PR and blogs in a crisis

Nice post by Steve Rubel at MicroPersuasion:  "Blog Crisis Communications Planning 101"

Contains links to a summary of a Blog Business Summit preso on crisis comms as well as five tips for how companies should work with bloggers/use blogging in a crisis that emerges FROM the blogosphere.

I pretty much agree with all his advice, however, would add the following:

First, I think his suggestions are applicable in any crisis regardless of whether it originates in the blogosphere or not. One of the main goals in any crisis comms effort is to get the public on your side. Blogs are becoming one of the most efficient ways to speak DIRECTLY to the audience. Assuming the company speaks in an honest voice, it may be able to get more done through blogs than the mainstream media. A recent example that comes to mind is Bigha, the makers of laser pointers (read more in this post). Of course if it doesn’t speak truthfully, bloggers WILL make it worse than the mainstream media ever could.

Second, I think all of his tips for speaking in a crisis will work better for you if you are ALREADY BLOGGING in some fashion. It all comes down to trust, and if your firm is already out there in some fashion, the blogosphere will already know you. As a result, they will be more likely to trust you in a crisis. In the short time I have been blogging I have noticed this on more than one occasion.

A notable example of how blogs help company rep is Robert Scoble and the other 1300 Microsoft bloggers who have probably done more to repair Microsoft’s rep than any traditional corp comms effort (like butterflies in Central Park …).

This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have a corporate blog. You could simply have a support or product management blog that is active and respected by your audience. If you ever need to activate the crisis blog Rubel recommends, your audience will be referred to it from people in your firm they already know and trust, transferring that trust to the folks dealing with the crisis.

Just don’t blow it by being dishonest.

Update: More links to Blog Business Summit info from Jennifer Rice at Brand Mantra, including to another summary of the session I referenced above. They are going to post all the presentations on their site, and I intend to go through quite a few of them. You also can find the link to the Summit site in my Marketing links.