Why are there so few examples of great crisis management?

When I ask most audiences to name a company that did a great job managing a crisis, most people (in Canada, anyway) say the name of one company: Maple Leaf Foods. I agree. They did a great job. But the real question is this...Why are there so few examples of excellent crisis management and so many instances of companies doing the wrong thing? The answer, in part, is human nature. That, and a lack of prep and planning.

Media training is the blind spot

Media training is the blind spot

Executives and entrepreneurs dedicate their lives to self improvement. They vie for the most prestigious schools. Many pursue post-graduate studies. They go on retreats, read books, listen to podcasts, attend conferences, do cleanses, meditate, do yoga, try intermittent fasting. They’re constantly on the lookout for a hack. An edge. Something that will make them smarter, more agile, better prepared, more successful.

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Your social media icons/links are missing!

One of the most basic oversights a lot of organizations are making is that they don’t include their social media links/icons on their websites. I know this because as I was preparing for an industry conference, I was checking out the social media pages of more than 100 associations and I noticed that about HALF of them either didn’t have these icons on their sites at all or they had one (e.g. Facebook) that was put there years ago and hadn’t updated them. It makes it SO much harder for people to find your YouTube account. Your Twitter page, etc. And it’s such an easy fix. Just ask your web people to include the links/icons in a prominent place on your home page AND your contact page.

The two worst characteristics for anyone doing a media interview

Being smart and being nice. Sound strange? Those are actually two of the worst characteristics to bring into your media interview. Now, I’m not saying don’t be smart and don’t be nice. But in this video, I talk a little bit about how these two conversational habits can hurt the effectiveness of your media interviews.

The only REAL way to get more Twitter followers

A few times a week, I’ll get followed by someone on Twitter and will check out their profile. They’re a marketing person. Usually from the US. They don’t look familiar at all. But they have 162,000 Twitter followers. Impressive at first glance, right? Well, not to me. Not anymore. If you dig a little below the surface, you’ll find that it’s all smoke and mirrors. BS. They’ve purchased fake followers to make themselves ‘look’ like an authority on a topic. One of the ways to tell is to check out the engagement on their tweets. For an audience of that massive size, their tweets will have very few likes, comments, retweets, etc. This is the WRONG way to get followers. It’s empty, it’s shallow, it’s short-sighted and it makes you look like kind of a desperate social media loser.

In this video, I talk about the way I’ve grown my audience. Today it stands at around 3,200 followers or so but I’ve grown it one at a time over the course of the last 10 years. No bots. No purchased followers. They’re real people - people I’ve met through my client work, speaking at conferences, speaking at colleges, etc. And after every one of those talks, I spend some dedicated time connecting with every single person. If you don’t believe me, go to ‘tweets and replies’ on my Twitter page and scroll down.

In my opinion, this is the only way to create a real, true, authentic audience. One at a time.

Your video doesn't need to go viral to be a success

Just a quick post to help manage expectations when it comes to producing/sharing videos for your company or association. Don't obsess about hits, clicks, views and shares. If you put out great video content on a consistent basis - video that's useful to your audience - those metrics will follow.