When businesses face an 85% chance of enduring a serious crisis in any 5-year period (Oxford Metrica research) and over 90% are reporting negative consequences associated with social media (Symantec research), it's not surprising that many are re-evaluating how to protect their reputation in a social media age. To help with this, Insignia has partnered with CrowdControlHQ to produce a white paper, "Braving a social media crisis", to explore the new threats of social media and the ramifications for crisis management planning, crisis communication training and crisis handling. We hope that it provides interesting reading and valuable insights: do let us know if you have any thoughts, comments or experiences to add. For more insights into social media crises or a social media crisis simulation tool, visit our website: http://www.insigniacomms.com

1. Social Media has changed reputation
management forever….
…and there are a few things you must know in
order to stay alive.

2. Foreword
The advent of social media changed the rules of reputation
and crisis management overnight. The power of online
media means that today’s crises emerge at lightning speed,
and spread further and faster than ever before. Social
media also imposes higher standards of transparency.
Incidents which could previously be kept under wraps are
now much more likely to become public knowledge
(sometimes even before the organisation itself is fully aware
of them).
To put it simply, a crisis fuelled by social media is not
something you want to face unprepared. Social media poses
internal and external risks, both of which could have a
potentially devastating effect on your organisation’s
reputation and bottom line. You can no longer avoid these
risks by not having a social media presence. Whether you’re
engaging or not, many of your stakeholders are on social
media, including your employees, customers, competitors
and, of course, the traditional media.
CrowdControlHQ have partnered with Insignia
Communications to raise awareness of new threats of social
media and the potential impact this can have on preparing
and managing social media elements of the crisis.
James Leavesley Jonathan Hemus
CEO, CrowdControlHQ Director, Insignia Communications

3. Congratulations!
If you have been in your position for over five years, there is an 85% chance you
have faced at least one major corporate reputation crisis.*
*Any listed corporation faces an 85% likelihood of experiencing a significant
corporate crisis in any 5-year period.
Source: Oxford Metrica, Aon Reputation Review 2011
If you have been with your organization for more than five years and the
crisis hasn’t happened, some or all of the points below might apply to your
company:
a) You are very good at crisis prevention.
b) You are very lucky.
c) You are sitting on a dynamite barrel and have no idea about it.
Crisis prevention and reputation management have changed significantly during
the past few years. Social Media has affected how reputational crises appear and
unfold.
Whether you are a veteran or you have yet to face the fire, the following will
provide a quick update on what a Social Media crisis means and how you can
prevent it, prepare for it and manage it in order to minimise the effect on your
organization.

4. Your reputation is more important than ever
The asset value of corporate reputation has increased significantly over recent
years, but so did the associated risks. Indeed, reputational risk was identified as
the greatest risk facing global companies, even higher than regulatory, human
capital, IT, market and credit risk.
66% of board members identify
63% of a company’s market value reputational risk as their primary
is attributable to reputation concern when it comes to risk
management
‘Safeguarding Reputation’ research by Weber
Shandwick and KRC Research, 2007
EisnerAmper, May 2012
Enter the Social Media Dragon
Regardless of what started it or how it started, a crisis will almost always find its
way online. According to a 2011 report of the Federation of European Risk
Management Associations, reputational risk from social media is cited as a
material risk by 50% of risk managers and a bigger cause for concern than cyber
attack. So how is a social media-fuelled crisis different?
Increased Frequency
With social media, people are creating and sharing more information than ever
before. As more information about the organisation is created and shared in
social media the frequency of reputational crises has also increased. The greater
transparency provided by social media is another reason why the frequency of
crises has increased.
Staggering Speed
Sharing information with your entire friend network and followers is only one
click away. There are 800 million active Facebook users, each of them having 130
friends on average. Equally, Twitter has incredible reach, with opinion formers and
journalists over-represented amongst its users. A reputation-damaging scandal
can spread in a matter of minutes.
Global Reach
What happens at a local level doesn’t stay local anymore. A company’s failure to
provide proper work conditions in one isolated factory in China can become the
talk of London and New York the next day (if not sooner).

5. Total Visibility
Investors, factory workers and all your stakeholders now have free access to
information about your company, its suppliers and customers. And that
information is no longer controlled by you: it is created by third parties.
Easy recollection of the crisis
They used to say that today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper. Not
any more. Long after the crisis has passed, a simple Google search for your
Company’s name will bring back all the articles and posts related to the
controversial issues.
More Measurability
On the plus side, in the online space everything can be measured and scaled. You
can more easily assess the dimensions of a crisis in order to deliver a
proportionate response. It also helps with post-crisis review so that you can put
plans in place to prevent similar events from occurring again.
More interaction
Social Media can facilitate instant dialogue with concerned stakeholders.
Addressing concerns quickly, empathetically and directly can go a long way
towards defusing a crisis situation and having a positive impact on how the
company is viewed.

6. When the crisis is triggered by events
happening off-line
A crisis is often triggered by unforeseen events happening off-line. These
events may concern a specific department or business unit, one of its suppliers:
a work-related accident can start an enquiry on the work conditions provided
by the organisation; rude treatment of a customer can cause a sudden burst of
accumulated dissatisfaction with the company. Regardless of the cause, once
the issue is picked up in social media, it will be amplified thousands of times.
United Airlines broke songwriter Dave Carrol’s guitar in
checked luggage. After being denied compensation, he
created a YouTube video about the incident. Four days later,
“United Breaks Guitars” had been watched by one million
people. This video was the trigger for an outpouring of
complaints from other angry customers of United Airlines,
who shared, retweeted and reposted the video until more
than 150 million people became familiar with the story. As a
result, United Airlines’ stock went down 10% - $180 million.
As we have seen above, social media has created a
completely new environment for reputation management.
Updating your reputational risk assessment is essential if
you are to be fully prepared for the new risk landscape.
Simply put, social media makes crises both more likely and
potentially more damaging.
By conducting regular reputational risk assessments
companies become aware of the problem areas that could
escalate into a crisis. Monitoring the social web for mentions
of keywords related to these risks and setting up alerts when
conversations around these topics increase can be a way to
catch and address issues before they escalate into a full-
blown crisis.

7. When the crisis is ‘purely social’
Social Media and the new mobile technologies have created a whole new
class of reputational crises. No off-line event triggers these incidents; they
arise in the online space, often because of the organisation’s own actions on
social media. As you will see below, ‘purely social’ incidents and can be as
dangerous to the company’s reputation as those triggered by offline events.
Internal causes
Your employees can be your organisation’s worst enemy. Many reputational
crises are triggered by employees’ actions on social media, either on the
company’s accounts or on their personal profiles.
Careless posting on the organisation’s accounts
When an employee creates and manages the organisation’s social media
account from their own personal account, mixing up messages can happen
quite easily. There are many instances of accidental or inappropriate posting,
which have caused great embarrassment and significant damage to an
organisation’s reputation.
In February, someone at Chrysler’s social media
agency tweeted from Chrysler’s official Twitter
account saying that no one can drive in Detroit,
Chrysler’s home city. Consequences? The employee lost his job, the
agency got fired and Chrysler had to issue official apologies.
In January 2012, Boners BBQ posted
on their Facebook page a picture of a
customer who left a poor tip, and
made abusive remarks about her. The
post went viral in a couple of hours. It
took Boners 16 hours to issue a
public apology on their Facebook.
Password and login details are often shared between multiple
employees in order for them to access the company’s social
media accounts. If an inappropriate post goes out, tracing
who is responsible can be almost impossible, especially if a
large team is manning the social media accounts of the
company and multiple marketing agencies have username
and password access.

8. Employees’ behaviour on their own social media accounts affects
the organisation’s reputation
According to Edelman’s 2012 TrustBarometer, while CEOs’ and government
officials’ credibility plummeted, peers and regular employees’ credibility saw a
dramatic rise. Each one of your employees is a spokesperson for your brand,
and each one of them has the potential to unleash a storm in social media. In
the past years, worker terminations and long tedious lawsuits prompted by
social network postings saw a dramatic increase.
In 2011, a UK tribunal upheld Councilor Leslie Ghiz from Cincinnati
Apple’s decision to fire an City Council posted offensive
employee who ranted about his comments aimed at another council
job on Facebook. Apple’s social member on her Twitter feed. She
media internal policy clearly tweeted during a city council meeting,
states that employees are not which started a controversy that
allowed to criticise the company ended up damaging public trust in the
on social media. city council.
Organisation fails to respond or responds in an inappropriate
manner
Complaints and enquiries left unanswered on the organisation’s social media
profiles will affect the organisations’ reputation and alienate their audience.
Some organisations have even tried to censor posts containing issues that
they don’t wish to address in a public space.
Femfresh’s Facebook page had 5300 likes.
One post using euphemistic and infantile
words instead of the word vagina started a
torrent of comments from outraged fans.
As the story went viral, the brand failed to
issue any statement. Overwhelmed by
criticism, they pulled down the Facebook
page.
70% of all fan questions posted on social media channels are not
responded to.
Source: Social Bakers, 2012

9. Getting it right
On the plus side, the reputational damage caused by an external event can
be minimised by intelligent use of social media. After O2’s one-day service
failure, huge numbers of customers vented their frustration on Twitter. The
social media team handling @O2 in the UK dealt with their angrier
respondents with great skill and humour. In the process, the team managed
to win back some of O2’s lost kudos.
Many organisations empower their employees or their
marketing agencies to create social media accounts on
their behalf . Often, when an employee leaves the
organisation he or she will leave with the login details to
the social media accounts. In a crisis situation, customers
can end up asking questions to an account to which the
organisation doesn’t have access anymore.
Responding to a crisis via social media requires the right
resources and skills. The heat of a crisis is no time to be
finding out whether those resources and skills are up to
scratch. Consider running social media simulations to give
your team the capability and confidence to successfully
communicate via social media, and to assess where you
may need to upgrade your resources and processes.

10. External causes
Brandjacking
‘Brandjacking’ occurs when someone assumes the
online identity of another entity for the purposes of
acquiring that person’s or organisation’s brand
equity; similar to “passing off”.
The Arctic Ready and the accompanying "Let's Go!“ hoax engineered
by Greenpeace and The Yes Lab aims to increase awareness
of Shell's drilling plans in the Arctic. The ‘Arctic Ready’ site is so
similar to Shell’s that it confused many into thinking that it actually
was a failed social media experiment of the company. Arctic
Ready allows visitors to create their own ads, overlaying custom text
over photos of polar bears, whales, narwhals and birds. The website
received over 2 million page views over a few days.
Part of the same brandjacking campaign was also the false twitter
handle @Shellisprepared, a spoof account for the Shell Social Media
Team which, despite its parody content, fooled many into thinking it
was actually engaging on behalf of Shell.
The "BP Public Relations" (@BPGlobalPR) fake Twitter account
launched by Greenpeace during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil
spill has more than 150,000 followers, three times more than the
actual BP account.
Brand jacking can happen to any organisation, and
preventing it is almost impossible. But listening across
social media channels for mentions of your
organisation will intercept fake social media accounts
in the early hours and allow you to take action.

11. Brand ambassadors’ actions
Brand ambassadors represent your organisation’s values. Sometimes, their
actions on their personal social media accounts can seriously threaten your
reputation.
On the eve of the London Olympics, two
members of the Australian Olympic swim team
came under fire for posing with three guns
and posting the photo on Facebook. The
mainstream media took up the photo
immediately and linked it to the massacre in Port Arthur from 1996.
Following the flood of comments from enraged Australians, the
Australian Olympic Committee considered keeping both swimmers off
the team for the "foolish" action that was "clearly inappropriate for
members of the 2012 Australian Olympic team."
There are many ways in which a celebrity can potentially
damage your brand on social media; foreseeing all of
them is impossible, though reputational risk assessments
can help. Monitoring your brand ambassadors’ social
media presence provides a way to stay on top of any
situation that might arise.
Greek athlete Voula Papachristou, who had been part of Greece's
Olympic delegation to London, was expelled from the team over a
racist post on her Twitter account. The athlete is said to have referred
to the West Nile virus and immigrants in Greece.
Slurs and abuse on your Facebook pages
Anyone can post anything on your organisation’s Facebook timeline. Your
company is still responsible for the content, even if it was posted by an
external user. Racial slurs, swear-words and spam links can gravely affect your
organisation’s reputation and alienate your public.
While your employees and marketing agencies work 8
hours/day, 5 days/week , internet spammers and trolls
never sleep. A racist post left un-deleted on your Facebook
page over the week-end can have serious consequences.
More and more companies are looking for solutions to
monitor their pages 24/7.

12. Three magic words: prepare, prepare, prepare
Symantec’s 2011 Social Media Protection Flash revealed that 94% of 1225
surveyed organisations had experienced “negative consequences related to
social media”. Whilst many organisations focus their crisis management
planning on threats such as cyber attack, terrorism or natural disasters,
attending to the internal and external risks of social media is at least as
important in crisis prevention. The previous examples demonstrate the perils
of ignoring this imperative in social media crisis management.
76% of social media crises could have been avoided or
diminished if only companies made some internal
investment in social media planning and preparedness.
Altimeter’s Social Business Readiness Report, August 2011
Reducing the likelihood of a social media crisis is an effort that should start
from providing the adequate social media policies and training to your own
employees. This process has three steps:
1. Create a social media policy
Employees need to know where they stand with regard to social media. And
businesses need to establish clear guidelines to reduce the likelihood of self-
inflicted reputational harm. Drafting a social media policy is the first step in
achieving these goals.
2. Communicate your social media policy
Policies only have value when they are communicated to staff so make sure
that every employee is aware of the policy and is briefed on it as part of their
induction procedure. The danger you must avoid is creating the perfect social
media policy that no one has ever read.
3. Embed your social media policy
The third step – and the one that really makes the difference – is embedding
your social media policy within the organisation. Reading a policy is one thing;
understanding and embracing it is quite another. One of the best ways of
doing this is via a social media crisis simulation where members of staff have
to apply the policy against a realistic scenario. It takes the policy from being
dry words to something that employees have tested and applied, but in a safe
environment. Prepare to keep them updated as new situations arise and have
to be dealt with.

13. Who is CrowdControlHQ?
Once policies and guidelines are in place, your organisation also needs the
support infrastructure that will keeps your social media activity organised and
protected. CrowdControlHQ is a web based social media risk management
and monitoring tool that allows the entire organisation to operate safely in
the social space whilst giving marketing and operational teams a suite of time-
saving features, alerts and insights.
How we help you stay prepared:
At organisational level
• Keep social media usernames and passwords secure
• Full audit trail of engagement activity
• Controlled access to social media profiles
• Protect your Facebook Pages from abusive content 24/7
• Monitor the social web to identify external risks
• Ensure compliance to policies and guidelines
At operational level:
• Gather Insight and report on campaign success
• Manage campaigns and co-ordinate social media activity
• Monitor and respond to comments across the social web
• Engage with audiences in an abuse-free environment
• Set up work-flows to ensure operational effectiveness
• Share best practice and collaborate across teams
How we help you manage and overcome the crisis:
• Immediately restrict unauthorised access to social media accounts
• Monitor what people are saying and see when, where and who is talking
about the crisis
• Deliver team alerts when conversation volume on certain topics rises
above or below normal
• Engage with your community to explain the issue by posting a unified
message to multiple accounts
• Respond or remove abusive posts in a timely manner
• Ensure your crisis plans are held in a safe place within CrowdControlHQ,
where everyone involved can access them
• Terminate access of certain team members if there are only certain
users authorised to respond and engage with a community during a
crisis.

14. Who is Insignia Communications?
Insignia is a communication consultancy which helps organisations protect
their reputation through crisis communication planning, training and handling.
We do this through:
Reputational risk assessments
Reputational risk assessments identify and prioritise events, incidents and
issues which could threaten an organisation’s reputation. Understanding the
risks likely to damage your reputation in a social media world is the first step
towards managing them.
Scenario planning
Scenario planning ahead of a crisis helps you make the best decisions for long
term reputation protection. Understanding the likely twists and turns of a
social-media-fuelled crisis enables you to prepare effective response
strategies and take swift action to protect your reputation.
Crisis communication plan development
Crisis communication plans help you respond effectively in a crisis through
clear principles, processes, checklists and resources to shape decision-making.
Today’s crisis communication plan must integrate social media if it is to be
truly effective in protecting reputation.
Crisis simulations and exercises
A crisis simulation is the first step in stress-testing your crisis plans and
ensuring that your people have the knowledge and skills to successfully apply
it. It’s only by experiencing a simulated crisis that you can be confident that
you are match-fit for a real one.
Social media simulations
The best way of getting to grips with the impact of social media on reputation
management is not in the heat of crisis, but through a training exercise which
allows people to experience what it feels like to be in the eye of the storm –
but without any of the associated danger. A social media simulation delivers
this.
Crisis handling
No organisation can eliminate the possibility of a crisis, so being seen to
manage a crisis well is essential. Insignia offers crisis communication counsel
to protect your reputation when the chips are down.

15. About the authors
James Leavesley –CEO of CrowdControlHQ
James is CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdControlHQ. He studied
for his undergraduate degree at the University of Leeds then
went on to complete his MBA at University College Dublin. He
then spent the next 10 years in specialist marketing and business
development roles across a number of different sectors with
responsibilities including developing companies in Eastern Europe and Russia.
James finally found his calling after meeting his business partner Calum
Brannan, where they began to focus on building corporate software in
emerging technologies.
Follow James on Twitter: @leavesj
Calum Brannan – Co-founder of CrowdControlHQ Calum is
responsible for innovation and vision at CrowdcontrolHQ.
He set up his first business at 15 and Sky News calls him
"one of UK's most promising young entrepreneurs". He is a
social media analyst, having appeared as a commentator on Al Jazeera, ITN
and various other outlets. This year Calum was nominated as a "Young
Master" of the year by Google and Entrepreneur Country Magazine.
Follow Calum on Twitter: @CalumBrannan
Jonathan Hemus – Director of Insignia Communications
Insignia’s founder Jonathan Hemus is an experienced
communication counsellor with over 20 years’ experience
providing reputation management advice and training to world
leading organisations and brands. Before launching Insignia in
2008, he was for ten years global leader of PR consultancy Porter Novelli’s
global crisis and issues management practice. At Insignia he has developed
plans and delivered training to prevent and prepare for crisis, and advised
organisations in the midst of major incidents and issues. He is a regular media
commentator on reputation management matters.
Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @jhemusinsignia

16. Contact us:
Find us online: http://crowdcontrolhq.com/
UK: 0845 686 5044
Intl: +44 (0) 845 686 5044
E-mail us: hello@crowdcontrolhq.com
Find us on Twitter: @CrowdControlHQ
The Fireworks,
3-6 The Old Firestation, 68 Albion Street,
Birmingham, B1 3EA
Find us online: www.insigniacomms.com
Tel: +44 121 382 5304
Email us: info@insigniacomms.com
Find us on Twitter: @jhemusinsignia
Insignia Communications, 308 Birmingham Road,
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B72 1DP