[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] The University of California, Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi is on administrative leave for spending university cash to push negative news down in search engine results, among other allegations. She authorized spending $175,000 with a search engine suppression (SES) firm in an effort to move five-year-old headlines about campus police […]
The way an organization reacts in the first hours of a crisis will probably determine whether it succeeds or fails in regaining public trust. The way brand managers at Kellogg Co. recently esponded to the release of a video depicting a disgruntled employee should serve as a model for handling a PR crisis. When crisis […]
For decades, animal-rights activists have gone after SeaWorld and its Orca entertainment and breeding programs. And for years, SeaWorld has fought-off those activists, in the Court of Law, as well as the Court of Public Opinion. Rather than continue to fight in those two courtrooms, SeaWorld did a dramatic turnabout, announcing in full-page print and television […]
From Ragan’s PR Daily: When tennis star Maria Sharapova hastily called a press conference, many reporters expected the athlete would be announcing her retirement. Instead, Sharapova dropped a startling admission: She had failed a recent drug test for the Australian Open. Sharapova’s drug test results came back positive for meldonium, a drug used to treat […]
From Entrepreneur Magazine: Managing a public relations crisis feels like piloting an out-of-control plane. You want to minimize the damage, not point the nose toward Earth and push the throttle. Keep your business from going into an uncontrollable free fall by avoiding these big PR mistakes. Don’t reinforce what everyone is saying. In 2012, Matt […]
From ContentStandard: A string of food contaminations in its restaurants has put Chipotle in a desperate situation. Its sales in the final quarter of 2015 dropped by nearly 15 percent, and its stock is currently below $460 after an all-time high of $758 just a few months earlier. To try and correct its course, the […]
From SocialTimes: An unfortunate reality for page administrators on Facebook is the need to deal with negative comments, but deleting those comments or disabling them altogether is a mistake. Social analytics and reporting firm Locowise shared a guide to dealing with negative comments, saying that the positives of leaving comments enabled on Facebook pages still […]