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We all know that the print media of decades ago with tightly controlled news developments faithfully reported daily is long gone. What people, including business leaders, politicians and even despots fail to realise is just how quick responses must be in the revolutionised world of digital media.
I have been at the centre of this dramatic change for the last 25 years. As Deputy Editor of the London Evening Standard, I played a key role in the introduction of the digital operation and I have spent the last seven years as Executive Editor of Mail Online, the world’s biggest English language newspaper website with more than 191 million visits per month.
The biggest lesson I have learned is that the people who sit back and DON’T respond are going to be punished with reputational damage. The days of compiling a measured response over several days are gone.
Indeed, the time for crisis management is hours not days.
Stories are likely to be published with a pay off line: ’the company has been contacted for comment’.
Online journalists always know that a story can be changed when the other side comes back to them, a privilege not afforded to their print colleagues. But from the company’s point of view, the story that is out there being read by millions of readers will stay in the public consciousness even if it is changed, retold, or taken down from the site.
Speed and agility are key. There are various ways of responding which will present a much more positive spin on the subject; but too much delay can lead to disaster.
Understanding the demands placed on the digital journalist is a crucial part of the response. The pressure on a reporter to quench the thirst for the latest news lines is unrelenting.
They must follow several unwritten rules including:
‘Social engagement’
‘recirculation’
‘Topic tags’
‘Bullet points’
Once aware of these rules and how they work, companies with the right advice can use them to their own advantage to help present a positive story in prime position on a website’s home page.
So much content on the internet is an incomprehensible word salad, of no benefit to the reader or the subject- often a paying client.
The right corporate communications, delivered by the right people, at the right time can cut through the digital dross and transform a business.
For better or worse the flow of digital news is fast, constant and still accelerating. Those companies that fail to channel this force effectively can quickly find themselves washed away.