Business and Blogging

When A Crisis Hits, Where Do You Want To Be?

by Laura Spencer on February 11th, 2008

(www.businessandblogging.) Blogging, of course…

When something goes wrong in your business, you want to be able to get accurate information to the public - and quickly. What better way to do that than with a business blog?

Remember, your customers are likely to have blogs. They won’t hesitate to pick up on negative information about your company - even if it is NOT TRUE.

Of course, when responding to a crisis on your business blog, you should be careful. The information that you provide must be accurate. If you provide incorrect or misleading information, then you may make a bad situation worse.

The best case scenario is where your business already has established a blog. Using the existing blog to manage the crisis is a natural extension of the blog’s reach to your customers.

According to Shel Holtz, who blogs at a shel of my former self, one of the main business objectives during a crisis is to survive. For more details on what constitutes a business crisis and how you should handle it, read Shel’s excellent post, Crisis communication fundamentals.

Here are a few examples of businesses that used social media, including blogging, to handle crisis:

• The crisis - Jetblue passengers are stranded, many for several days. (Source: New York Times). The response - YouTube video apology from the CEO (Source: 10e20 blog)

• The crisis - Radio, television, and print media are impaired by the California wildfires. The response - The San Diego Union-Tribune used a variety of online methods, including blogs, to communicate to the community. (Source: The Center for Social Media website)

• The crisis - On a personal note, many of you are aware that something went awry with the b5media server a few days ago. It caused many blogs, including Business and Blogging, to go down for a day, or so. The response - How did b5media handle the situation? Naturally we blogged about it. Check out this post at ProBlogger. Many other b5media bloggers posted about the down time as well.

These are simplified examples, of course. A lot of work goes into managing a crisis. It’s not just a matter of posting to a blog or recording a video. But having a business blog can definitely help.

What are your thoughts about managing a business crisis by blogging? Share your ideas and experience.

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POSTED IN: Blogging, Corporate, Knowledge Management, Social Media