event of a made-for-social-media crisis?

First, start immediately and intensely monitoring Twitter, Facebook and other social media. The Boston Marathon was hashtagged (#bostonmarathon and other tags), so it was easy to track. As was proved in Boston, in a crisis everybody and anybody with a cell phone, Internet-capable video camera, or smartphone can and will become a widely used content publishing media outlet.

Second, try to establish credible Twitter and social media feeds that are linked to credible institutions or trustworthy sources (even some major newspapers were reporting wrong information from Boston initially, so be careful). When the crisis is hot, re-tweet or re-post openly with links back to the credible and trustworthy organizations (police Twitter accounts, TV stations, etc.) For the business world, this would include industry-specific analysts, bloggers of all relevant stripes, business digital publishing outlets and other relevant media.

Third, set up Google News Alerts and other automated key words/industry tracking options (if you haven’t already). Chase everything down and check third and fourth levels for bad (or good) information that might have been missed.

Fourth, turn your automated social media software off. Anything you’ve got scheduled in your content management editorial calendar needs to go on hold.

Fifth, trust (sort of), but verify, verify, verify everything. Cross check everything.  Did I say everything?

Sixth, have a pre-established communication channel set up where you can communicate directly with key influencers, media contacts, executives and other relevant contacts. You will likely have to challenge or correct mis-information, depending on the intensity and nature of the crisis.

Seventh, take a deep breath regularly. It’s too easy to overlook critical information during a crisis or hit the “send” button at the worst possible moment. Build in some short reflective moments to question what you’re seeing and hearing others interpret.

Finally, remember that this too will pass. It may take a long time to recover (or in the case of a tragedy of the magnitude of Boston, at best a partial recovery that will take a long time), but life will go on.  Do your homework to minimize the recovery time.

In summary? Be prepared upfront. React immediately. Analyze carefully. Correct mis-perceptions in a timely and targeted way. And trust, sort of, but verify, verify, verify.

By Michael Snyder, Managing Principal, The MEK Group