Joe Paterno’s is alive and well, but a viral message — a lie, in fact — spread like wildfire from a seemingly innocuous report from a student-run blog. Poynter Institute’s Jeff Sonderman reports on the blunder here, “How false reports of Joe Paterno’s death were spread and debunked.”
This is a perfect demonstration of the viral nature of social media, on the one hand. And, quite frankly, the sloppy fact checking of mainstream media outlets on the other. So, there are two forces that worked together, a juicy lie about a celebrity that’s been hammered in the news of late, and the absence of due diligent, gold ol’ fashion fact checking by mainstream media outlets.
While I’m not writing to point out another sloppy reporting job, if a lie about your company goes viral overnight, you may choke on your morning coffee at “news” headlining CNN. Having a social media strategy and public relations tools in place could advert and ameliorate such damage control.
Here are the tools you need to save your brand:
- A listening platform, such as, SM2 or Radian6
- A blog
- A twitter account
- A Fan Page on Facebook
- A YouTube Channel
- A media distribution service
You will also need a well-defined crisis communication plan that defines EVERY scenario that could effect your organization. While addressing a comprehensive crisis communication plan is out of the scope of this post, here are some very tactical tools you need prepared BEFORE disaster strikes:
- Media Standby Document
- Talking Points
- Pre-Written Media Advisory
- Pre-Written blog post
In addition to these, your organization should have a communications professional and a senior manager on speed dial, as well as key media contacts you trust. Your communication professional and senior manager should be on-call 24/7.
MAKE SURE TO ALERT YOUR EMPLOYEES FIRST.
UPDATE: January 22, 2012, 12:49pm: A statement from the Paterno family says Joe Paterno passed away early this morning. We will have more on the college newspaper’s leak, if it was one indeed later.
About Rodger Johnson