#1 – Prepare for the worst. If I were going to take on the enormous technical challenge of drilling 5,000 feet under the ocean, I’d make sure I knew what I was doing – and would have thought through the worst case scenario. If BP had prepared for the worst, it might have plugged the leak much sooner and averted a PR crisis of epic proportions. Instead, what we saw were weeks of flailing around with top hats and top kills and all the other failed attempts that just served to make BP look more and more incompetent, until the well was finally plugged after more than 100 days.

#2 – Put your best foot forward. Make sure your public spokesperson is informed, not gaffe-prone, and genuinely sympathetic to the plights of the victims — in other words, everything BP CEO Tony “I want my life back” Hayward wasn’t. It’s astonishing that BP kept Hayward in such a public role for as long as it did.

#3 – Be open and honest. Here is where BP should have taken a page from the Tylenol playbook on crisis communication. Some of us (ahem) are not too young to remember this 1982 drug-tampering case in which cyanide-contaminated capsules killed seven people. Not only did Johnson & Johnson act immediately to recall every bottle of Tylenol, but from the get-go the company was up front with the public about the scope of the incident and the steps it was taking to keep people safe. In contrast, BP downplayed the potential impact of the spill early on, questioned the size and even existence of underwater oil plumes, continually put out figures that grossly underestimated the amount of oil being spilled, and gave overly optimistic estimates on when the spill would be contained (thereby setting itself up for failure). When the entire world could view a live webcam showing the huge volumes of oil gushing into the ocean day after day, the publicity about the low numbers only made BP look more greedy and incompetent. Then there’s the matter of the toxic chemical dispersants which BP used in much higher quantities than recommended by the EPA, and initially against Coast Guard orders. Yet, BP was extremely cagey about how much, and what types, of chemicals have been used. Granted, the dispersants might not cause as immediate a threat as cyanide in Tylenol capsules, but tell that to the generations of people and wildlife that might suffer severe health consequences down the road.

#4 – Go easy on the splashy PR campaign. BP has spent a fortune on a massive, multi-faceted campaign to save its public image and convince the world that it will “make it right.” This has struck a hollow chord with many of us who believe that actions speak louder than words, and who truly believe that the Gulf area will never be completely “made right.” If the goal is to improve BP’s image, then the campaign money might be better spent compensating the victims, cleaning up the beaches, and rehabilitating the wildlife.

#5 – Don’t restrict the media. Repeatedly, BP blocked the media from accessing clean-up sites and banned flights over affected areas – just two of several examples of how the company tried to restrict coverage of the spill. We’re all for managing the message and doing what you can to ensure consistent communications, but restricting the media altogether just makes you look like you’re hiding something and drags your credibility down even further.

So here we are, left with a crisis that is beginning to recede from the public mindset – but still with many unanswered questions about exactly how much oil is still left in the Gulf, how all the financial victims will be identified and compensated, and what will be the long-term impact on the birds and sea life. For PR professionals, BP offers up a useful case study. For corporations who face large-scale PR crises in the future, BP’s example serves as a valuable lesson – one they can learn from by placing the public’s interest ahead of financial gain.

Editor’s note: Susan Pazera has more than a passing acquaintance with the Gulf of Mexico, having sailed across it from Mexico to Florida in 2004.

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In today’s eco-conscious, environmentally aware society, it’s truer than ever that being green is good business. And by extension, being green is good PR for your business.

If your company’s management is genuinely interested in minimizing its effect on the environment, then you have likely already taken serious steps toward greening your production line processes and offices, and/or even reduced your products’ toxicity and energy consumption requirements. There is an authentic story to tell here, and a PR firm or team can act as an ambassador to help you spread the word, placing news articles, communicating about your company’s environmentally friendly activities, and boosting awareness of your environmental efforts.

There’s actually an increasing number of green promo opportunities into which PR folks can dig, regardless of the business sector. Trade publications in a wide range of industries are hiring environmental editors and green beat journalists, and some pubs are even devoting entire issues to the greener side. There are also green technology trade shows, events, and associations around the world devoted to helping businesses reduce their global footprint through new technologies.

But before you jump on the green bandwagon, some self-scrutiny is probably in order. Say your company has a product or service that it thinks should be environmentally beneficial. What you need to find out is, relatively, how green it really is. For example, are your manufacturing processes carried out in ways that might be considered harmful for the environment in some respects? If so, how do these processes compare with the greenness offered by your final product? Making environmental claims without considering all angles of the story is risky business. Without proper research, you might face a backlash down the road—including possible accusations of “greenwashing.”

According to the EnviroMedia Greenwashing Index, greenwashing occurs “when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be ‘green’ through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact. It’s whitewashing, but with a green brush.”

As in other aspects of your company’s public communications, there’s no substitute for honesty supported by a thorough understanding of your market—and this is what you should expect from your PR agency when it comes to your “green” strategy.

The right PR firm will help your company stay on track when communicating any green feature or benefit set you want to promote while being careful to communicate to the media only the most truthful portrayal of the benefits offered by your products and services. That means no exaggerating. No hyperbole. And it means maintaining a good understanding of environmental issues within your particular business “ecosystem.” This last point allows the PR firm to consider the impact of your products and services on your markets and to communicate it in an authentic way.

A key strength of many green PR strategies is the ability to communicate how socially responsible a client is, or, rather, to promote how active the company is in contributing to society, or to the environment. A good PR firm won’t inflate or amplify your company’s actions, but it can make sound suggestions about how to begin getting involved in and giving back to the community in an environmentally responsible way.

Your PR firm will want to find out about how your company and your products or services help to minimize the footprint that humans have on the planet. But the green PR practitioner’s responsibility goes far beyond that. Your PR firm’s experience with social responsibility, market understanding and its sensitivity to current issues and the environment will be key in helping you build a green promotional strategy that most authentically represents your products, concerns and actions toward the environment.

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Whether you work in a conventional office or from a home office, as I do, then every day you’re handling various materials that help you do your job; creating a certain amount of waste; using cleaning products to keep your desk spic and span; and consuming various beverages and foods to keep you sufficiently distracted and somewhat mentally alert. All of these actions add up to produce a footprint that has a collective impact on the environment.

You may not be contributing as much waste to the environment as a factory, but even so you’d like to make a difference. If you’re wondering what’s the best way to start, let me share with you what we’ve done so far at Wall Street Communications.

Most of us at Wall Street have been with the company for a number of years, and we’re a pretty close crew despite the fact that 21 out of our 25 employees work from home offices. We’ve already got a head start in becoming a greener company because our telecommuting model reduces our overall morning CO2 surge, and most of us are longtime recyclers of office paper products. Quite a few members of the staff are concerned about or active in environmental preservation, and with a number of our clients implementing green/clean technology practices for their own companies, we decided to explore ways to integrate even greater greenness into our own business practices.

Often, adoption of green practices will be a grassroots effort at first, led by one or two employees with a commitment to getting their green thing on and inspiring others to do same on an informal basis. Getting senior management motivated is a key step in greening your office, so get the whole team on board. Don’t be too shy to reach out and see if your fellow employees are interested in greening your office tasks. You’ll most likely be surprised by the support you get. There are a lot of closet greens out there.

Fortunately for Wall Street staff, we had management buy-in from the outset. Company president Chris Lesieutre not only voiced his concerns about the environment, but also helped set the stage for formal talk among management. About a year ago, he asked a couple of us to put together a best green practices document for Wall Street Communications. The effort led to the formation of the company’s “green committee.”

In working to develop our best green practices, we did a lot of engaging and active soliciting of Wall Streeters for information about their daily work habits, their office equipment, and whether or not they recycle paper and items such as ink cartridges. We asked if they sip their coffee from Styrofoam cups or washable mugs, what type of lightbulbs they use, how they heat their offices, and a lot more. Somewhere along the way, the idea of launching a green newsletter just for us was born.

The purpose of our newsletter is to sensitize staff to the importance of greening their individual work environments and to provide useful advice about how to do so. At first we distributed it as a text-only email and posted it on our Facebook group, but we had such a great response that after only a couple of bi-monthly issues, we developed our own look and feel and made the newsletter official and interactive.

Now, I’m not saying that you’ll necessarily have the tools or the bandwidth to get a newsletter started, but I am telling you that reaching out to others in the company – and to senior management once you’re ready to take your day to day efforts to the next level – is a definite must. Once you’ve found some like-minded individuals, starting a small green committee, just as we did, is one way to increase the power of one. Together, you can decide how to get key decision-makers in the company to support your initiatives.

Start small, and have patience. Show management how your company is contributing to global waste, and then outline a path for change. If your green actions already are saving the company money – by reducing printing costs, energy, or other investments of time or money – let management know. The discussion surrounding adoption of greener day-to-day practices should be a frank, executive-level conversation; if possible, try to get a member of management onto your green team.

While executive-level buy-in is key, the green team should be sure to engage fellow employees. Getting greener is much more fun when others get involved and, in the end, broad participation is essential to any large-scale initiatives. So, get your creativity going and start looking for recycling/reusing tips, tricks or great books on the environment that others might want to share. Dedicate part of your company bulletin board or intranet to the posting of green ideas and achievements. Ask colleagues for their green New Year’s resolutions. In her effort to be more green in 2010, one Wall Street employee found and shared a font that reduces her printer ink usage!

I’m optimistic that we at Wall Street can continue to grow our green efforts and that our green committee will become even stronger through further outreach, meaningful results, and higher ideals. You can do the same! Make 2010 a year to show your true colors and may every one boast a shade of green.

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If you’re reading this, you had to find it on a blog or posted on LinkedIn, and that means you’ve already bought into social media to some degree. And so have I. So the questions become: how important is it, how different is it from traditional forms of business communication, and do I need a specialist to guide me through it?

If social media is just a new set of communications tools (and I think it is), do we require experts and specialists in social media to navigate some brave new world? Or would it, rather, suffice or be even better to choose a communication specialist who actually understands your business and your industry and can then apply the new tools to augment your existing communications programs?

For some organizations, a person who might fit the bill would be the existing Communications Director, for others it might be their public relations firm. Whoever the designated person or team is, remember it’s about the content of what you are communicating, about understanding who and where your audience is, and about identifying the best social media tools for that communication.

Social media is not about the “how many” but rather it’s about the “who.” The B2B trades we all live with have always had (and still have) value because they reach qualified readers. They don’t have the same number of subscribers as generalist consumer publications because that’s not what it’s about. It’s about quality not quantity. The same holds true for B2B social media. So when looking at which social media tools to spend time on, look at who uses those tools.

Take LinkedIn for example. Many professional groups exist on LinkedIn. Some are very specific about “who” should be part of them. The Streaming Media group is obviously about Streaming Media, so you can pretty much rest assured that someone looking for the latest information on hot tubs is not actively participating in that group looking for content on hot tubs. However, the group does present an opportunity to engage with people interested in topics and debates surrounding streaming media. So if you are in the business of providing streaming media tools for example, this might be a great social media tool for you.

That is one example of identifying where you might find your “who.” Now how do you go about communicating with them? You can’t just post “my product is the greatest” and you definitely can’t spam the members with some promotional email. Do you get that twenty-something social media expert you just hired to start up some meaningful conversation in the group? Probably not, how would they know what is meaningful if they don’t understand your business or industry topics but rather only understand the social media tools you can use. An informed communications professional would know what to discuss.

Yes, there is a bit more to it than that. Yes, it would be better to have some real strategy as part of your social media efforts. Yes, it is important to monitor the social media ecosystem and keep on top of what is being said about you and your company etc. And yes, it should be part of your overall communication plans (I can go on…).
Yes, this is why I am making the case that in order to have those things and really have an impact on your communication, brand, and (ultimately) your sales efforts; you should use a communication professional rather than a self-proclaimed social media expert.

If you are overwhelmed by the thought of learning and using social media, you are not alone. It is shaking things up for a lot of us. It is time consuming to learn and even more time consuming to put into practice. The tools available are still evolving; the best practices are still being defined.

Just don’t think your answer to social media questions include hiring some 2.0 savvy person to Tweet for you or that you have to find a specialist Social Media Communication’s agency. It’s about the content, always has been, and probably always will be. All you need to do (if you don’t have someone already) is work with a person or company that understands your business, knows how and what messages will resonate with your customers, and can embrace the new tools social media brings.

If you’re still unsure… call me – I’ll talk you down from the ledge.

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It is not because advertising will help you sell your product or services, gain market share, or any of the other marketing 101 reasons you might think.

Why advertise? Because we need to support the trade media brands whether they are in print or on line so they stay in business! I am not talking charity here…. I am making a case that it is good for your business to make sure these media brands stay in business.

Why do you care if they stay in business? These brands provide credibility to your marketing messages. Their readers, subscribers etc. are loyal to these brands because they provide them with information about the products and services in their respective industries that they need to know about to make decisions. These media brands have the thousands of subscribers they have because they are viewed as a credible resource for information. So when your company is covered by a journalist in the trades, that information has much more credibility than if the company provided it on it’s own to the reader.

As a PR professional, it is my job to get my clients covered in the media. But if the editorial outlets don’t stay in business, where can I push my client’s messages? Direct to customers? Social Media? Sure, those things are fine as PART of the marketing mix – but do not under estimate the value the credibility of the media has for your business.

I hear of too many PR agencies telling clients to invest in PR or social media campaigns instead of advertising. I think this is so wrong and really doing a disservice to their clients and to their respective industries now and for the future.

We must support the trades so they stay in business to carry the valuable editorial information about you to your customers. It doesn’t matter if it’s print or electronic – it is about the media brand (and the journalists that make it up).

You don’t need to run an expensive ad plan… if everyone just found some money to run in the trades it would make a difference.

Great journalists are looking for work because these brands are suffering. We all need to act like a community and support each other.

Please let me know your thoughts on this!

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