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Just one week after enjoying the warm embrace of media adoration following a tremendously successful introduction of the new tram, the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort finds itself in the media doghouse for their handling of the avalanches that tragically struck in-bounds at the resort this week.
The media criticism comes in response to what some have called the resort’s state controlled-media style approach to the incidents, releasing very limited official statements with bare bones facts, pressuring bloggers to remove images taken at the scene of the avalanches from their blogs, and turning off a live web cam that was broadcasting shots from the avalanche scene.
What makes these activities more acute is that this approach to information management is in stark contrast to the flood of information and access the resort was pushing on the media during the run-up to the new tram launch.
Your crisis communications strategy has to incorporate the same spirit of openness and accessibility that your benchmark celebration strategies employ. Not to the same degree, of course, but you can’t have two faces, so to speak.
Granted, it’s a lot easier to armchair quarterback on this than it is for the communications people trying to balance all the requests from the media with the liability and potential litigation concerns that are always present in an accident like this. But there is a way to balance the lawyers concerns for limited information with the media’s need for more information so that everyone benefits.
In this instance, a couple of press conferences would have gone a long way in helping the media and helping the resort:
In this proactive manner, you establish yourself as the primary authority on the story and position yourself as the media’s accomplice, earning their trust and establishing the factual framework for the media coverage.
The bottom line is that the news, like nature, abhors a vacuum (bloggers are worse). If you aren’t filling that information vacuum with news than the media has to go elsewhere to fill it. And they will (they’re bastards that way). And in forcing them to look elsewhere for information you lose control of the story, which is the exact opposite of what you had intended in the first place.
It’s a “soft week” here at Base Camp Comm. Which can mean a couple of things, but our translation is that it’s the Week between Christmas and New Years, give or take a day or two…ok give…and it’s soft which means that there is lots of snow and more on the way.
The Base Camp Comm. crew will be enjoying a Jackson Hole ski/board vacation with our family and friends. We hope that you’ll get to do the same.
Thanks for a great year and see you in 2009.
First read this…then read this.
Three years ago we folded our first blog (tramline.blogspot.com) into our corporate site (www.base-camp1.com) because we realized that blogs were on their way to becoming a powerful publishing platform.
We were right. In fact blogs have become such powerful publishing platforms since then that they have attracted, like, real publishers. The list of Technorati’s top 100 blogs is full of more real media companies than of independent counter-culture blogs (HuffingtonPost, Gawker…) with ad sales teams, managing editors, beat reporters and magnates.
As well, most traditional mass media and niche media properties now have blogs, most have several, written by professional writers charged with bringing in more traffic to the corporate site so that the publishers can sell more ads online. (Which is sweet from a PR perspective as your beat reporters now need to fill their blog as well as their regular column.)
Plus…your customers, your community, now expect you to have a blog. A corporate site without a blog feels empty, antiquated.
So, now everyone has a blog. Party. Really, it’s great. Marketing speak bullshit is on its way out. Honest language, insight, value, and service is now the new standard. You can’t get away with just pretty pictures any more.
But blogs are no longer revolutionary. From a marketing strategy level, blogs should be a part of your marketing funnel strategy, pulling in eyes, ears and dollars from many different channels to an actionable destination (buy this, subscribe to that, click on this…).
From a media level, blogs are now a big part of the media landscape and should be a big part of your PR strategy. But any PR firm that lists “blogger relations” as part of its “specialty” is full of bunk, as we say in Wyoming. All the same basic PR rules apply to blogger relations, or should. Present a story that is interesting, newsworthy and is of value or service to their readers in a professional, knowledgeable manner and more likely than not, they’ll show you some love. If not, the same rules still apply, ply them with expensive seafood, wine and strippers and you’re set. Media relations, bitches, as we say in Wyoming.
Next week, Part II-You’re no Seth Godin.
Perhaps taking a page from the Obama campaign, Lance Armstrong is enlisting a social media channel to increase awareness of and participation in his Global Cancer Awareness campaign.
Lance has been on Twitter for a couple of months and he already has more than 10,000 followers. In Twitter-land, that’s a lot.
Through Twitter we now get several updates a day from Lance himself of his activities, from announcements each time the anti-doping control patrol drops in (he’s up to his 8th test…) to updates and pics from his team meetings and training, to press conferences, interviews, trips overseas, training rides…it’s a full report.
We’ve learned that he is still pretty tight with his ex, he is now a BikeSnobNYC stalker, that he thinks Chris Horner is a redneck, that he continues to follow the U.S. ‘cross races, and more…that pic to the right is a shot Lance took of the media during a press conference to show what it looks like from his perspective.
In the past, we were only given insight into Lance’s world through traditional media coverage. Articles from press conferences or one-on-one interviews, plus a ton of opinion and speculation from the pundits.
Through his Twitter feed Lance becomes more accessible, more human, we can relate to him on a more personal level. And this access and transparency is improving public sentiment towards him. By ‘following’ Lance we are ‘with’ him.
That is public relations.
While most people follow him on Twitter for the insiders view of a very professional cyclist, Lance is able to post news about the cancer awareness campaign, thereby educating more people about the cause. These Twitter followers will be a grassroots force available if and when some call to action is needed in support of the cancer awareness cause.
There’s also plenty of opportunities to plug his sponsors to a big audience
And Lance says he’s hooked… “And yes, I will twitter from the tour, the giro, the ToC, and the TdU. Hell, I seem to be twittering a lot.”
So, what are your athletes doing to develop a stronger relationship with their/your fans?
