ATTENTION: This session requires advance signup to attend. For Online Schedule: Please utilize the RSVP link below the description to reserve your seat. For SXSW GO App: Use the RSVP 'Find a Timeslot' link. You must have a SXSW Interactive, Gold, or Platinum badge to attend, and, you must have an activated SXsocial account (social.sxsw.com) to reserve a seat. If you have any issues with signing up, please email support@sxsw.com. VERY IMPORTANT: Because of the limited space, we recommend you arrive at least 15 minutes prior to the published start time of this session. If you have not checked in at the room you RSVPed for at least five minutes prior to the session start time, you may lose your seat to an attendee in the waiting list line.
Prerequisites:
None.
What to Bring:
Bring a laptop or tablet in order to connect to the simulator which is internet-based.
This is a fully interactive workshop. Attendees will use a social media simulator, Polpeo, to experience the closest thing possible to living through and managing a live crisis breaking and spreading over social media. A team of experienced social media and community managers behind the scenes will mimic the public reaction to the crisis, making the session incredibly realistic.
You will work in teams (teams will be allocated on the day), but everyone will be given an individual login to Polpeo to experience first-hand what it is like to manage a crisis.
During this fast-paced workshop, you and your team will be responsible for managing social media channels for a fictional company facing a crisis. The crisis will spread quickly over different channels including social networks, microblogs, online news channels, forums, blogs and video networks. All these channels are contained within Polpeo. We will give you all the details and background information you need on the day, on both the company you represent and the crisis facing it.
Your job during the workshop will be to do everything you can to neutralize the crisis. You can devise a strategy to deal with the situation, assign roles within your teams, and implement your strategy on the simulator. You’ll be able to post on each of Polpeo’s social media channels, see the public reaction to the crisis, and respond to individuals members of the public, all in real-time. How you choose to manage the crisis is up to you, but our facilitators will be on hand to help you through it.
The whole workshop will take place on the simulator. This is a closed, private environment, so you can experiment with different responses, without the eyes of the world watching you.
Throughout the workshop, you will be scored on how well your team manages to contain the crisis, and there will be prizes for the winning team!
After the crisis has reached its conclusion, there will be an in-depth discussion and feedback session facilitated by Kate Hartley (COO of Polpeo) and Ashley Cooksley (Chief Business Development Officer of Polpeo’s parent company, Emoderation). You will receive detailed feedback from the crisis team on how you managed the crisis, have the chance to ask questions about best practice, and share experiences with your peers.
Key takeaways from the workshop will include:
1. Experiencing the speed at which a crisis breaks and spreads on social media, and the resulting pressure on a team
2. Practical experience in managing a crisis on social media, including the ability to test different ways of responding to the public through a crisis, and seeing how they respond to you
3. Insight into current best practice in managing a crisis, including: tips on how to neutralize an attack on social media; and the processes and infrastructure you might need in order to deal with a crisis facing your company or organisation.
Timeline:
This workshop will be two and a half hours long.
- 15-minute introduction to the simulation, background information and context. Attendees are assigned teams and log on
- 1-hour: crisis simulation part 1
- 10-minute break and regroup
- 45-minutes: crisis simulation part 2
- 20-minutes: feedback, discussion and Q&As
Requirements:
Preparation: No preparation is required.
Please bring a fully-charged laptop or tablet with you to the workshop. The Polpeo simulation is internet-based, so in order to participate, you will need a device that can connect to wireless internet. Polpeo works best on a laptop or tablet, as a phone screen can be too small for you to draft statements comfortably and post to the simulator.
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