Home › Practical support & advice › Management community › Blogs

A day in the life of the Kent Chair - "Navigating a Social Media Crisis"

Submitted by Wesley Gransden FCMI on Mon, 18/10/2010 - 11:07

Last week I attended the joint CIM & CMI event “Navigating a Social Media Crisis - Clarence Mitchell”

The venue was at Canterbury Christchurch University and was well attended by over 80 people. It was hosted by Neil Lakeland who is the Chairman for the Kent branch of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Kent CMI supported this event by advertising it to its membership. The attendees varied from Students, Managers, Public Services, Commercial Companies and of course Marketers.

 

Clarence Mitchell

 

Clarence has a wealth of experience and shared some of his experiences and challenges. He manages now and did then the PR for the McCann family. He spoke of the difficulties with the case and the challenges he faced in managing the publicity and PR for the family. A case which certainly continues to be controversial.

He also spoke about classic examples of bad PR including the famous “Ratner” case.

The event finished off with a round of Q&A and it would have easily gone overtime if it wasn’t for the observant time keeping of the Chairman.

Overall it was a very good event and we were very pleased to have been able to support it.

Wesley

 

 

Related Content: 
A day in the life of the Kent Chair - our event "Storytelling in the service of leadership and organization development"
Chairmanship of Kent Branch
You are not watching this post, click to start watching

Comments

Submitted by Adrian Gaskell MCMI on Mon, 18/10/2010 - 11:43 Profile image

Sounds like it was an interesting event Wesley.  Do you have any slides or photos we can post up?

Submitted by on Mon, 18/10/2010 - 15:37

And will Clarence be here to answer questions? :)

Submitted by Wesley Gransden FCMI on Mon, 18/10/2010 - 15:49 Profile image

Hi 

No Clarence is not here to answer any questions but I'm sure they could have been made at the event & he would have been happy to answer them then.

I'll put some photos up on the event when they become available.

Thanks

Wesley

Submitted by Adrian Gaskell MCMI on Mon, 18/10/2010 - 16:28 Profile image

Get him signed up as an e-member Wes, he'd love it :) He'd be more than welcome to join in at http://www.managers.org.uk/socialmedia101 where we discuss all things social media related.

Submitted by Wesley Gransden FCMI on Mon, 18/10/2010 - 20:30 Profile image

I'll certainly see what I can do.

Submitted by Nicola Worsley on Tue, 19/10/2010 - 06:35

Sounds like it would have been a fascinating event.  It would be great if he could pop by to answer some questions or the slides could be uploaded or something.

Submitted by Mike Davies on Wed, 20/10/2010 - 11:30

So what did you take from the event Wesley?  What would be your top tip for managing a social media crisis?

Submitted by Wesley Gransden FCMI on Wed, 20/10/2010 - 12:42 Profile image

Hello, 

I don't have my notes with me but from the top of my head they certainly included:

 

  • Never ignore the power of social media - (at your peril)
  • Act fast & decisively on the issues
  • Monitor keywords and SM actively on the internet
  • Use social media to put your case out there
  • Follow up customer dissatisfaction
  • Always make sure you apologise for where you went wrong

 

Wesley

 

Submitted by Mike Davies on Wed, 20/10/2010 - 15:09

Thanks Wesley.  Is he still working with the McCann family?  It's all gone a bit quiet on that front in the media.

Submitted by Wesley Gransden FCMI on Wed, 20/10/2010 - 15:18 Profile image

Yes he is...but I think the quiet may be short lived as I have seen activity on twitter regarding the Portugese courts making a ruling against the banning of a book related to the case? I don't keep up to speed on the case itself so can't really comment on it but as I say that quiet may be short lived & certainly as of last week he was still in charge of the PR.

Could the quiet in the media be perceived as a success?

Wesley

Submitted by Mike Davies on Thu, 21/10/2010 - 11:42

I presume Maddy is still missing?  Seems such a long time ago now.  Guess the omens aren't so good.  That's probably taking this blog a bit off course though.

Submitted by Wesley Gransden FCMI on Thu, 21/10/2010 - 15:38 Profile image

Hi Mike

Simple terrible answer is she's still missing. 

Wes