Step In Communication

Opening Doors for You

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • About
    • Team
    • Contact Us
  • Services
    • Strategic Communications
    • Project Management
    • Social Platform Development
    • Influencer Marketing
    • Competitive Analysis
  • Our Work
    • Case Study: Visit San Antonio Local Expert Influencer Program
    • Case Study: Social Media Data Analytics
    • Case Study: Cardboard Kids
    • Case Study: Giraffe Ambassador Program
    • Case Study: Social and Digital Ticket Campaign for the San Antonio Cocktail Conference
    • Portfolio
  • Managing Your Next Crisis
  • Writing for Social Media
  • Learn With Us
    • Mastering Your Brand On Social Media

Fran Stephenson April 27, 2020 Leave a Comment

Is It Time to Wake Up and Test Your Social Media Channels?

What happens after a disrupting event? Everything Changes. So Should You.

This is the fourth in the series on Managing Social Media through a Prolonged Crisis.

In the first post, we talked about what you should be doing during this time.

Then we tackled what happens when your strategy is altered.

Finally, we addressed changes in audience after a lengthy crisis.

Now it’s time to look at the thinking and process to wake up your social media channels so you are ready when country starts to open up too. 

We’re making the assumption here that you may have let your social media sit idle or may have pursued an interim schedule to assist your community or industry. We’re also assuming that you’ve studied your audience changes, their new consumption habits and can see what’s different from last year at this time.

The first thing to do is to test the limits of your social network. 

How to Test the Social Network

You can’t just go back to the way things were before this happened. Going into a full posting schedule for most organizations might make your audience’s heads explode. 

Instead, try this.

Try one or two test messages at what would normally be a peak time of day for your audience. You know, fly a trial balloon as the military would say.  Then heavily monitor the sentiment around those messages, including reactions, comments and shares. 

Analyze your results.

What are you seeing? Positivity or persecution? Thumbs up or angry emojis? Or the reaction could be really mixed.  Let the data from the reactions guide your next move.

How about another test at another peak time? It may or may not be “safe” to resume a full social media schedule.

Keep doing this until you find your new set point.  Hint: your pace, tone and message types could all change ….and might be different for each social network.

If you follow this process, for each social channel you were managing proactively BEFORE the health crisis, you will have sufficient data to justify your decisions going forward.

Then you can look at waking up the channels.

Waking Up the Channels

Our team has frequently taken over a brand’s social media after a key event or taken on a brand’s social network after a period of dormancy.  The process described above is part of what we call “waking up the channels.” It’s different for every brand we’ve managed and the pace is wildly different for different industries – health care organizations and travel brands have different audience types and expectations.

When should you do this?

  • After a crisis and ESPECIALLY, after a global crisis
  • After a change in management team or focus
  • After long periods of dormancy in a network or network ecosystem.

By testing before going into “normal” mode, you will get a better sense of what your audience is expecting and what they need.

Resuming a Normal Posting Schedule

Because everything has changed in the ways we do business and our online communication skills have been tested and refined during stay at home time, it’s important to take time to build your new posting schedule.

It might take longer than a couple days. It may be weeks or months before you’re at full capacity again.   

It’s important to watch for the clues that your message is resonating with your audience and that you’re giving them what they need. Focus on service information and above all, continue to be a helper in your community. Humility and gratitude will go a long way in this environment. Be extremely cautious when putting on your marketing and sales hats for your brand. 

While we all were consuming content at a staggering rate while staying at home, consumers will come out of this more discerning. And by discerning, I don’t mean the technical quality of the content. I mean discerning from the standpoint of authenticity in messaging.

We admired the ability of news media and talk show hosts to carry on from home and we were okay with cell phone quality video and their children’s homemade graphics.  Why? Because they had something important to say and they said it creatively.  Whether it was graphics made by Jimmy Fallon’s kids or Sesame Street’s ability to do a Zoom call with Elmo and friends for a Playdate, we had empathy for our shared situation. Because we were adapting too. MAYBE SOME OTHER EXAMPLES HERE.

Data to Inform Your Decisions

There are three key points to help inform your decisions on your posting schedule and content.

Engagement Level

Engagement is defined differently by each network. And we spend a lot of time analyzing engagement level with our clients for their reporting. You need to look at if the content has been seen or content views or reach.  Then you need to review if people have done something about it.  Did they click on it, comment on it, like it or share it? Write all these down on a piece of paper. Now ask these questions:

  • Is anyone at all engaging with your content?
  • Is it higher or lower than the great “before?”
  • Compare the same numbers with a similar piece of content from last year. What do you see?

Incoming Comments

The number of incoming comments can be very enlightening when waking up your social media channels. We’ve seen it take a long time for people to come back and chat, but for other brands, the social audience is there and waiting and so happy to see you. Here are the questions to ask:

  • How many comments do you have on this piece of content? Also, look at the shares and count them IF they added a covering comment above your post.
  • Compare the total number to a similar piece of content from before. Is it higher or lower?

Sentiment

Sentiment is often defined as the degree of positivity or negativity toward a piece of content or a brand. It is a controversial metric, but it’s useful when you’re testing a new schedule. Look at the comments on your content test piece and rank them as positive, negative, or neutral. Likewise for the reactions on Facebook to see how many likes and loves versus sad and angry reactions. Write all these down on a piece of paper.  Ask these questions:

  • What is the ratio of positive, negative and neutral on your sheet?
  • Compare the same numbers with a similar piece of content from last year. What do you see?
  • If it is predominantly negative, dig deeper for the cause. Is it the content type or is it the tone? Is it the timing? If it’s predominantly positive, try another similar piece of content and follow the same process.

By taking the time to test your content and then evaluating the engagement level, incoming comments and sentiments, you are using smart evaluation skills and making data-driven decisions on how to proceed with your social media channels and future scheduling.

Is there anything we haven’t covered in this series which could help you get ready to relaunch your business? We’d love to hear from you.

Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Social Strategy

Fran Stephenson April 20, 2020 Leave a Comment

Will My Audience Change Because of this Crisis?

For many of us, we are at four plus weeks staying at home.  It’s given us a lot of time to think, or maybe too much time to think.  If you’re holding on to the old notions of how your social channels worked prior to a worldwide crisis, it might be time to start thinking of how it will change your social strategy in the future.

It’s certain you will see changes in your audience as this crisis lingers. Even more so as we slowly begin to re-open business channels.  But how do you know? What should you be looking for?

It depends on how you – or your channels — acted during the global health crisis, which I’ve already addressed in part 2 of the guide.

If you were serving the community in some way during the nation’s shutdown, you have quite possibly won new fans, ones who are already developing loyalty and pride in what you did.

If you went dark during the uncertainty, you are exactly where you were before the shutdown, or may have lost fans.

If your communication was tentative or marketing heavy or shared the wrong message, you may have lost parts of your audience and will essentially, be starting over with a smaller group. 

Assuming your audience mix will be new, your message, approach and channel preference needs to change with it.  Some people left you; some people joined you.

Start thinking about your new audience. 

Messages: your tone and type of message will need to change when your demographic changes.  Your audience may be younger or older, more urban or rural, so look at your breakout and adjust.

Approach: the pace of your messaging should be dictated by audience need.  What do they want know? Look at the demographics from your tools and compare it to last year to see what is different.

Channel preference:  Not all your channels changed equally.  Maybe Facebook is up and Instagram is down.  Or Twitter is stagnant but Pinterest has grown.  While you’re looking at your demographic changes, look at each individual channel to see what’s different from before.

Taking the time to get to know your new audience is key to your future social media success.   

Next time: Is it time to wake up your social channels?

In case you missed it:

Part 1 in our series: What Should I Be Doing On My Social Channels?  

Here’s a refresher: Not Sure Who Your Audience is? It’s Right Under Your Nose

Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Social Strategy

Fran Stephenson April 10, 2020 Leave a Comment

What Can You Do when your Social Schedule Is Altered by a Global Crisis?

Part 2 in a Series

No one ever expects the kind of crisis that is pervasive to every community and industry like this health care epidemic is right now. So if you’re struggling with how to cope, you are not alone. A lot of organizations are using their social media channels as their first, or maybe their only, method of communication right now.

If you are pursuing a schedule on your social channels during this crisis, MAKE IT COUNT.

Say Less, Share More

Stop promoting yourself and start helping your community. What can you do to be part of the solution? Here are some examples you may have seen in your community.  

Restaurants who cannot fully operate have moved to online ordering, contactless delivery and even “make at home” meal kits with key add-ons, like eggs and toilet paper.  

Arts organizations are sharing live concerts, behind the scenes tours and developing curriculum to be consumed from home.

Sports teams, who were among the first to take action, have propped up their service workers with pay checks; many sports celebrities are doing public service announcements and other work to help their communities.  

Nonprofits have pursued a variety of options – some are fundraising to assist in the health care space or keep vital services going while others are being creative to fulfill new challenges.

Large scale manufacturers have rapidly re-tooled their plants to make key goods and services available to frontline health care workers.  Smaller cottage industries have redirected machinery to sew masks and create face shields, which are in severe shortage.

Someone in your online community is doing these things. Instead of talking about yourself, talk about them. And what they’re doing to help us get through this crisis. Because sharing their work can help them. 

Say Less, Do More

Be a link in the chain of helpers around the world.  Everyone can do their part. Can your organization support one of these community helpers?

If you’ve already shared good works happening in your community on your social channels, what else can you do? 

Can you match these organizations with the resources they need to continue?

Can you donate money or help them raise money for what they are doing?

That is what real community is about. This is what the social networks were built to do. Connect each other and help each other. Forget selling, and start helping.

We’d love to hear your creative ideas for helping your community.

ICYMI: What Should I Be Doing on My Social Channels During a Pandemic?

Next time: Will Your Get Your Audience Back?

To read more about social strategy from Step In Communication, check out our social strategy posts.

Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Social Strategy

Fran Stephenson April 8, 2020 Leave a Comment

What Should I be Doing on My Social Media Channels During this Pandemic?

Part 1 in a Series

As the public health crisis of 2020 began to unfold, many communicators struggled with how to manage communications in an ever-changing environment.  By the time you had something drafted and in the approval pipeline, the recommendations or guidelines changed.

It’s really hard to pivot so quickly. And in case you were wondering, crisis communications is not usually that fluid.  Even skilled crisis communicators have been challenged to stay on top of a virus which we seem to know nothing about. 

Your social channels might be idle already, so this piece might help you reinforce why to your leadership. 

But if you’re struggling with how to remind your audiences that you’re still alive, here are some suggestions and ideas to make that happen.

At this point, you should be evaluating three things:

Should I be posting at all?

Do we have something helpful to add?

Do we need help right now?

Are You Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?

This is a tough question to answer.  If you’re a school district, health care system, public information office of a local or state government, then you are no doubt churning out information, resources and links at a more rapid rate than ever before. As well, there are numerous nonprofits who have vital services that need to continue. Recommendation: you should be posting, frequently, humbly and honestly.

But if you’re not, what are you doing? What should you talk about?

If you’re a local-based brand, you can point people to those local resources and reiterate the current “stay at home” guidelines.  You can also express a degree of emotion at how much you miss “seeing” your audience, especially if you’re a business that is closed or altered because of the guidelines.

But before you do that, ask yourself another question. 

Will your customer cringe if they hear from you now?

It’s really easy to get your messaging wrong right now.  Like everyone else, I’ve seen countless businesses that are using the public health scare as a value proposition. This is risky, especially for high ticket consumer goods and services. Many consumers are limiting their spending to draw out their paychecks or manage savings amid uncertain income. Some have already lost their income, so tread carefully on any overt marketing messages.

When Communicating is the Right Thing

Depending on your industry and brand, it might be the right thing to continue communicating with your audiences.  Examine what you were doing before and compare that to today’s environment. That comparison should help you decide.  

If you can be helpful and offer something of value to your audience while they are staying home, what is that?  We’ve already seen numerous museums and zoos doing virtual tours with surprising elements that would certainly keep people entertained.  We’ve also seen entertainers of all types doing mini concerts, musical challenges, puzzles and amazing creative content to keep us distracted.  Some of those creative challenges have also raised money for causes too.

If you can find a creative way to connect with your audience, you may find a receptive audience. Recommendation: always check your tone before posting. Your audience’s needs and capacity to absorb information is changing so rapidly that what might seem humble and service-oriented one day could be considered tone deaf the next.

Beware of Overscheduling

This is not business as usual, so set aside the usual pace and pulse of your channels.  Create mental space and distance around your channels, by looking critically at your schedule and determining what people really want to see right now.  Recommendation: use a thick red Sharpie marker (virtual or real!) to edit your schedule, providing your audience with quality content.

Later This Week: What Can You Do when your Social Schedule Is Altered by a Global Crisis?

Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Social Strategy

Fran Stephenson April 2, 2020 Leave a Comment

5 Ways for Communicators to Cope in a Prolonged Crisis

Communicators are struggling to keep up the pace of a crisis that seems never ending. Here are 5 ways to help you go the distance during this public health crisis.

Trusted Advisor

Communicators need advisors too. Find a colleague in another industry or state to  Share Ideas and Test Messages

Check-In

This is NOT your daily press briefing.  Do daily “mental health” check-Ins with your internal and external teams and your fellow communicators

Step Away

Distance Yourself from Extraneous Noise and bad information and focus on trusted outlets and sources. 

Take a Break

Give you and your spokesperson and your team small but frequent breaks and listen to or participate in something that is unrelated to the crisis.

Course Corrections Prevent Whiplash

Taking small steps and little course corrections every day can prevent the exhaustion of major changes.

Download this Infographic and Save it to your computer or SHARE it with a colleague for your future gut checks!

For more crisis resources, check out more helpful posts here: bit.ly/crisispro

Filed Under: Crisis Communication

Fran Stephenson March 2, 2020 2 Comments

Checklist for Communicators: Prepare for A Prolonged Crisis with these 5 Tips

Here’s a checklist for crisis communicators to assist them in being truthful, succinct, accurate and understandable as they gear up for prolonged crisis communications in anticipating the spread of Covid-19.

Lead with the Headline News

  • Start with the items that will reassure and calm the general public. The first broadly communicated information from the CDC unfortunately led with the possibility of widespread closures and then, midway through their communications, stated that the risk to the general public was still low.
  • Say it and say it again!
  • Many news outlets are live-streaming these events and people come and go throughout the webcast and can miss the important news. If possible, have someone from your team re-stating the key message on the live feed, so they appear as your audience appears.

Create an Information Hub

  • It shouldn’t be too hard to create an online information hub. Update as often as possible. In short form communications, always link to the hub for the full story.
  • Make the hub easy to read and visual.

Point to Authority Sources

  • Who is leading or from whom are you getting instructions? Point to the local, regional or statewide authority.  Audiences often believe trusted officials at the local level as they are known faces. 
  • Here’s one local hub, but it hasn’t been updated for two weeks:

https://www.sanantonio.gov/Health/News/Alerts/CoronaVirus

  • Here’s the CDC hub with a date stamp right under the headline:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html

Check All Outgoing Communications

  • It may seem like a carnival game of Whac-A-Mole, but as communicators we have to try to correct the most egregious misinformation when it is on our owned or social media sites. You can’t be everywhere, but you can enhance monitoring on your own properties in a professional manner and move people to your information hub.
  • Scrutinize your communication pieces more thoroughly – read everything out loud to eliminate jargon and tongue twisters.
  • Date and time stamp everything so the newest info is first.
  • Prepare to keep repeating your key messages or latest information
  • Assign someone to screen all incoming communication

Breathe

  • Take a deep breath.
  • Clear your head and clear your desk.
  • Wash your hands. You’ll be at this for awhile.

What would you add to this checklist?  Drop a comment below to help everyone with their latest crisis challenges. Or share a resource that will help others with better communication.

Resources

***Updated with new resources on March 5, 2020***

From Doug Levy, author of Communications Golden Hour, a tip sheet for prolonged crisis:

Communication Resources

https://on.douglevy.com/long_duration_communications

From Seth Godin, some interesting thoughts on the spread of viruses in general.  Good read to center your thinking:

Thoughts on a virus

An example of an organization being proactive, without being scary or alarmist:

http://www.magnetmail.net/actions/email_mobile_web_version.cfm?recipient_id=4144780198&message_id=18249834&user_id=AFPNET&jobid=47142319&fbclid=IwAR3OO-PZZrn315XrI6IUBaQew2haLOSDW1jwYeVf7R5flSCmCG3Hr5R-OU8

Associated Press communications guidelines:

https://www.apstylebook.com/topical_most_recent

Resources about COVID-19

A continuously updated document on meeting cancellations:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oPL0-Q9lIMm-dWouTqEpCHQeNvUQRzjSzzFCxpg16NU/edit

A Seattle high school student has build a real time website tracking the virus here: https://ncov2019.live/data

Filed Under: Crisis Communication

Fran Stephenson February 13, 2020 Leave a Comment

Four Tips to Manage A Facebook Page in Meltdown

I recently assisted two small business owners with crisis response.  While I’m still processing everything that happened for one of them, we could actually see it coming and were able to do several things on social media to prepare for critics bombarding their Facebook page (which they did for 7 straight days!)

This owner posted a response to a tragedy that happened at her place of business. We all thought this would give a bit of closure to everyone involved. Nope.

Within the hour, a very long, inflamed and inaccurate post was shared by someone who was a third party to the tragedy. We starting watching the page very closely. Soon, the mob appeared and started a cycle of heated words, accusations and (wait for it) more inaccurate information.

While the response was complicated and involved, here are the four things we did to mitigate the public outcry.

  1. Enhanced monitoring on the channel for 48 hours and aggressively remove anything that was clearly profane, spam or plagiarized.  
  2. Used the “three strikes” rule. Any person who posts the same message three times on the page, is banned. This is a common protest tactic and is meant to spike the Facebook algorithm.
  3. Turned off the Reviews function because they cannot be removed and in crisis, people leaving a rating have rarely used the business. They are merely expressing their discontent.
  4. Changed the page settings to moderated. So no one could make a post to the wall, only comment on existing posts.

So how can this help you during your next crisis? Now is a great time to check your settings and make sure you know how to turn on and off all these features if and when you need them.


Filed Under: Crisis Communication, Social Strategy

Fran Stephenson May 19, 2016 Leave a Comment

6 Crisis Communications Resources

crisis communications resourcesTO GO!

A quick glance at the news this month is a good reminder that a crisis can happen at any time. The weather is creating crisis situations for many organizations; others have been surprised recently by technical failures or social media mishaps.

If you haven’t looked at your crisis plan in a while, now might be a good time to check out these six resources and get your organization ready for its next crisis.

  • Every Organization Needs a Crisis Plan

If you are NOT in the middle of a crisis right now, this story distills the planning process into the essential Elements. Read: Essential Elements of a Crisis Communications Plan.

  • The First Hour Is Your Biggest Opportunity

It’s make-or- break, actually. What you do in the first hour of a crisis can determine how your reputation survives – or doesn’t. Read: What To Do the First Hour.

  • Say You’re Sorry

No really, you’ll need to say it. And there’s a LOT of ways to do that. Here’s 33 ways to apologize in a crisis.

  • You WILL Make a Mistake

But if you’ve read through this far, it may not be fatal. Here are common mistakes organizations make in a crisis.

  • How Will We Ever Get Through It?

You can – and you will. Here’s a great success story from a small organization, the National Corvette Museum, that shows you can survive and live to tell about it.

Get the E-Book. If you really want to prepare your organization, go here to download my FREE e-book on Managing Your Next Crisis. It’s written with travel organizations in mind, but it’s loaded with information on preparing for any organization.

Go here: http://stepincomm.com/managing-your- next-crisis/

Filed Under: Crisis Communication Tagged With: crisis communication, crisis communications plan

Fran Stephenson April 15, 2016 Leave a Comment

How the Corvette Museum Survived a Sinkhole

generations2011

Small Organizations CAN Handle a Crisis

Alongside Interstate 65 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, you can see the iconic Skydome of the National Corvette Museum from the freeway. It is a place where devoted fans come to see and admire America’s iconic cars. It is also a small, but smart organization who handled a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. Here is their story.

On the morning of February 12, 2014, at 5:38 a.m., the ground beneath the museum gave way and swallowed eight of the museum’s irreplaceable pieces. It was a sinkhole, 60 feet long by 45 feet wide and 30 feet deep, something we normally associate with Florida’s shifting water table. You can see the security video of the first part of the collapse here:

In the early hours of the morning, Katie Frassinelli, the marketing and communications manager for the Museum got the phone call. Around that time, the story started to travel because the local media monitoring the police scanner heard the original report from the Museum. Within hours, they were in crisis response mode.

How did they handle the sudden onslaught of media at their doorstep within three hours?

The National Corvette Museum team was prepared for rapid notification to some of their key stakeholders because they had several email distribution lists. This allowed them to reach staff at work AND at home and to quickly notify their board of directors too.

“I think everyone was in shock when it happened because a sinkhole in a building is not something you ever imagine happening, so it took us a few beats to get our communication rolling,” Frassinelli says. “But once we got going, we got faster and faster about letting people know what was going on.”

“We wear a lot of hats –we learned to prioritize,” says Frassinelli. “We didn’t go home until we responded to everyone.” They also didn’t discriminate by size of media outlet. As she noted in her presentation to the PRSA Travel and Tourism Section conference last month, “you never know who could pick it up.”

On the day of the crisis, they held two press conferences, which went a long way toward getting their story into the news. They held a press conference the second day, too, but their team worked around the clock to make sure the museum opened that day, so their message became “business as usual” instead of “devastating crisis.”

At the time, the Corvette Museum had 80 staff, 20 of which were full time. There were 12 on the management team and 2 full time and one part time staff in marketing and communications including Frassinelli. One clever tactic they used is the part-timer answered and logged all the incoming calls while Frassinelli responded to the calls. This is a great way to divide the work in a crisis and stay organized, too. As well, most interviews were conducted by Frassinelli or the Executive Director. This made their messaging consistent and focused.

After the second day, the interest tapered off until they started the process of retrieving the cars out of the sinkhole. This gave them another surge in inquiries. When they began that process, they installed additional live streaming cameras so fans could watch. It was so popular, the broadcast maxed out their servers.

Here’s a news story from CBS from the day the first car came out of the sinkhole.

Every “first” after that created a wave of new interest, according to Frassinelli. When they let visitors in to see the sinkhole, they got a wave of media coverage. When they decided to keep the sinkhole, they got media coverage. BUT all of that media coverage was positive!

Key Takeaways from the Corvette Museum Team

  • The team immediately collected media emails and turned it into an update list. Now they have a massive list of media which they can continue to communicate with over time. They used it right away for those periodic updates, saving them a LOT of time.
  • They took lots of high quality photos and videos so they had assets to share for news media inquiries.
  • They also uploaded video footage from their phones to get it out quickly. They chose speed over quality so their message was being shared, but also made high quality available for those who didn’t have tight deadlines.
  • They changed the way they wrote their press releases, using an article style they had not previously adopted. This made it easier for news media to use and they were able to re-purpose the content for members, a key stakeholder group for the organization.
  • Saying thank you and expressing gratitude goes a long way.

 

Turning a Crisis Into an Opportunity

When they began the process of recovering their lost cars, they installed additional live streaming cameras so fans could watch online from every angle. It was so popular, the broadcast maxed out their servers. The construction company got special Operation Corvette + badges for their cranes and helmets which became a positive buzz factor as they began the clean-up. Their Facebook page grew as a result of the incident – from 50,000 fans to 200,000 fans. They had a 67% increase in visitors to the Museum. They even bottled the dirt and rocks from the sinkhole in little jars and have sold more than 2000 in the gift shop.

 

coprvette cave in exhibit

 

But here’s the icing on the cake: they have turned the entire event into an exhibit called Corvette Cave In, which opened on the two year anniversary of the event—Feb 12.

A key question to ask someone who has survived (and thrived!) in a crisis is ‘when did things return to normal?’ When Frassinelli was asked this question, here’s what she said: “I think things will be back to “normal” by the end of the year.”

The National Corvette Museum turned a threat into an opportunity which is still paying dividends for the organization and its visitors. It’s an amazing case study of how a small organization survived through a crisis and is a great example to travel organizations and their leadership teams.

Filed Under: Crisis Communication Tagged With: crisis communication, crisis management, National Corvette Museum, public relations in a crisis

Fran Stephenson March 3, 2016 Leave a Comment

Sorry or Not Sorry? Why Companies Should Apologize

Im sorry graphic for post

There’s nothing like getting a heartfelt apology. And nothing more disappointing than an apology that feels insincere. Setting aside the snark of the Internet – just search for #sorrynotsorry and you’ll see why – apologies are REALLY HARD. They are hard for us as individuals in the course of being human, but they are even harder for organizations.

Why?

It’s Complicated!

In their article “The Organizational Apology: A Step-by-Step Guide”  in last September’s Harvard Business Review, co-authors Maurice E. Schweitzer, Alison Wood Brooks and Adam D. Galinsky, write that humans are predisposed psychologically to avoid apologies. So the fact that we are human makes it even harder to apologize if we’re doing so on behalf of an organization. Ouch.

Even more telling is the authors’ suggestion that as soon as we wear our organizational hat, we are far more likely to look at situations from a legal point of view.

“Even a leader who isn’t actively consulting with an attorney may worry that an apology could create legal problems,” they say. “Companies need to stop thinking this way. Most apologies are low cost – and many create substantial value.”

If your organization hasn’t thought about how apologies might be given and under what circumstances, the rest of the article poses 4 questions to consider whether an apology is warranted and suggests the right and wrong ways to apologize, keeping in mind the audience, timing and details of preparing one.

It’s no surprise that business leaders aren’t sure how to apologize since crisis communicators and business advisors often disagree on the tactical side of delivering apologies.

But is our hesitation to apologize part of our culture? Another article in the Harvard Business Review from 2012 analyzed cultural differences between Americans’ approach to apologies and that of the Japanese.

“Our own work found that a core issue is differing perceptions of culpability: Americans see an apology as an admission of wrongdoing, whereas Japanese see it as an expression of eagerness to repair a damaged relationship, with no culpability necessarily implied. And this difference, we discovered, affects how much traction an apology gains.”

Are we so worried about who is to blame that we have trouble offering sincere apologies at all?

Time after time, crisis communicators and reputation management experts advocate swift, sincere apologies. Yet every week, we see another example of a corporate leader delivering an insincere or stilted wreck of an apology.

It turns out, though, that there is a body of research which shows that apologies can affect stock prices immediately. Sincere, sad, responsible? Stock price recovers. Smiling, insincere? Stock price may be affected – and not in a good way. You can read the story about smiling during a crisis in Cyber Alert.

It’s time to remember the importance of sincerity and communicating from the heart. The right apology is part of that sincerity.

Filed Under: Crisis Communication Tagged With: corporate apology, crisis communications, saying sorry in a crisis

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next Page »

What We Do

Strategic Communications

Project Management

Content Development

Influencer Outreach

See Our Portfolio »

Email Newsletter

Step In Communication

305 Kenwood Circle
Seguin, TX 78155
(210) 557-8207

Contact Us »

Blog Topics

Copyright © 2021 Step In Communications · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy · Admin