by By: Justin Hanes and Caroline Bresler
Luckily, Wednesday’s class avoided a major crisis.
Students started class with a presentation of what a crisis is and how it engages with an organization’s public. Professor Kelli Matthews stated that its best for organizations to “Tell it first. Tell it fast. Tell them what you’re going to do about it.” Many students reacted well to this as we discussed how wildfires relate to crisis communications.
It was a very “giffy” day as students found their favorite memes and gifs that related to crisis communication. Mention of Scandal‘s Olivia Pope surfaced as she works for a crisis management agency that works with high-level government officials like President Fitzgerald Grant and Mellie Grant.
how has there not been an olivia pope gif yet?? she is the crisis communications manager i aim to be. #sojcssm pic.twitter.com/S108oak96q
— kristle s. (@bykristlemarie) February 7, 2018
In a reference to a wildfire, Matthews said “social media adds fuel, wind and direction to a crisis,” which was also tweeted by student Keely (@keely_od). The class continued the conversation of how to identify what types of crises require certain responses. Often times crisis’ are viewed as alligators lurking in the pond. It’s important to identify these alligators and think about what impact they could have on the organization.
Then, the class (probably a few students, realistically) was shattered after discussing This Is Us and the crisis that it created for Crock Pot after *spoiler alert* they started a house fire with one, which ultimately kills one of the main characters.
https://twitter.com/BreslerCaroline/status/961317782972350464
Further discussion continued as the class talked about the Dominos crisis, the mattress store that was insensitive to 9/11 and the United scandal that unfolded last April. Students were highly engaged and had conversations surrounding the “tell it first” mentality, while also encouraging each other to be ethical in responses that are made.
In perhaps one of the more comical tweets of the class, Rita Herbstman posted the highest retweeted post of the class so far this term.
When you're stupid enough to hire a crisis communication manager that is the crisis himself #SOJCssm pic.twitter.com/lAFeMLXL8n
— Rita Herbstman (@RitaHerbstman) February 7, 2018
Students were given the chance to respond to other case studies as the class came to an end.
Tweet count: 85
Feature photo courtsey of Wikipedia
Thanks for sharing the twitter comments from Wednesday class! It’s cool to see the different examples and posts everyone made put together and compared!
Nice summary of the class’ topics of discussion. I am curious for the authors’ thoughts on Cockpot’s response! I personally think they handled the situation really well and humorously!
I really liked that you recapped the tweets that happened this day and pointing out your favorites. I agree that this day’s twitter was filled with lots of good comments followed with great gifs. Crisis management is very important to every single brand and I think this lecture pointed out why very well.
This was one of my favorite classes all term. I think crisis communication is so interesting and after this class I started looking in to recent incidents, such as the KFC one just recently. Good job recapping and to be completely honest I think crock pot handled this odd situation as well as they could have!