Case study: post disaster communication

The disaster is behind you and it is now time to proactively communicate to put those bums back on seats/in bed.

This topic provides a few ideas to fast-track your positive communication from different angles.

Using social media to rebuild your reputation

In an age of instant information distribution, social media has become a powerful tool for businesses. In times of crisis, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube have become metaphorical megaphones for regions who want to share their side of the story amidst negative news reports.

The key to effective communication in the event of a disaster is to be clear, quick and credible. The information that is produced by the tourism operators, small businesses and tourism/government organisations in a disaster-affected area should portray a unified message to outsiders. You can do this by being consistent in your messaging and updating your status in the context of the disaster using reliable sources such as local police/fire brigade/SES/road services reports to identify the risks, or lack thereof, to visitors.

Embracing the SHOCC principle

SHOCC is a disaster marketing principle designed to get you in the right headspace to develop appropriate marketing content following a bushfire, drought, flood or other event.

The principles we’d like you to apply in your recovery marketing are:

S – Supportive: Be supportive of your community and your industry colleagues, together you will be stronger and collaboration is vital for recovery
H – Honest: Be open and honest in your communications playing a vital role of keeping people informed with credible information
O – Optimistic: What else can you be? You’re resilient and you’ll get through this and we and your industry is here to support you
C – Communicative: This is the time to get your communications and marketing mojo on. Never has it been more important to be consistent in your posting and communications, get the frequency right, use the right channels and make use of your contacts
C – Creative: You’ve got nothing to lose right now and you need to make a splash to get the attention of your ideal guests. It’s time to try new things: campaigns, events, re-think your services and marketing

Blogging

You need to get the message of the ‘current situation’ in your region out there, to the top of the search engines and to your audience. The easiest way to do this is through a blog post.

Your blog post should answer a specific question about what guests can expect during their next visit. It is a good idea to use a specific upcoming holiday (Australia Day long weekend, Labour Day long weekend, Easter, etc) as a suggestion for their next visit. So an example of your blog post heading might be, “What you can expect when visiting [Our Business] during Labour Day weekend?”

Plan out your post using dot points:

What was affected by the disaster?
How were you affected by the disaster?
What has not been affected that guests can include in their itinerary? Provide links to nearby attractions and businesses.
What else can visitors currently see and do?

Use images within your blog post. Of course, we don’t want to scare the visitors away, provide context for the photo by using an appropriate caption, for example, ‘This photo was taken in the nearby national park one month after the fire, look at all the regrowth already!’. If you have relevant videos to share, include them! Consider embedding a google map into the post.

Write your post using language that is appropriate for your audience (no local acronyms that they will not understand. And don’t forget to optimise your blog post for search engines.

Finally, milk your blog post for what it’s worth! Don’t share the post all at once on your social media channels, break it down into parts and spread it out to give you lots of content. Send it to local media outlets and your local tourism organisation as well as to other businesses in your area who may not have written their own posts. And of course, don’t forget to send it to your email database and include a link to it in your email signature.

Sharing the positive

Your audience is familiar with the disruption and devastation that the crisis has caused – it has been on our TV’s, news feeds and become a part of many conversations. And by no doubt, the crisis has affected many businesses. Whether you have been affected by fire, drought, or even more recently, flood, the most important action for any business remains the same: communication.

Throughout this course, you may notice there is a huge emphasis on communication. In this day and age, we are fed so much information that the human need to connect still remains as strong as ever. This is why there is such a push now to share ‘real’ content. Genuine content, content that allows the viewer to feel that connection.

The harsh reality of a bushfire, natural disaster or other crisis can be exhausting both for you and your audience. You can relieve some of this anxiety by sharing an uplifting story that has come out of the event, or what you may be experiencing as a business right this moment.

So, I have an exercise for you. After watching this video, grab a pen and piece of paper.

Think about the challenging event or circumstance you or your business has encountered. It was probably stressful, exhausting and frustrating, but from that experience, positives began to emerge. Or maybe if you haven’t yet had time to see any positives and this could be a great exercise for you. After thinking about the experience, begin to note down any positives that you experienced or are experiencing at this current moment.

Here are some examples for you that you may be able to work with;

The community banded together
Receiving an unexpected hand from a friend, neighbour, relative or complete stranger
Maybe there is a hero story or a selfless act that you may wish to share

Once you have written down some positive experiences, elaborate on the and begin to flesh it out. Depending on the story, think about how you can use this for your social media channels, your email marketing, or would it be a great story to craft into a blog post?

Remember, after so much devastation, it’s most likely that a good new story will be received well by your audience. So give it a try, keep the communication open, honest and in this case, share the positives.

Going live

Going live is a great way to create unique and sharable content for your social media channels. Live videos are more raw than most pre-recorded and edited video content and can really pique the curiosity of your audience, because they won’t know what to expect and will be more eager to watch the video live in the moment. This makes it a great option for those operators who are trying to push their messages following a natural disaster.

There are lots of possibilities of what you might like to do in your live video.

If your business was impacted by the bushfire/flood, you might like to use your live video as a storytelling tool, take your audience on a quick tour and show them how the physical recovery of your property is coming along. You might like to show your audience all of the fresh growth in your area – the green shoots coming out of burned trees. You could talk about a local event that’s coming up and what visitors can expect at that event and your involvement in it, maybe show them how the setup for the event is coming along. You could also talk about a new product you’re offering, or a new tour you have just launched. Or, you might like to address some frequently asked questions.

If your business gets high engagement on your Facebook page, you might like to do a live Q&A session. I recommend this primarily to businesses who get good traction on regular posts on Facebook because you are more likely to have an engaged audience joining your live video. If you are going to do a live Q&A it’s worth having a couple of minutes worth of material to talk about at the beginning on your video while people join, and having some FAQ’s ready to address while you’re waiting for people to think of their own.

Of course, you will need to plan out your live content just as you would for anything other posts. To get the timing of your video right, have a look at your Facebook insights to see when the majority of your followers are online. You can see this by going to insights and clicking on ‘posts’. If your business does better on Instagram and you are planning on going live there instead, you can look for this same information by going to your insights, click on audience, and scroll right to the bottom of the screen. It’s good to have this information because you want to schedule your live video for a time of the day when your audience activity is at its peak to give it the best possible exposure.

If you’ve never done a live video on Facebook or Instagram, you might like to practice in advance. You can do this by going live on your own personal page so you can get an idea of how it works before you do the real thing. This is handy because on your personal page you can adjust the audience settings from ‘public’ or ‘friends’ to ‘specific friends only’ or ’only me’, which will limit the number of people who see your practice video if you’d prefer it that way.

It’s a good idea to build some hype for your live video too. Schedule some posts a few days in advance letting your audience know that you’re going to go live at a certain time on a certain day to talk about something special, or to show them something interesting. This is important especially if you are hoping for live interaction such as in the Q&A example.

If you’re going live on Facebook, you can schedule your live broadcast up to one week in advance by using Facebook’s Live Producer. It might be handy to have a colleague on hand watching the video live so they can field any questions or comments from audience members who interact while you’re live.

Once the video is done Facebook will process the video and add it to your newsfeed, from there you’ll be able to download it and share it on other platforms such as IGTV and Youtube, and you can even embed it in your website, maybe in a blog post perhaps.

If you go live on Instagram your video will be available for 24 hours as a story. You will also have the option to share your video to your IGTV or to download it to your camera roll if you wish to repost in on your other channels.

For those few operators who are active on twitter, you can go live on twitter but be aware that the maximum time is 2minutes and 20 seconds so you need to keep it short and sweet.

Taking advantage of broader recovery marketing campaigns

In response to the 2019/2020 Australian bushfire crisis, Tourism Australia launched the Holiday Here This Year campaign and with it, they offered lots of tips and guidance on how tourism operators can interact with their campaign. This was a great opportunity for Australian tourism businesses to reach a new domestic audience. To make the most of this campaign and other state and regional bushfire recovery campaigns, operators needed to take the time to align their marketing messaging with that that is being presented with the campaign as a whole.

One part of this process is to revisit your listing on the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW). Now is the time to log in and update your listing with specific information regarding whether you are currently open for business and upload new images that present your business in its best light. Campaigns such as the Holiday Here This Year campaign are likely to source information about tourism operators from this source so it’s your responsibility to ensure that you are putting the best information out there to be captured.

In light of previous disaster recovery campaigns, perhaps you can begin thinking about how to deal with the current disaster. Who do you have to contact, what other local operators can you get involved?

Other disaster recovery marketing campaign examples:

“Book Them Out” SA bushfire recovery campaign

Organised by the South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC) in January 2020 following the devastating bushfires in South Australia, the Book Them Out campaign focused on two regions, Kangaroo Island and Adelaide Hills. “The #BookThemOut campaign was designed with a clear message that we need to get people back to the regions, and to support our communities,” said SATC Chief Executive Rodney Harrex.

The campaign included the creation of videos showcasing local tourism operators and locations. It also provided operators with branding the use on their social media channels to help regions portray a unified message with imagery, logos, printed signs and of course the #BookThemOut hashtag.

The campaign had big impact on the number of interest and enquiries for the two regions. The SATC website recorded a 150% boost in leads for Kangaroo Island and a 200% boost for Adelaide Hills (Adelaide Now, 2020). Operators themselves also reported a spike of visitor interest and enquiries following the launch of the campaign (SATC, 2020).

“Empty Esky” – National bushfire recovery campaign

The Empty Esky campaign was not affiliated with any official government department or tourism body, rather, it was launched by 3 friends as a not-for-profit to raise awareness and gather a commitment from travellers to visit fire-affected communities. The message on the Empty Esky website states, “We encourage everyone to grab an Empty Esky, embark on a road trip to a fire-affected town (when it’s safe to do so) and to stock up with produce and wares purchased from local traders.”

Tourism businesses could register their business to appear on the Empty Esky map and travel itineraries. And travellers could make a pledge to visit these businesses and spend money in the areas in order to contribute to the survival of these regions. The hashtags #emptyeskies and #gowithemptyeskies were used on social media by visitors pledging to visit tourism regions impacted by fire as well as by businesses who wanted to raise awareness for their product.

“There’s Never Been a Better Time” – North Queensland flood recovery campaign

Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ) worked with tourism operators and communities in North Queensland to boost visitation to the region after a record monsoon season caused significant flooding.

The campaign, managed by Ignite Travel Group, set up arrangements with My QLD Holiday so that for every North Queensland travel package booked with the travel agency, $50 would go to the St Vincent De Paul (Vinnies) North Queensland Appeal. This incentive therefore not only benefited the tourism businesses in Tropical North Queensland, Townsville, Magnetic Island and Whitsundays, it also supported the community recovery effort being organised by St Vincent De Paul.

In September 2019, Minister for Innovation and Tourism Industry Development Kate Jones announced that, as a result of the campaign, over $7 million worth of holiday packages to North Queensland were sold and over $20,000 in recovery funds were raised for community members impacted by the floods.

To get the most out of a regional or national recovery marketing campaign you will first need to track down the organiser’s website and campaign information page. The guidelines for the best ways to be involved in the campaign will differ according to the campaign strategy, but there will be information available on how to make the most of the campaign for your region and your business.

It is likely that there will be marketing guidelines available for small businesses to use which will outline the correct way to use hashtags, imagery, logos and messaging that will align with the overall campaign. Tourism Australia released a marketing toolkit to assist operators in their application of the Holiday Here This Year message. The toolkit provided information about the campaign, guidance on how to use the campaign logos and more. The branding images that are provided by the organisation driving the campaign can be added to your own photos of your property or tourism product through tools such as Canva, which you can then post on social media and on your website.