Online Reputation Management Blog

Interview with Crisis Communications Expert Richard Levick – Part 2

November 5, 2012 by 2 Comments

We continue our in-depth conversation on the Online Reputation Management blog with Richard S. Levick, Esq, President and CEO of LEVICK and a leading voice on the most complex communications and reputation management challenges facing corporations, countries, and major institutions.  Click here for Part 1 of our fascinating interview.

How can CEOs help build and repair corporate reputation?

Obviously, the face that a CEO presents to the world, and the language with which he or she publicly articulates the company’s value proposition and corporate good citizenship, is important. Just as important, however, is what the CEO does internally.

CEOs should understand the dangers of silos when corporate reputation is at risk. Input should be solicited, in fact demanded, from multiple quarters: legal, HR, corporate communications, financial, etc. It is then the CEO’s job to ensure that these advisors work seamlessly and disinterestedly. It doesn’t do any good to put five executives in a room, with each one trying to seize turf in making the decision on what’s to be done next. That is why it is so critical, particularly now, in the Internet Age, to integrate silos. Make sure legal knows digital, and that corporate communications knows the crisis communicators. In a crisis, all rules change. Better to know and understand the team when you hit the iceberg. [Read more…]

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Interview with Crisis Communications Expert Richard Levick – Part 1

October 29, 2012 by 1 Comment

We are very excited to invite Richard S. Levick, Esq. to share his thoughts on crisis communications and reputation management with our Online Reputation Management blog.   As President and CEO of LEVICK, Richard Levick is one of the communications industry’s most important spokespersons and thought leaders, helping to manage global communications and brand protection for corporations, countries, and major institutions.  Richard has worked on some of the world’s highest-profile campaigns – including Guantanamo Bay; the Catholic Church; the Wall Street crisis; and the Gulf oil spill.  He is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Fast Company and has co-authored four books including, The Communicators: Leadership in the Age of Crisis; Stop the Presses: The Crisis and Litigation PR Desk Reference; and 365 Marketing Meditations.

What is crisis communications?

Crisis communications is how companies, countries, and individuals tell their stories to the public when life, liberty – and the brand – are at risk and under siege. It’s the art and science of regaining control of the public narrative about yourself when you have suddenly lost, or are in danger of losing control of that narrative, and when the single most powerful thing that defines the value of your enterprise is in jeopardy.

It may simply be the safety of a controversial product. But it can go well beyond that. Consider the ongoing crisis that has beset the Catholic Church for so many years now. The value proposition of any great religion is faith. The Church abuse crisis has directly threatened that faith, at least for a significant number of people. How the Church communicates a sufficiently resolute position on abuse and, importantly, the actions it takes to implement that position, will have permanent impact on whether or not faith can be maintained or restored if it’s been lost. The dynamic is no less relevant to a commercial brand that appears to have broken its promise. [Read more…]

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Crisis Communications and the Global War on Terrorism

October 22, 2012 by 2 Comments

Currently serving as a military advisor in Afghanistan, Col. Barry Johnson is a U.S. Army public relations practitioner and advisor with 26 years of military experience.  It is an honor and privilege to invite Col. Johnson to share his unique perspective on crisis communications with our Online Reputation Management blog.  During the last decade, he spent over 5 years deployed in support of combat operations, with direct involvement in many of the military’s most challenging stories:  Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Saddam’s first hearing, Haditha allegations, civil war in Iraq, WikiLeaks, military withdrawal from Iraq, and the host of issues faced by military spokespeople each day in combat zones. [Read more…]

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How to Avoid the 6 Biggest Media Mistakes Most Companies Make

October 1, 2012 by 5 Comments

We see it every day.  A company has a public relations crisis and makes it even worse by botching the response.  It’s like a watching a train wreck in slow motion.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  I recently asked Robert J. Fisher, a veteran public relations executive, counselor and consultant with over four decades of experience in the fields of public relations, marketing, communications and advertising, about the biggest mistakes companies make when dealing with the media.

Robert is President of Fisher & Associates, Inc. (F&A), a Los Angeles area-based public relations and communications firm which has served a broad range of businesses and industries on local, national and international levels for more than three decades.  He has extensive experience in crisis communications having represented clients both throughout the U.S. and internationally who were in crisis situations.  He is also a recognized media relations expert who has long served as an expert media information source and analyst.  Here is what he had to say:

The critical factor here is to understand what the role of the media is in a crisis situation both from the entity’s perspective and that of the media.  To the entity in crisis, the media is an invaluable conduit to disseminate information to present its side of the story and by doing so, help to reduce the negative perception that might be out there while at the same shape opinion more favorable to the entity.  However, from the media’s point of view, its task is obtain all relevant and factual information it can on the crisis and provide it to its audience as quickly and thoroughly as possible.  It is not the media’s job to be a “communications tool” for the entity in trouble. [Read more…]

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