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SM& President and crisis communications expert Ashley McCown was a guest blogger on the Greater Boston Real Estate Board's blog providing key takeaways for the real estate industry in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon attack.

Click here to read the blog.

Solomon McCown President and crisis communications expert Ashley McCown participated in a Wells Fargo Network Security and Privacy Risk Seminar on September 24. Ashley joined several distinguished legal and insurance experts to talk about the risks involved with privacy and network security and how companies can proactively protect themselves from a public relations disaster in the event of a data breach.

"It's not a matter of if, but when," Ashley said about data breaches. "The decisions and pressure on an organization when it actually happens is unbelievable and overwhelming. The clock starts ticking right away and in this world of 24/7 media, a slow, unsure response can be deadly."

Advanced planning is key. Though it can be difficult to make the case to budget-conscious CEOs spending dollars upfront on communications planning and training will save money in the long-term and help avoid a devastating reputational hit. Nearly all communications materials-- media statements, fact sheets, letters to customers and clients-- can be prepared in advance so there is something to work with when the crisis strikes.

Ashley encouraged leaders to think about how they want their companies to be perceived after the crisis is over. Proactive and regular communication to key audiences - including clients, employees and the media - is crucial. Especially in a digital age when social media makes everyone a reporter, and there is little or no accountability for sharing inaccurate information, companies must be willing to control their own narrative. Ducking behind "no comment" is not a viable communications strategy and will imply that a company has something to hide or is not in control of the response.

Social media is a fantastic tool in the event of a crisis such as a data breach, but only if a company has loyal and engaged following ahead of time. It is impossible to play catch-up and try to build a strong social network as a crisis is unfolding.  Loyal social networkers can help spread company statements and come to its defense. But, as Ashley said, "If you don't hit the 'on' button on social media until your crisis, you're toast."

Internet Domain GoDaddy.com is no stranger to crisis, having experienced more than its fair share, including several backlashes as a result of their overly sexual advertising and a customer revolt over a video of their CEO Bob Parsons killing elephants.

Monday afternoon crisis struck GoDaddy.com again when the Internet domain lost control of its website services almost entirely, causing GoDaddy hosted websites and email services to go offline. How did this happen? Shortly after the outage, someone on Twitter claimed to have hacked the GoDaddy system as part of Anonymous, a loose confederation of rogue hackers. However, today GoDaddy announced the shutdown was a result of the failures in the company's own systems.

While GoDaddy's system was up and running Tuesday morning, the several-hours long crash left many GoDaddy customers frustrated -- and reacting on Twitter and blogs. One comment thread on a TheNextWeb.com article even called for a class action lawsuit against GoDaddy for the loss of business for the day.

Despite its prior crisis experience, GoDaddy has shown too slow to respond and take the lead role in providing information. Here are four crisis lessons to be learned from GoDaddy's woes:

Be the first to break the bad news.

GoDaddy made the mistake of not breaking the news first. As seen in this screenshot of Google results shortly after the crisis happened, it's easy to see that GoDaddy did not have a direct presence in the crisis. GoDaddy's voice was swimming in a sea of other articles publicizing the issue.

If GoDaddy had responded in a timely manner and alerted their customer base and the general public first instead of having news sources find out about the shutdown from a secondary source, the crisis would have been much more easily managed.

Go beyond apologizing. Establish and communicate a plan of action in your announcement.

GoDaddy deserves some credit for attempting to control the crisis by responding on social media with apologies and numerous "thanks for understanding" responses. However, customers wanted answers. By providing periodic public information updates to the client via Twitter, Facebook and their website, GoDaddy would have been able to keep customers informed, while showing them their company is working to solve the issue.

GoDaddy did publish a message on their main webpage, but only for a brief time. The message simply stated GoDaddy is experiencing issues and is working on the problem, leaving their customers mostly in the dark without any information updates. If GoDaddy were able to communicate to customers what exact steps they were taking to manage the problem, customers would have likely responded differently.

Provide your affected customers a place to express their frustrations and seek assistance.

If GoDaddy had a central place for customers to vent their frustrations and answer questions, they would have had a stronger voice and been able to contact customers more efficiently. Because Go Daddy lacked this central place to respond, customers retreated to discussion boards, such as TheNextWeb.com and other platforms. Instead of opting to try and contain customer concerns on their home turf, theygave customers no choice but to vent their frustrations outside of the GoDaddy website.

Put a halt to any external communications efforts, which could come off as inappropriate, as soon as possible.

Ironically, shortly after the crisis, GoDaddy sent customers  a back-to-school themed  email blast entitled "Today's Lesson." The timing of the email made it sound like an internal response to the crisis to customers. However, the email only revealed a 20 percent% off offer. GoDaddy should have recognized this email title could be perceived as a response to the crisis and stopped the communication from occurring.

In the midst of a crisis, it's important to be conscience of how communications and media relations efforts can be perceived.

Establish a crisis communications plan for future crises.

Although it is impossible to predict any and all crises, when a crisis strikes, communication is critical to protect an organization's reputation and ability to fulfill its mission. A swift and effective response can prevent a challenging situation from escalating into a full-blown crisis with far-reaching negative implications. The key to responding well in a crisis is preparation. Given that GoDaddy is not new to the crisis scene, a communication plan is likely already been established. However, given their poor response to the recent outage, it seems their crisis communications plan is in need of some serious improvement.

By Amey Owen, Account Coordinator at Solomon McCown & Company

For many - including myself - the thought alone of crisis communications can be intimidating. Crises are by definition scary, and as PR professionals, we must think on our feet and move quickly and confidently to help our clients get through it. Our own crisis guru, Ashley McCown, is great to learn from and has shown me that crisis communications is one of the most important areas of public relations. Stories won't always come out the way you want them to, natural and man-made disasters occur, and negative events that you have no control over will impact you. It's what you do with it that matters.

How a company manages a crisis impacts its brand and reputation. Here are a few pointers I've learned in the past couple months as an account coordinator at Solomon McCown:

1. Get with it! It's the 21st century. Today's world is a constant race of who can get the word out fastest, and often accuracy suffers. (Think CNN and the Supreme Court's Obamacare ruling…) Twitter can take a tiny local drama to a national level if it's picked up by influential tweeps. Content can be twisted into something much uglier than you originally intended, and yet silence is riskier. At SMC, we monitor any and all coverage that runs on an incident involving our clients to understand the coverage, anticipate reactions, and remain as in control of the situation as possible.

2. Be prepared…or prepare to stress. A key element of crisis management is anticipating what could go wrong before it ever does. It's a gloomy task having to prepare for a tragedy that hasn't happened yet (and hopefully never will), but it's a valuable exercise. Look at a potential situation from every angle, then plan and play out all the options. Being ready for the worst means you won't have to waste precious time in the crisis thinking about what to do or say. Plus, making rushed decisions often makes matters worse.

3. Keep your message clear and concise. Crises are chaotic. When a reporter calls in tough times and asks hard questions, you better have your answers ready and rehearsed. If you fumble around without thinking before speaking, the reporter will likely take advantage. You could end up being misquoted and/or misrepresented in the media, and therefore to the public as well. Know the message you want to send in various situations, and make sure its brief and clear. The most effective responses consist of three parts: 1) the answer to the question; 2) data and/or facts to support it; and 3) repetition (restate your answer and supporting information to drive the main point home).

4. Know your non-verbals: Body language is often louder than words. When media training a client, we focus on non-verbals cues to be sure they align with the issue at hand. Talking about the devastation caused by an accident while plastering a toothy smile on your face will not only hurt your reputation (because that's creepy), but it will hurt the company's image and credibility. The message may be sympathetic, but the public will only notice that it was said with a smile and consider it shallow, insincere and insensitive. Adopt a tone appropriate to the story so that the public can empathize, understand the situation, and trust that you care and are being as helpful as possible. It's also important to dress appropriately and avoid nervous ticks. The goal is to be human while showing confidence and control of the situation.

These tips are just a few of the many important things to take note of when dealing with a crisis. People want to see someone that can acknowledge an issue, take responsibility where it is due, and work hard to assure it won't happen again. In a day where the smallest issue can grow exponentially, it's important to be prepared for the events you hope will never occur.

By Anna Rabin, Account Coordinator at Solomon McCown & Company

SM& President and crisis communications expert, Ashley McCown was featured in national PR trade, PRWeek, providing tips on how to prepare for a social media crisis. In the article, McCown discusses the power of the online petition that can often become an instant nightmare for the organization in question.  Anyone remember when Bank of America tried to enact the monthly $5 debit card fee?

Click here to read the full article

Follow Ashley McCown at @crisisbostonpr