Blogs in a crisis

Still at the Blog Business Summit, Robert Scoble, Buzz Bruggeman and Anil Dash tackled the thorny topic of crisis communications. If the earlier sessions today highlighted the pitfalls of corporate blogs, this one emphasized how blogging can help when things get bad:

• A blog can project a human face or voice for an organization and help defuse negative feelings.
• A blog provides a forum for soliciting specific feedback from customers about their concerns.
• A blog makes it possible to respond quickly when a situation arises. Scoble suggested that simply posting a brief acknowledgment of a problem, to let people know that the company is aware of it, can buy time to mobilize a response.

Outside bloggers are valuable in a crisis, too. They can help disseminate your message to counter negative buzz before it becomes too serious.

The key, Scoble emphasized, is to nurture good relationships with your community of customers, and the bloggers who influence them, before a crisis hits: "Know who the gatekeepers are. When the s-storm [sic] hits you ... you have very, very little time .... Know who can get the message out, who can talk to a lot of people and can help you."

"Spend the time to know your audience even when it's not a crisis, when it's not an issue," Dash added. That way, when the inevitable criticism arises, you're better equipped to do a risk assessment because you have a better sense of whether your audience will deem it credible and how it might respond.