When CoSIDA enlisted the services of Cryder-Rinebold in 2012 for help with strategic branding, one of the goals was to take a comprehensive view of the organization through the eyes of the many internal and external constituents the members serve on a daily basis. At the 2013 CoSIDA Convention in Orlando this past June, the results of that strategic branding survey were presented to the membership.
Interestingly, one of the skill areas that Athletic Directors said media relations people need to develop is in crisis communications.
The speed at which social media can turn an issue into a crisis is blinding. If you’re not listening and watching, an errant tweet or an incident of misbehavior can fuel a crisis quickly.
Recently, we asked former CoSIDA New Media chairperson Chris Syme to answer a few questions about how CoSIDA members can get their skills up to speed. Syme has served as an athletic communications professional at numerous universities, most recently
Syme’s company, CKSyme Media Group, specializes in crisis communications and social media training, and has worked with college athletic departments around
the country.
Her new book, called Practice Safe Social, is a primer on how to train people to use social media responsibly. It’s a training manual of sorts designed to help social media managers and communications professionals teach their charges how to use social media responsibly. The book has a strong bent towards higher education and college sports, yet its implications are as broad as social media use. Just released this week at Amazon.com, it is available right now at an early bird discount.
CoSIDA.com interviewed Syme about her work in crisis communications, her time serving as the New Media committee chair, her work as a presenter at numerous CoSIDA Conventions and continuing education sessions and what she believes are the next steps for CoSIDA members to enhance their crisis communications/strategic communications skill set.
1. If you had to outline the top three skills athletic communications pros need to develop for basic crisis communications, what would they be?
I think we need to start off by just acknowledging that most media relations people are on overload. Many SIDs I talk to say they don’t know if they can handle any more, especially at the non-BCS schools where staffing levels are crunched. The pressure to “keep up with the Joneses” is putting some communicators on the fast track to burnout.
Having said that, I think most of the essential skills are already in place—there just needs to be some re-evaluating of how the actual duties are going to be played out.
First, I strongly believe everyone should know how to set up and implement a digital monitoring system, and that the duties of monitoring should be spread around to three departments: compliance, media relations, and marketing. This should be a cooperative effort with a goal of crisis prevention.
It would be easy to set up a no-cost system with three admins and have each admin responsible for a particular segment of the listening process. Most departments are already using HootSuite, Google Alerts, Sprout Social, or some system of social media management. It’s an elementary task add-on with a short learning curve. But you all need to be on the same page about what you’re listening for and how you will respond, if needed. You just need some kind of early warning system and triage response in place.
The second skill I think is the ability to put together a department crisis plan and implement the training and cooperation necessary to use it. The SID might not be the point person in crisis, but they should be the Chief Information Officer in the department. There are a lot of good templates out there—don’t reinvent the wheel. Find one that fits your resources, and modify it to fit your needs.
The third necessary skill is leadership. I know this sounds hokey, but honestly we are in desperate need of this skill as communicators. Without it, people won’t look to us as authorities. Many sports information people I run across don’t think big picture in the athletic department. We tend to be support, not leadership. Why shouldn’t athletic communicators be the leaders in the department when crisis strikes? We are the ones with all the needed skills—technology, writing, messaging, public relations, relationships with media. Honestly, I think most SIDs have the skills in crisis communications, but we’re being overlooked by administration. Maybe it’s because many athletic media relations pros really don’t want that added role.
2. With so many personalities and “personal brands” using social media within the department, what is the best way to manage that?
I don’t know if there is any best way to manage it. I’ve worked with many schools, and each one had its own culture. At some schools, the Athletic Directors are proactive and want the social media to be branded and resourced by the department, and at some everyone was on their own. I think it’s most beneficial for the administration, coaches, and media relations people to decide together how personal social media accounts are going to be handled. It 
scares me to think of coaches just winging it on their own. I’ve seen some pretty awful stuff come from coaches’ tweets, but on the other hand, continue to see some tremendous stuff, too.
I think it’s important to train everyone together to be on the same page. At some schools, we do social media training for coaches and administrators separately from the athletes. Some schools want everybody together. But the important thing is to get everyone trained on how to use social media responsibly. You can’t afford not to anymore. Whether the team media relations director does it or you bring someone in, PLEASE give people information on how to do it right.
Many of the coaches I’ve talked to don’t know what to do—they are just out there because everybody else is. And I’m not so much worried about what they’ll do that is wrong, but think of all the recruiting and marketing potential we’re missing out on because we’re not training them to do it right.
3. What are the legal and ethical issues surrounding monitoring student-athletes on social media?
Well, I’m not a lawyer, but I keep a pretty watchful eye on what is going on. I predict that it won’t be long until every state has a social media privacy law. There are several on the books now and they are all different. When the federal government declined to pass SNOPA, the states had no choice.
First step is to find out if your state has a social media law and ask compliance or your conference legal person to take a look at it.
I also predict it won’t be long until social media monitoring applications that require student-athletes to “friend” them will be illegal as they are now in several states. I always tell SIDs to stay away from those kinds of programs. You can probably set up your own monitoring system in the public space without ever asking a student-athlete for anything. I wouldn’t worry about Facebook anyway. Just teach student-athletes how to shut their privacy settings down on that social media platform.
Everyone also needs to be aware of their compliance issues. NCAA Divison III recently came up with this awesome 'cheat sheet' on what you can and can’t do in social media. It would be beneficial if the other two divisions and NAIA would come up with a similar tool.
4. Where would you suggest that athletic communicators find resources to strengthen their skills in crisis communications?
First, I would suggest that media relations people sit down with their Athletic Directors and discuss what tasks they feel are needed in the area of crisis communications - that will dictate the skills they need. My guess is many media relations people already have the skills - perhaps their ADs just don’t know it.
I am hoping that in the coming years, CoSIDA will be proactive in providing continuing education in this area aimed at training, not just discussing the issues. Following the Cryder-Rinebold strategic branding study and survey and the recommendations coming out of that branding study, I know there is serious discussion taking place right now in terms of continuing education training modules for CoSIDA members.
I’d even like to see a learning track provided during the annual CoSIDA Convention that is run more like a multi-session course people can take. This is how some of the big education and business conferences do it, and I think it’s a good model.
There are also a lot of good resources out there in the business sectors - free webinars, white papers, and books. Forgive the promotion, but I think Practice Safe Social, my book on how to train people to use social media responsibly is a good start. It was written with crisis prevention in mind.
And there are a few other good books I would suggest: Jane Jordan Meier’s Four Stages of Highly Effective Crisis Management, Radically Transparent (managing reputation online) by Andy Beal, The Media Training Bible by Brad Phillips, and When the Headline is You by Jeff Ansell. All are good reads for those in-season plane trips or long bus rides.