Telling the truth is an absolute necessity if you or your organization is caught up in a crisis. First, of course, it’s the morally right thing to do. But if morals aren’t your cup of tea, pragmatically it’s the right thing to do. The truth will come out. And if the truth shows you’ve been […]
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications When working with companies and organizations on crisis communication plans, we ask a simple question to the leadership team: What keeps you up at night? The #1 answer for businesses across the world is becoming clear: cybersecurity. Infosecurity Magazine, citing the 11th Annual Survey of Emerging Risks involving 200 risk managers […]
By Thom Fladung, Managing Partner, Hennes Communications Here are three immutable laws of bad news about you or your organization: The bad news won’t go away. People will find out about the bad news. If they find out you covered up the bad news, you now have worse news. One of the most recent […]
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications Whether in-person or virtual, the kids are still in school. For the moment, however, this will be a class for the adults – and class is now in session on how to handle a social media crisis. On a Labor Day Sunday some time ago, the leadership team at a school […]
[By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications] Tell the truth. Tell it all. Tell it first. Tell it fast. Tell it on “Hard Knocks.” OK, that last one about HBO’s Emmy Award-winning inside look at a National Football League team’s training camp is not one of our fundamental principles at Hennes Communications when we’re working with clients […]
[By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications] Facebook recently revealed what content it’s going to allow its users to post – and what’s not allowed. If you have social media channels like a Facebook page that invites comments or a website or some other digital platform where people can comment, you should do the same. The Bay Area […]
[By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications] Talk to a bot lately? If you’re on Twitter, chances are decent you have. Bots are automated accounts that have proliferated in social media networks, particularly Twitter and Instagram. They appear to be real people. “They come in all shapes and sizes, and they are borderline perfect,” a story in Forbes […]
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications Papa John’s has delivered the latest example of a too-little, too-late, too-lame apology. As noted just about everywhere, including CNN, Papa John’s attempted to apologize on Twitter, in a series of tweets, after CEO John Schnatter said on an earnings call that sales of the official pizza of the NFL […]
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications In 1782, Benjamin Franklin, while serving as American ambassador to France, reported a shocking story. American revolutionary soldiers had found bags with more than 700 scalps of soldiers, boy, girls and even infants. The massacre, Franklin wrote, was the work of Indians who were allied with King George. And the Indians […]
[By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications] In the years I was helping run newsrooms, one of my least favorite experiences was being in the news. Odd sounding, I know, in that I spent 33 years putting people, businesses and other organizations in the news. Hypocritical? Perhaps. Almost always, though, if one of my newspapers was in […]