Communicating Through the Chaos: Crisis Communications - Animal Care Expo 2015
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Organizations around the country face different forms of crises often. The way an organization communicates during a disaster plays a large role in the amount of community support received. In today's world, effective crisis communication is needed faster than ever. In this workshop at The HSUS's Animal Care Expo, attendees gained techniques to help prepare them to quickly and confidently implement a communication plan during a disaster, including how to communicate needs, reunite owners with lost pets, and more. If you're interested in receiving the handout that accompanied the workshop, please email me: sbarnett@humanesociety.org Presented at The HSUS Animal Care Expo in 2015 by Sarah Barnett, Senior Reputation Manager, The HSUS & Scott Giacoppo, Vice President of External Affairs, Washington Humane Society
Communicating Through the Chaos: Crisis Communications - Animal Care Expo 2015
- 1. Communicating through the Chaos: Crisis Communications Sarah Barnett @SarahHSUS Scott Giacoppo @WHS_Scott
- 2. Basics Start with YOU: Are you calm? Are you confident?
- 3. Tell me what you know, tell me what you don’t know, and tell me what you think, and make sure I know the difference. - Colin Powell, It worked for me #animalcareexpo @WHS_Scott
- 4. Who else is involved? • Fire department? • EMA? • Police Department? • Other humane agencies and organizations? • List goes on… #animalcareexpo @WHS_Scott
- 5. Notes from the field Who is dispatching the call? How is information getting back to relevant parties? Back up plans? Outages Batteries dying Contact lists #animalcareexpo @WHS_Scott
- 6. Communications, what is it good for? Getting information out Reuniting lost pets Correcting wrong information Garnering new supporters Getting support #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS
- 8. Typical social media in Disasters • Facebook pages • Facebook groups • Hashtags #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS
- 9. Disaster title hashtags: #sandy #sandypets Reporting: #311US #311 Standard: #statewx Descriptive: #wildfire #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS Hashtags
- 10. 2008: 5.2 magnitude quake North of England 2009: NY Plane crash 2010: Discovery Channel hostage situation 2010: China earthquake 2013: Boston Marathon bombing #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS
- 12. Where is the clearing house for information? Who is running it? Are all area organizations giving the same information? #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS
- 13. #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS If you don’t provide a space, someone else will.
- 14. Reuniting lost pets #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS
- 15. Reuniting lost pets • Photo • Contact info • Location found • Any other information • Updates
- 17. Donating should be… Easy Painless Shareable Getting information should be… #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS
- 20. During disaster communications #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS
- 21. Cultivate by: Responding Listening Closing the loop Provide multiple ways to give Today’s volunteer can be tomorrow’s big donor #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS
- 23. #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS Monitoring the conversations Who got the message? Who didn’t? Where are there gaps in communications? What is being said?
- 24. Building a team Who’s on it? Are they reachable? Do they have a plan? #animalcareexpo @SarahHSUS
- 26. Are the teams activated? Are the spokespeople activated? Is there a staff schedule? Does each team or function have their specific assignments? Does everyone know their role and tasks? #animalcareexpo @WHS_Scott
- 27. Drills When do you practice? How? #animalcareexpo @WHS_Scott
Editor's Notes
- #3: If you’re freaking out, you’re not going to be able to stay calm. If you don’t have calm and confidence, it shows. You have to focus on your role, focus on gathering correct and accurate info, have level head
- #4: Prevents rumors, longer it takes and provides misinformation opportunity How do you make sure it’s timely and accurate, you have to make the right people are in place to GET yo uthat information. If there’s a shelter problem, Scott would need to make sure that Stephanie is getting her information accurately and timely. Focusing on getting all the internal background that public info can then be pulled from. Ray getting information about field Dr getting medical team info Steph getting sheltering info Who are THEY getting their information from? Make sure you’re not putting too much pressure on people, otherwise they’ll just grab whatever information they have and kick it up
- #5: Making sure you’re in communication, you know who to talk to, you’re in constant comms with other orgs, and are sharing information both ways. PHOTOS OF DIFFERENT BADGES
- #6: One of the most difficult/challenging is field comms, being accurate and getting clear and accurate info from the field as to what When John Q Public calls, who is taking the call? Are they trained? Do they know what questions to ask? How is the information getting back to appropriate parties? Excample: phones being down springfield tornado If you’re phone dies, do you have your contacts saved somewhere else? Will you have internet?
- #8: What networks are you already on? In a disaster what networks will you use?
- #9: The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Hashtags Standards for Emergencies think brief released in October 2014, trying to implement standardized hashtags for disasters Pets we don’t have that for yet, but utilize existing ones to make for pet owners
- #10: The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Hashtags Standards for Emergencies think brief released in October 2014, trying to implement standardized hashtags for disasters Pets we don’t have that for yet, but utilize existing ones to make for pet owners
- #11: 2008: 5.2 magnitude quake North of England The BBC's first reports didn't go online for forty minutes. 2009: US Airways flight with geese, reported via a tweet 15minutes before mainstream media outlets 2010: Discovery Channel hostage situation Tweets before hostages 2010: China earthquake Reported on twitter an hour before major press I reported the quake about an hour before CNN or the major press started talking about it. How did I do that? Well, I was watching Twitter on Google Talk... 2013: Bombing: first ten minutes twitter was the only place that had info. Nothing on google news. No AP, CNN, Reuters.
- #12: WHAT IS MEDIA GOIHNG THERE FOR Reporters are going to social for their stories WHAT IS THE PUBLIC GOING THERE FOR?
- #13: Have your presences ready. Get information out there, let media, staff, volunteers, know where you’ll be reporting. Talk ahead of time to other orgs, who is their PIO? Can you use the same hashtag, and share information? Do you have a list of social media presences for other orgs? Who has the biggest audience?
- #14: Bastrop Co Fire Large Animal Info, Find your pet, Fire info page. If you’re not having pages up, third parties will set them up. Increases the chances dramatically that information will be wrong.
- #15: People want to help. Providing an album ffor lost and found pets makes it easy for people to help even if not local. Make albums simple, easy to share, provide captions
- #18: People like giving tangible items, make an amazon wishlist. Link to it on social media and your website Your homepage during disaster should make it easy to: Donate Find my pet Report a found pet Info on where to go for the latest information
- #21: Provide updates Show how items donated are helping Show how money donated is helping REUNIONS
- #23: Be prepared. The biggest way to prevent it, is to remind your staff everything they do could be tweeted, and become a headline. Have partnerships with other groups ahead of time, so they reach out to ASK instead of assume.
- #24: Who is having trouble: are reporters sharing the right info? Are there certain things being asked that yo uthought were addressed, but aren’t example: where people can take livestock. Haybanks. Pets. Is the information that is out there accurate? Use tools ahead of time: look at handout etc for tools, discount code for a tool that will help
- #25: Scott: Who is part of the disaster comms plan, and are they the best person for that role.
- #26: This is CDC emergency comms team
- #27: A checklist when you’re ready to push out comms
- #28: Scott to go over drills, how doing tabletops or having notecards