By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications The funny thing about trying to be humorous on social media is that it’s too often not funny – and can be quite damaging. Exhibit 1: On March 8, Burger King United Kingdom posted this to Twitter: “Women belong in the kitchen.” On International Women’s Day. The motivation actually was […]
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications Fake news has existed virtually since humans began to communicate. In the case of the United States, it’s existed since before we were the United States. You may have heard of one of its most skilled practitioners: Benjamin Franklin. In 1782, working on a homemade printing press in a Paris suburb, […]
Q. How do I know whether I should respond to a negative social media comment about our organization? A. We’ve worked with several clients recently that faced the challenge of negative social media posts going viral, attracting thousands of comments and shares and threatening the reputation of the organization involved. Before it reaches that crisis […]
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications This 4th of July, amid the fireworks, hot dogs and parades, let’s remember another grand American tradition: making stuff up. Or, as John Adams noted with delight in his diary in 1769, he’d spent the evening in “a curious employment. Cooking up Paragraphs, Articles, Occurrences etc. – working the political Engine!” […]
A recent attendee to a Hennes Communications presentation by Bruce Hennes was prompted to email us this question, regarding the incident in Washington, D.C., involving high school students from Covington, Ky., two different groups of activists and whether clever use of crisis communications on behalf of the students had made the incident “go away.” Here’s […]
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] 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] Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Your reputation is at risk on Twitter and the risk may be triggered by the President of the United States of America. Of course you’ve heard that one. You’ve probably seen the tweets and the stories that followed about New Balance and Nordstrom and Toyota […]
[by Howard Fencl, APR] In the world of TV news, the most rabid members of the viewing public have long been known as “news junkies.” In the pre-web, pre-social media era, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, they were the letter writers, the habitual phone callers; or in extreme (and scary) cases, they were the […]