Engaging in Real-Time Media

This week we discussed chapters 6 and 7 in Real-Time Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott. Throughout these two chapters we discussed the importance of responding to the media in real-time. If you don't reply in real-time then it is possible you may miss an opportunity to be the face of a story because you had all the information, but the media went with someone else who could talk about the topic at that time.

When a major crisis occurs and there isn't a lot of information coming from the company, then journalists and major news stations are going to turn to social media and blogs to find out what is going on. When this happens, the individual whose blog or social media contains all the information will be contacted by the media to get a full story. Social media plays such a large part in major events now because the information is happening real-time. Social media has also become a very important part of national conferences, as people tweet with a specific hashtag, which allows individuals not at the conference to know what is being discussed.

The title of chapter 6 is Engage the Media at Their Convenience. This could not be more true because if you don't have the time to comment and discuss the story then someone else will. The news is constantly changing and we are all being updated in real-time. These updates can take place as notifications that pop up on your smart phone from varies news outlets or google alerts which will let you know when something major happens near your location. I currently receive notifications that will pop up on my phone when something major happens either nationally or internationally. I also receive an email every morning telling my the top 10 things that I need to know for that day.

Throughout chapter 7 we discussed crisis communication and the dos and don'ts. During a crisis it is important to first off tell the truth and second off reply to allegations as quickly as possible. The outcome will go in favor of your company, if the company finds out about the incident and goes straight to the source, so the problem can be solved quicker, The worst thing for a company to do is tell the media they have no comment.The company could be responding no comment because they actually don't know anything about the situation. Another reason that they may be saying no comment is because they were told by a higher up authority to keep this situation quiet and not give the media anything. The media is in turn going to go to the other individuals involved in the story and potentially get a juicy, false story out of those individuals. This would in turn make the company look worse because what comes out may not actually be the truth, but the company didn't want to give the media a comment, which just made it worse for them. When dealing with a crisis the best approach is to answer the questions you're being asked by the media and release a statement as soon as possible.

Throughout this chapter the main concept I learned is that it's important to answer the media's questions early on, especially so you don't look guilty, and never say no comment. These 2 main ideas where also reiterated last night during our weekly Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) meeting. Our speaker, Tim Glon is the Sports Information Director at Ohio Northern University. Throughout his presentation he discussed a variety of different examples he has worked on through his time spent at ONU and Marshall University. His presentation reiterated many points from this book, such as it is best to go to the media with information instead of waiting for them, always tell the truth and saying no comment will always make you look guilty of something. These points will all be useful in my future career because I will always want to make the company I work for stand out.