The first Reputation Online Live event took place on Friday, dealing with the issue of crisis management in an online world. Over the past year there have been several high-profile incidents that have proved the sheer speed and reach that the digital space introduces in times of crisis. This has included Habitat’s hashtag faux pas, Domino’s ‘nose pick’ video and now Vodafone’s inadvertent tweet (as discussed in today’s main story on Your Views from Fernando Rizo).

Magnus Boyd, a director at somewhat infamous media law firm Carter Ruck, talked to the crowd about how bad things can really get, and considered how appropriate is it to use the law to protect your brand. One of the most interesting aspects of this was the growing reluctance by the Courts to view search engines such as Google as ‘publishers’.  This in effect, removes liability (as was demonstrated in the case of Rosemary Port, who unsuccessfully tried to sue Google for revealing her identity). Plans by all search engines to include personal content from social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook make them an even bigger risk in terms of digging up negative comments and making them extremely visible.

In this respect he mentioned that 92% of journalists use the web for investigating and researching stories. He referenced the case of the policeman quoted as saying that “sh*t happens” on his Facebook profile, following news that a G20 protester had died.  In what Boyd called a complete misinterpretation of what the law should and shouldn’t be able to do, new legislation allowed papers to take this information and print it. Scarily, this is because the PPC ruled that “it can be acceptable in some circumstances for the press to publish information taken from social networking websites, even when the material is originally intended for a small group of acquaintances and not publicly accessible.”

Eddie Bensilum, a director at reputation management firm Regester Larkin, took to the stage to present a crisis management 101 checklist. She encouraged brands to think about the audience first when responding to an issue online, and that the message and the medium must come second. An underlying message was that of appropriateness; in language, planning proactively and aligning any activity to overarching communications objectives. A brand that prides itself on being transparent shouldn’t shut up shop the moment something bad happens as it jars against the perceived personality of the company.

She was joined by Regester Larkin client Georgina Wald, corporate communications manager for Domino’s UK, who presented the company’s experiences in dealing with the ‘nose picking’ video. Two employees decided to film themselves doing unspeakable things to a pizza, and it hit the brand badly when uploaded to YouTube. One of the things that saved the company was the speed in which it dealt with the criticism. Within 24 hours, they’d identified the team members and franchise involved, distributed still shots of what had actually happened to those that needed clarification and contacted the Health Department. Within this period, Domino’s also reached out to YouTube to get the video removed (which didn’t happen), communicated extensively internally and entered into dialogue with those talking about it online. Referencing the need to speak to people in their own language, the message that went out was not filled with marketing jargon, but simply read ‘Two idiots with a video camera, and a bad idea’.

Finally, we heard from Jonathan Macdonald, co-founder of this fluid world, about the dangers of a brand not getting involved when a crisis hits. In this instance, how the video he took of a TFL tube worker being aggressive to a passenger became a huge issue. It’s a fantastic example of how news travels, and trickles through the media space, with peak mentions on Twitter happening first, and then a knock-on effect spreading to YouTube, blogs, comments on blogs and finally, national press. With TFL input remaining at zero throughout, he encouraged brands to sometimes looks at instances like these as an opportunity to show how committed to ensuring good service they are. The tube worker in question could have become the face of a new training programme, instead of being hung out to dry.