US and UK PR practitioners have high regard for media – not so much for themselves

 

U.S. and UK PR practitioners rate the standards of their media counterparts higher than their colleagues in other countries do, according to a recent survey carried out by German consultancy Gartner Communications. However, they do not think the admiration is mutual: About half of the practitioners surveyed believe journalists see them as a “necessary evil”.

In a question allowing multiple answers, 55% of U.S. respondents describe U.S. media as balanced and 40% describe them as responsible. Surprisingly, given the notoriety of the UK tabloids, only 40% of UK PR professionals say the media’s approach is sensationalist compared to 55% of German respondents. Chinese media were seen in the most negative light, with 77% of Chinese PR professionals saying the media’s approach is sensationalist and 77% who say it is cynical.

When it comes to political independence, the biggest differences can be seen between Western and Asian media. In North America and Europe, around 75% of respondents say the media are politically independent, while the same fraction in Asia says media are under “some” or even “severe political pressure.” The survey also looked at concrete PR tools and everyday journalistic practice where, for example, big differences can be found between countries in attitudes towards gifts, junkets and embargoes.

The findings underscore that whoever engages in international media relations, needs to understand the differences in roles, accepted practices and viability of tools in different cultural settings. And - as always - there are pitfalls and opportunities.

For instance, most media in Germany or China would grant an opportunity to approve quotes from an interview before publication – a habit that PR people from the US or UK may not be familiar with. Vice versa, European or Chinese clients will need to be told they’re always ‘on the record’ when speaking with a journalist in one of those two markets.

Likewise, it’s good to know that an embargo date on a press release will usually be respected in Western markets while there’s a good 50% chance it won’t in Asia.

About the survey
A total of 130 PR professionals from 36 markets participated in Gartner Communications‘ online survey on www.surveymonkey.com between October 2011 and January 2012, including 32 from Germany, 25 from the US and 16 from the UK.

 

Get your personal summary of the study by simply mailing to consulting@gartnercommunications.com.

Copy of my article on IPRA Frontline

 

Social media are fundamentally changing the way people inform themselves, interact, and engage in issues they deem relevant.  At virtually no cost, consumers can gather likeminded people around the world to rally for (or against) a case. NGOs collect thousands of views of a campaign video, sometimes without the targeted organization even knowing about it. While in the past, a couple of calls from journalists would have rang an alarm bell, today a storm may build up in the depths of the internet without the victim really noticing it.

No wonder that corporate communicators do regard social media as a major threat in crisis situations. Yet few companies have procedures in place to properly handle them, as a survey carried out in August 2010 by Gartner Communications demonstrated. So it might be time to put some basics in place.

Speed

Dramatically enhanced speed may be the most obvious impact of social media on crisis handling. Everything moves much faster than just some years ago – the evolution of campaigns, the international expansion of a story, the activation of support groups and stakeholders.

Response times, once determined by publishing deadlines of daily newspapers, have shrunk to hours or minutes in dealing with postings and tweets. This requires new strategies and processes. For example, even if a corporate communications team does not proactively use social media, it should at least understand how the most important platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, most recently Google+) function and understand their netiquettes.

Also, as in any traditional crisis preparation, identifying relevant influencers upfront is crucial, if it is just through free tools like Klout.com or blogpulse.com.

Complexity

Along with higher speed, things get more complex. Gone are the days when monitoring your handful of national papers and major TV channels got you an approximately accurate picture of the public debate.

Today there’s a potentially infinite number of sources that may be relevant or become relevant at some point during the crisis – established ones like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and influential bloggers, but also Wikis or campaign platforms created especially for the case at hand. It requires a forward-looking radar system rather than a retrospective classical monitoring to detect negative discussions at an early stage, when the organization still has a chance to engage and be listened to. Tools like e.g. google alerts, digg.com, reddit.com or Technorati.com provide free search and alert options on specific topics. Netvibes.com serves as an aggregator of different sources. My own firm is currently launching Crisis Control Suite, a professional tool for managing this complexity in media and stakeholder relations, this September.

Transparency

To make things worse, in this hectic and complex environment it has become impossible to hide anything. In Germany, several high-ranking politicians were found guilty of having based their PhD grade thesis largely on plagiarism. The evidence did not come from scientific institutions, but from crowds gathering on a wiki, screening the papers sentence by sentence – and, ultimately, forcing the universities to withdraw the grade.

We’ve seen companies struggle following undercover placement of comments in online outlets – funnily, often companies engaged in internet-prone businesses. The CEO of We-Tab producer Neofonie got caught – by a blogger – in posting fake customer reviews of their own product; more recently, Facebook had to admit having hired Burson-Marsteller to place negative headlines about Google.

These guys, at least, should have known better: in the social web, transparency is the name of the game. If you’ve got something to hide, it will be discovered. So beware - or, even better, act accordingly.

Interaction

Social media, not least, enable direct interaction with individual stakeholders one by one. There’s plenty of examples where smart, adequate responses by brands to a consumer complaint on Facebook or Twitter turned critics into advocates. This new element seems to be disturbing to some long-served communicators longing for the old days when it was enough to know your handful of trusted journalists.

Yet it might be the most powerful option for corporations to drive a pro-active agenda even under crisis circumstances. Instead of an editorial filter, there’s the opportunity to deliver one’s own message directly to individuals, react to specific questions and concerns and hit the right tone for different types of conversations.

Some things never change

While social media provide a whole new set of challenges and opportunities, it should also be said that fundamentals of crisis communication management don’t change, especially when it comes to preparedness and strategy. You’ll still need to do your crisis mapping. It will still be your three-step response of showing empathy, dealing with the concrete impact of the crisis, and being transparent about it. And, of course, traditional mass media will continue to play a critical role in shaping public opinion. In fact, one could argue that, despite all the web whisper, a problem turns into a crisis once traditional mass media pick it up (then of course turning a lot of attention to the social media clutter as well).

New management software puts structure into crisis communication

Any communicator who’s ever been in a „war room“ during a major crisis knows this situation: phones ringing, emails hitting by the minute, streams of media coverage and journalist inquiries, the Facebook account flowing over with posts, politicians interfering… the comms team left to deal with this enormous amount of information, evaluate each item, decide upon specific actions and execute on those decisions. Pressure of time and resources doesn’t make the situation any easier.

Suprisingly, more often that not are those situations still handled in almost „manual mode“ – using post-it-notes, email and excel sheets to align, delegate and keep track of what is happening. The related risk of loss of information, duplication of activities and lack of overall control is huge – even more so when more than one location is involved in handling the scenario.

A new software, now, could add clarity, structure, speed and reliability to media and stakeholder relations. Crisis Control Suite is designed to help organize information, set priorities, define responsibilities and create step-by-step information flows.  

The product consolidates inputs and inquiries from different sources and provides a structured process for prioritizing each item, deciding on actions to take, and following up on the implementation of those actions. This process allows for swift, structured responses, avoiding loss of information and providing the management in charge with a complete overview of activities at any given time. Crisis Control Suite provides mobile access through smart phones or tablet computers and is perfectly suited for managing teams cooperating from different locations.

The structure provided by the software leads to clear roles and assignments within the crisis communication team as well: the role of analyst, assessing and prioritizing the incoming items; the role of decision-maker, defining and assigning tasks; and the role of implementer, carrying out the assigned tasks and reporting back. Of course, each role and specifically those of analyst and implementer may be – and, in most cases, will be – covered by more than one person.

Here’s a detailed description of the functionalities.

1.       Consolidation of inputs from different sources

Crisis Control Suite consolidates input from all sources defined as relevant in a consistent structure. Wherever possible, data are collected automatically via RSS feeds – for example, from professional media monitoring platforms, free monitoring tools such as Google alerts, or posts on social media platforms. Emails from defined accounts can be automatically included as well. Individual interfaces will be configured based on the client’s requirements. 

Where automated sourcing is not possible, for example for phone inquiries by journalists or calls to a customer hotline, the information is typed into the system via an interface. This ensures all items are stored in a consistent format and fully searchable.

The outcome of this module is a complete, structured flow of all external information that the communications team may possibly have to respond to – from content already published to inquiries from different stakeholders. This flow builds the basis for the attached process of dealing with the content.

2.       Analysis and assessment of items

In a second step, an analyst assesses the incoming items – media coverage, blog entries, inquiries etc. – alongside three criteria: “influence”, “tonality”, and “urgency” on a scale from one to five, with one being the lowest and five being the highest ranking. The combined average score reflects the overall priority for that item in any further handling.

• Criterion “influence“: The analyst assesses the importance of the source of a piece of information (e.g. a certain media outlet) or an inquiry (e.g. a certain journalist or politician) to the organization at a given point in time. Relative importance of the very same media outlet, for example, may vary for different enterprises or even for the same enterprise in different phases of a crisis.
• Criterion “tonality“: The analyst rates how negative or positive an article, a posting or the person behind an inquiry is towards the company. The more critical, the higher the ranking.
• Criterion “urgency“: This assessment is about how quickly a response needs to happen – driven, for example, by copy deadlines or a contact person’s availability.

In combination, those three criteria provide a sustainable assessment of what priority a certain piece of information must be treated with.

An example: An inquiry by an editor of Newsweek on a Monday morning will most likely get a high rating in terms of influence and, presumably, also with regards to a critical attitude. Urgency, however, might not be rated that high since the magazine will only be publishe

d the Monday after – while the local newspaper calling in might be seen as just as influential, less negative but more urgent as there’s only a few hours to go until copy deadline.

3.       Decision-making and delegation of tasks

Once rated by the analyst, items move on into the decision-maker’s dashboard where they can be deliberately sorted, for instance, by priority, type of source, or date. The decision-maker now makes the call on how to react to a specific item and, via an electronic interface, delegates that task to one of the implementers, with a brief description and a deadline.

As soon as the task has been created, the item – in the decision-maker’s dashboard – moves from the “tasks to assign“ view into the “tasks assigned“ view, with a traffic light symbol popping up to help track progress easily. Should a task still be open with the deadline approaching, an additional alert symbol will pop up allowing the decision-maker to double-check with the implementer in charge.

The decision-maker has the option to assign tasks to himself (if, for example, he’s got a close personal relationship with a person behind an inquiry).

The combination of prioritized items and the tracking of assigned tasks provides the decision-maker with a complete overview of the current situation at any time.

4.       Handling of tasks and reporting

The implementer screen displays the tasks assigned by the decision-maker. Once the implementer recognizes a task by clicking the “accept“ button, the related traffic light in the decision-maker’s dashboard switches from red to yellow, indicating “task in process”. The implementer now performs the operative work needed for completing the task – making phone calls, distributing materials, writing posts, arranging interviews or whatever. Background support is given by a database that is constantly updated with the latest versions of materials like press releases, statements, Q&A, graphs and videos to avoid the release of outdated information.

The implementer confirms the completion of a task with another mouse click, triggering a mandatory short commentary on what exactly has been done. Once the commentary is locked, this task’s traffic light in the decision-maker dashboard turns from yellow to green and the item is completely dealt with.

Instead of assigning a task to an individual team member, the decision-maker can also delegate it to a group of people, for instance, a team of specialists in a specific topic. In this case, the assigned task will show up in all of those team members’ screens until one of them clicks to accept it and subsequently deals with it.

5.        Documentation - for analysis and compliance requirements

Once a crisis has been closed, the system is able to generate a complete documentation of all activities for detailed analysis, or with respect to compliance issues.

Eins muss man Frau Dr. Koch-Mehrin lassen: im kommunikativen Umgang mit den Plagiatsvorwürfen gegen sich selbst plagiiert sie nicht den Kollegen zu Guttenberg. Ein resolutes Dementi zu vermeiden ist sicher richtig; sich gar nicht zu äußern, aber wohl auch nicht die richtige Strategie. Schließlich geht das Gerede über sie ja weiter - nur ohne ihre eigene Stimme. Wie eine Plagiatsexperting gestern im Radio bemerkte: eigentlich müsste sie doch wissen, wie die Arbeit zustandegekommen ist... Genau, sie sagt's uns aber nicht. Deshalb darf weiter spekuliert werden - was dem Ruf auf Dauer nicht gut tut.

So, nach langer langer Zeit mal wieder ein Post - demnächst auch wieder regelmäßig.

Dabei ist ja so vieles passiert in den vergangenen Wochen, das aus kommunikationsprofessioneller Sicht beachtliches Anschauungsmaterial bot. Heute ein paar Worte zum zwar nicht mehr ganz taufrischen, aber durch einen kürzlich versandten Anwaltsbrief (natürlich mit kurz darauf folgender inhaltlicher Kehrtwendung) zumindest kurzzeitig wieder aufgetauten Fall des adligen Doktoranden Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

Interessant (auch aus der etwas weiteren Distanz) insbesondere deshalb, weil das Kommunikationsverhalten des Freiherrn in praktisch jedwedem Schritt den Grundlagen des Krisenmanagements - "wie man es nicht machen sollte" - entsprach.

Ganz am Einstieg zunächst der Klassiker: Wenn ein Krisenfall eintritt (und naturgemäß noch keine umfänglichen Informationen zur Verfügung stehen), unbedingt dementieren oder kleinreden (siehe auch BP: "eine winzige Menge Öl, angesichts des riesigen Ozeans").

Ebenso KTG: "“Der Vorwurf, meine Doktorarbeit sei ein Plagiat, ist abstrus" (16. Februar). Damit ist die Fallhöhe vorgegeben - jedes Abweichen von dieser kategorischen Einstiegsposition ist zwingend mit dem weitegenden bis kompletten Verlust der Glauwürdigkeit verbunden; und diese (verbunden mit dem aus Glaubwürdigkeit erwachsenden Vertrauen) ist bekanntlich der wichtigste Schutzdamm, den in einer Krisensituation zur Verfügung steht. Das ursprüngliche Dementi oder die Verniedlichung des Krisenauslösers bohrt die Fundamente dieses Damms auf.

Unter dem Druck zunehmender Enthüllungen, insbesondere durch die Internetgemeinde auf Guttenplag, sah sich der Freiherr zwei Tage später zu einem kleinen Schritt nach vorne genötigt (Regel zwei der Krisenkommunikationsversager: immer nur dann etwas zugeben, wenn es überhaupt nicht mehr zu leugnen ist), der aber weiterhin in erster Linie eine Beschönigung war: "Es wurde allerdings zu keinem Zeitpunkt bewusst getäuscht oder bewusst die Urheberschaft nicht kenntlich gemacht. Sollte sich jemand hierdurch oder durch inkorrektes Setzen und Zitieren oder versäumtes Setzen von Fußnoten bei insgesamt 1.300 Fußnoten und 475 Seiten verletzt fühlen, so tut mir das aufrichtig leid" (18. Februar). Das "vorübergehende Ruhenlassen" des Doktortitels war der wohl schon verzweifelte Versuch, die Kontrolle über das Geschehen zu wahren und dennoch den ursprünglichen Unschuldsgestus beizubehalten.

Die erprobte Theorie der Krisenkommunikation aber weiß: sind einmal die ersten Falschaussagen entlarvt, werden die Medien (und heutzutage auch die Internetgemeinde) anfangen, auch über das akute Krisenthema hinaus nach alten Fehlern, Versäumnissen, "Leichen im Keller" zu suchen und in aller Regel auch zu finden. Diese alten Sünden fügen sich zum bereits negativ gefärbten Bild, das der Krisenauslöser abgibt, und machen es noch unschöner. Und siehe da, auch bei zu Guttenberg wurde man schnell fündig: er hätte, lediglich mit dem ersten Staatsexamen, eigentlich gar nicht promovieren dürfen - wurde die Genehmigung durch Spenden an die Hochschule sowie politische Verknüpfungen beeinflusst? So weitete sich die Kampfzone von "ein paar Fußnoten" hin zu einer Generalabrechnung mit den Werten des noch kurz vorher als untadelig angesehenen Politikers aus.

Dies veranlasste dann die - ebenfalls in der negativen Krisenbeherrschung typische - schrittweise Kehrtwende: Guttenberg nahm sich nun nach eigenen Angaben die Zeit, sich noch einmal mit seiner Arbeit zu beschäftigen, und - siehe da - nun fielen ihm doch "gravierende Fehler auf" (21. Februar). Inzwischen war bereits deutlich geworden, dass bis zu 70 Prozent seiner Arbeit aus mehr oder weniger gut getarnten Plagiatfetzen bestand.

Die Salamitaktik setzte sich fort bis zu seinem Rücktritt am 1. März - und selbst hier versuchte er noch, die Haltung der "verfolgten Unschuld" durchzuhalten, indem er seinen Rücktritt weniger auf den wissenschaftlichen Betrug als auf eine vermeintliche Medienhetze zurückführte.

Immerhin verband er das mit dem großzügigen Zugeständnise, er werde die Aufklärung der Vorwürfe vorbehaltlos unterstützen - was er nun, als erste Ergebnisse der Untersuchung der Uni Bayreuth ruchbar wurden, durch anwaltliches Vorgehen gegen die Veröffentlichung wieder konterkarierte.

Immerhin hat er damit ein weiteres Fallbeispiel geschaffen, wie durch schlechte Kommunikation ein Problem zu einer echten Krise wird:

• Dementieren oder Kleinreden unmittelbar nach dem Ereignis, ohne ausreichend belastbare Informationen verfügbar zu haben
• Ausschließlich reaktiv kommunizieren, wenn neue Details an die Öffentlichkeit kommen
• Scheibchenweise zugeben, was nicht mehr zu leugnen ist
• Angesichts der Salamitaktik holen Medien weitere Altlasten ans Licht, welche die Reputation des Krisenauslösers weiter unterminieren
• Schrittweises Zurückweichen in der Hoffnung, zu retten, was zu retten ist, was Glaubwürdigkeit und Vertrauen endgültig runieren
• Aufgabe mit maximalem Schaden

Dies alles ist ja keine Hexerei, sondern das Einmaleins des professionellen Krisenmanagements. Da fragt man sich natürlich - wurde der Mann nicht beraten? War er beratungsresistent?

Meine persönliche Meinung - die erste Reaktion (das absolute Dementi, das den gesamten folgenden Prozess schon vorgibt) beruhte einfach auf Nichtwissen, was in der Arbeit überhaupt drinsteht. Nur so lässt sich schlüssig erklären, dass Guttenberg wohl tatsächlich (aufgrund der ersten bruchstückhaften Informationen) nur 'mit ein paar fehlenden Fußnoten' rechnete; und erst als er sich dann die Zeit nahm, die Arbeit (womöglich zum allerersten Mal) gründlich zu lesen und nebenher ein wenig zu googeln, schwante ihm wohl, worum es wirklich ging.

Hätte er zu diesem Zeitpunkt die grundlegende Krisenregel "come clean with the truth, and do that quickly" beachtet, hätte er meiner Ansicht nach - man denke an die massive Unterstützung ausgewiesener Fans (und der Bild Zeitung) bis zum Zeitpunkt des Rücktritts - die Affäre durchaus überstehen können. Die zweite Regel lautet ja: "Betroffenheit und Empathie zeigen, auf die Betroffenen konzentrieren, bescheiden auftreten". Ein klares Bekentnis der Art "ich stand wahnsinnig unter Druck, in meinen Kreisen wird ein Doktortitel einfach erwartet, da habe ich diese furchtbare Dummheit begangen und einen Ghostwriter angeheuert - es tut mir unendlich leid, und ich entschuldige mich in aller Form" hätte mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit den Knoten durchschlagen.

Das Gegenteil passierte, mit dem gegenteiligen Ergebnis - aus Sicht der Krisenkommunikation konnte es gar nicht anders sein.

 

Eine vollständige Anthologie der Zitate findet sich hier:

http://guttenberg-ruecktritt.de/zitate/guttenberg-zitate-von-abstrus-bis-tite...

 

 

 

 

One of the key challenges in managing international PR is how to organize internal and external resources and processes. More often than not, the related structure has not been built from scratch in a planned approach, but rather evolved organically over the years, impacted by acquisitions, mergers and divestments, by restructurings and strategy changes, and often quite independently and disconnectedly across business sectors, regions and markets.

That is why, typically, someone taking on an international responsibility will find a plethora of diverging solutions, often ranging from larger teams of PR professionals in one location, to Assistants in the marketing or HR departments in others, trying to drive whatever they believe is good PR (or sometimes trying to avoid it).

A first step of course is analyzing the existing setup, before drafting a new one. So here’s nine questions you should ask yourself when inheriting – or already running – an international PR organization:

1. What are the local skill sets?
It is quite common to have different levels of people, in different positions, running PR in different markets. All the more important is it to understand the level of PR skills that are available, even if it is ‘only’ for leading a PR agency locally; and it will be important to ensure a basic level of common understanding of how PR works and what needs to be done. An assessment should lead to concrete steps to ensure a homogeneous base level is achieved – for example through internal or external training programs, individual coaching, or other appropriate means.

2. What are the reporting lines?
Staff responsibility is an essential asset in steering an organization. Yet rarely do all people who are involved in PR activities, in different countries, actually report into central PR. This should not be a major problem, as long as central PR can claim a ‘dotted line’ reporting, which means that PR-related activities of a person who is otherwise based in another department (and charged with other tasks there), need to be cleared with central PR. Within such a matrix set-up, however, everyone with dotted lines to PR should ideally at least be based in the same kind of department everywhere. Things get even more complicated if one has to deal with dotted-line staff based in marketing in one place, in HR in another, and in production management in a third one.

3. What infrastructure is available?
Regular (and managed) sharing and exchange are crucial elements not only of building an international team internally, but also of creating a consistent way of communicating with the outside world. Is an intranet platform available that hosts all current materials, provides templates, and maybe even hints & tips for the less experienced local communicators? A central platform, accessible to all team members, is indispensible; should an intranet be lacking, external solutions are available free of charge to serve basic needs, such as Yahoo or Google Groups or similar applications in social networks like e.g. LinkedIn.

4. Does everyone know each other?
As we all know, at the end of the day, an organization is people working with people, individuals engaging with individuals. Personal encounter, still, is an important prerequisite for making teams function together. Does the team communicate regularly, for example in phone/video conferences? Are there physical meetings? Yes it’s an investment to get people together, but the outcome in terms of motivation, drive and collaboration will always provide great return.

5. How many suppliers are out there?
Given the relative independence across the usual loosely-linked set-ups, it frequently happens that similar tasks are delivered by several suppliers several times in different places. Think of printing, graphic work, media contact management software, monitoring services… Consolidating those across markets will often bring about significant savings (money that can be used instead to do better PR), enhance consistency – and, of course, provide more central control.

6. What is the agency set-up?
How many agencies are used across the different markets? How do they cooperate, or do they cooperate at all? What were the criteria of electing them, who has made that selection – and who is signing their offers and bills? If an agency network has been appointed – can they prove real, tangible advantages versus a local best practice approach; where exactly do they create efficiencies and deliver savings? Are there consistent evaluation criteria (and, of course, targets) set for agencies across markets, and are those being tracked? It is safe to say that an international agency set-up always provides room for improvement in terms of cooperation, quality and value for money.

7. Who is setting the budgets?
Owning budgets means owning the business. As long as local management decides on PR spendings, there’s always a risk they will put it on short-term sales-supporting initiatives (which often, in fact, means funneling so-called PR funds into straightforward marketing) rather than longer-term reputation building. It is worth fighting for budget ownership as this is one of the key triggers of success. If complete ownership isn’t possible (at least in the short term), there should at least be a joint central-local process for setting priorities and defining a set of mandatory, strategic cross-country initiatives.

8. What are the approval procedures?
While budget control is the central means of steering the type of activities driven, approval rights are the central means of ensuring quality and consistency in content. While central PR might – depending on the scope of the organization – not necessarily be able to approve every single tool (like a press release) before it goes public, it should at least strive to act as an approver to as many of them as possible (and certainly every single one that is used in more than one local market), and otherwise have skilled trustees on a second level to do so.

9. Is there a strategy in place?
Is there an overarching strategy that each PR representative in any given market could recite in three sentences? Have general, multi-country initiatives been developed that are putting this strategy into action? Is there a mechanism to check individual local activities against the strategic framework? It is surprising how often the simple question of ‘what is your overarching PR strategy’ cannot be answered (which should actually be so simple: the New York Observer a while ago noted that Goldman Sachs’ PR Strategy for the past months had been “a stiffly extended middle finger, waved in the air for all to see”). Yet, clearly, without a defined strategy, there can’t be direction. So in such case, it might be time to sit down and create one before doing anything else.

Preparation gap - High awareness of social media’s importance is not matched by preparation

Most corporate PR professionals realize that social media is important in crisis communications. But few have procedures in place for handling negative publicity in social media.
In-house professionals, on average, rated the importance of social media in crisis situations at seven on a scale from 1 to 10, with more than two-thirds believing its importance will grow, according to a recent survey of in-house and agency professionals by Gartner Communications – Strategic Communications Consultancy. But only about twenty percent of corporations surveyed have defined procedures for handling social media in a crisis, compared to 85 percent that do have such procedures for handling traditional media.

Many companies are sitting on a social media time bomb with no procedures for defusing it. And given the instantaneous speed of social media, there is no time to figure out your procedures once the crisis hits. A Facebook or Twitter user isn’t going to wait for a statement before posting or forwarding an opinion to hundreds of friends or followers. And it just multiplies from there.

PR agencies are at least a step ahead. More than 60% of firms responding are saying they offer clients defined procedures for handling social media in crisis.

Many corporations could make big improvements by simply adapting some elements used in traditional crisis communication to dealing with social media, for example, a structured online monitoring to become aware early-on of critical opinions spreading on the web. Traditional media lists are commonplace anywhere – companies should have lists of influential bloggers on relevant topics just alike. Approval procedures are absolutely critical as well; if posts need to be answered on social platforms in a matter of minutes, there’s no way each statement can wait for approval by the General Manager. In social media, the deadline is always ‘now’.

About the survey: Between July 16th and August 12th, a total of 91 in-house and agency professionals from 31 countries filled in an online-questionnaire on www.surveymonkey.com. Of the participants, 40% have titles of Chairman, Principle, President, CEO, Managing Director, Senior Vice President, Head of Corporate Communications, or Owner/Partner at an agency. Another 22% have a Vice President or Director title.

The complete report is available via email to ulrich.gartner@gartnercommunications.com

Obwohl Unternehmenskommunikatoren die hohe Bedeutung von Social Media in Krisensituationen erkennen, sind die wenigsten auf Attacken im Internet vorbereitet. Diesen Schluss legt eine aktuelle Umfrage unter internationalen Kommunikationsprofis nahe.

Jeder sieht, dass Social Media wichtig sind: auf einer Skala von eins bis zehn bewerteten die befragten Kommunikatoren in Unternehmen die Bedeutung von Social Media in Krisen mit sieben. Zwei Drittel glauben, dass sie noch wichtiger werden. Wer aber glaubt, die Unternehmen würden sich dementsprechend vorbereiten, der irrt: nur ein Fünftel der Befragten gibt an, seine Organisation habe definierte Strukturen und Prozesse zum Krisenmanagement von Social Media .Zum Vergleich: 85 Prozent sind auf den Umgang mit traditionellen Medien professionell vorbereitet.

Offenbar sitzen viele Unternehmen auf Social-Media-Zeitbomben, ohne das nötige Werkzeug, sie zu entschärfen. Angesichts der Geschwindigkeit, mit der sich Nachrichten im Netz verbreiten, ist es zu spät, Reaktionen erst dann zu definieren, wenn die Krise bereits da ist. Welcher Blogger oder Nutzer von Facebook, Twitter und Youtube wartet auf ein offizielles Statement, bevor sie ihre Meinung öffentlich machen?

Zur Umfrage: Zwischen dem 16. Juli und dem 12. August füllten 91 PR-Profis aus Unternehmen und Agenturen in 31 Ländern, die überwiegende Mehrzahl davon in Führungspositionen, einen Online-Fragebogen auf www.surveymonkey.com aus.

Der komplette Report ist abrufbar per Email an ulrich.gartner@gartnercommunications.com

A crucial question in running international PR is how to organize resources and set-up across many different markets. In larger corporations, more often than not, those organizations have evolved as time went by, rather than having been planned and built deliberately from scratch.

The usual picture is that some markets do have internal PR positions, others don’t; the professional experience of people overseeing PR tends to range from seasoned professionals to management assistants, often placed in marketing, or sometimes in HR (especially when it comes to internal communications). It is often unclear who owns budgets (and maybe where these budgets come from), which in turn leads to fierce discussion between local and central about where to spend them. A plethora of local agencies and suppliers – briefed locally, managed locally, incentivized locally - creates complexity and inefficiencies; and as a result, it is often hard to find a consistent, overarching strategic idea when looking at all the different activities.

So, finding the delicate balance between a completely centralized approach (which may disregard local specifics) and an entirely localized one (which eliminates consistency) is a difficult task.

My take on this has always been the rule of “centralize wherever possible and localize wherever necessary”.

In my view, among the responsibilities that really always should be centralized are the following:
- Strategy
There can only be one communications strategy (which of course may need different forms of tactical execution)

- Budgets
While of course the process of defining budgets should involve regional/local input, final decisions need to be taken centrally. There’s hardly anything more hindering to a smooth process than constant infighting between center and local about who owns the money and where it should be spent. An intelligent way of budgeting may be to dedicate a certain portion of a (centrally decided) local budget for tactical local initiatives, to allow for the necessary flexibility.

- Core Initiatives
There needs to be a general agreement on what are the major PR initiatives to be driven internationally in a given budget period. Of course, there will be tactical local decisions regarding the timing or size of implementation of a specific initiative (or even a decision to drop one completely, if – for example – a specific product is not sold in a market), but the process must have argue local PR why not to participate in a core initiative, rather than having central PR argue why they should.

- Infrastructure
Central PR should provide an intranet that allows everyone involved to access PR materials (like press releases, photography, videos), background materials (for example crisis handbook, process descriptions) and templates (e.g. standard agency contracts).

Then, there’s elements that are worth considering for centralization, as there may be considerable efficiencies to gain:

- Suppliers
I believe that, still, too few PR professionals embrace classical purchasing approaches like creating economies of scale or buying services or materials from low cost countries. Consolidation of e.g. layout and printing suppliers can bring about massive savings while increasing consistency and quality. At the same time, factors like proximity (e.g. for physical checks of printings), transportation times etc. must be taken into consideration as well. Hence, in contrast to the first set of responsibilities, individual choices must be made.

- Monitoring and evaluation
Appointing one global monitoring supplier simplifies collection and, more importantly, consistent evaluation of results. Ideally, those are fed into one single scorecard which offers the option to drill down into specific data for regions, markets, brands etc. There’s, or course, also savings to gain through economies of scale.

Finally, in my view, some responsibilities must be handled locally, like for example:

- Media relations
Media relations – despite the web, facebook and twitter – are still relations between human beings, they need a face, a voice, a language, the right timing and tonality, and a deep understanding of an individual media’s culture, approach and positioning

- Tactical adaptation of Core Initiatives
For Core Initiatives, there needs to be an overarching big idea, and good materials to work with. Yet only local knowledge can advise exactly which creative format, which media channels, which locations etc. are best suited to create maximum results on the ground

- Tactical local initiatives
There’ll always be a certain level of activities that are only relevant for one single market – the press release announcing the appointment of a new sales manager, a local factory jubilee, or the like. Local PR should be given a budget to run those initiatives independently (in agreement with the center, if need-be). In order to judge whether such an initiative is worthwhile, I’ve always used the definition of “both meaningful and necessary”.

- Market Intelligence
In order to continuously keep developing and improving an international set-up and strategy, it is crucial to receive (and listen to!) intelligence coming from the markets – e.g. about competitor initiatives, new trends, best practice examples etc. This of course will only happen if the markets are truly involved in an ongoing conversation throughout the whole process from strategic discussion to final budgeting - and not just seen as simple executors.