Crisis Plan Project

Redbook (social media platform)

Background
Redbook, Inc. was created in 2007 by Rasheed Redman and Marcus White, two fraternity brothers and
graduates of Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia. After Rasheed lost his job, he shared his
vision of creating a social media platform with Marcus which was inspired by his desire to keep in touch
with his family in Lagos, Nigeria. He not only wanted to create a website for this purpose, but also
envisioned the website expanding into an app that would allow users to access Redbook. Being a man
of action, Marcus decided to invest $3,500 into Rasheed’s vision, which is now a multi-million dollar
business. After six months of planning and testing, the app launched on June 2nd, 2007.

Mission Statement
To build global connections one share at a time.

Team Values
• Be open. Transparency across all boards establishes trust.
• Be protective. We take pride in protecting our user's information.
• Remain progressive. We are constantly advancing technologies that benefit users.
• Recognize that passion and personality matter.
• Inspire Creativity.
• Defend and respect the user's voice.

Team Structure
Position Name
Crisis Team Leader Sabrina Connor
Incident Commander Katlynn Sawyer
External Communications Angel Caldwell
Internal Communications Nina Hicks
Legal/Regulatory Catrice Roots
Social Media Justina Lloyd

Job Descriptions
• Crisis Team Leader: The crisis team leader prepares the crisis management team, conducts practice
through exercises, manages the team, and sets expectations early on. The crisis team leader also
gathers the team during crisis and conduct meetings. They have to recognize the key issues, think
strategically, create options, and make decisions. They engage with both internal and external
stakeholders, media, and higher management. Lastly, they overlook ongoing briefing cycles at
regular intervals.

• Incident Commander: The incident commander is responsible for all aspects of an emergency
response. Some of their responsibilities are to asses the incident priorities to determine the
strategy and tactics that will be used. Also, they develop incident objectives, manage all incident
 operations, and application of resources as well as responsibility for all persons involved. They
set priorities and define the organization of the incident response teams and the overall incident
action plan.

• External Communications: The director of external communications is responsible for the

information released to the public. They ensure that the company’s message is consistent, timely,
and relevant. They work with media outlets to publish company information. Also, they build
and maintain online communities and manage relationships with media outlets. They produce
and send out emails and marketing campaigns. They also document the presence of the company
at events, conferences, and speaking engagements. Furthermore, they publish videos and
photography on the company website and blog, and edit and revise content as necessary. Finally,
they advocate on behalf of the company brand with external stakeholders and the media across
all communications channels and vehicles

• Internal Communications: The internal communications director works to guarantee that the
company’s employees are kept informed and motivated. Their responsibilities involve keeping
the employees informed through email, social media, and regular newsletters. They plan, edit
and write content for multiple internal communications. Also, they use social media to
communicate with staff internally. They deliver presentations at company events and draft
messages from senior executives for presentations to employees in written or spoken form.
Finally, the internal communicator ensures internal communications messages are consistent
across all mediums.

• Legal/Regulatory: The legal/regulatory director of the company is the head of the corporate legal
department and is responsible for the legal affairs of the entire corporation. They provide legal
counsel to senior management. The legal also develops and leads internal audit and oversees the
delivery of legal services and resources to accomplish the company’s goals, strategies, and
priorities. They have to maintain proper corporate interactions. Furthermore, the legal advises the
CEO and senior corporate on several issues and participates in making a general management
policy.

• Social Media: The director of social media is the voice of the company on social and digital media.
They are responsible for strategy, and possibly managing other people. They create social media
accounts and the posting schedule, using the social media dashboard Hootsuite. The social media
director supervises editors in making a content calendar. Furthermore, they need to be aware of
search engine optimization (SEO) and connect current and future customers through social
media. They create and maintain new marketing campaigns. Finally, the social media director
monitors the company’s progress through web analytics tools, answer questions through social
media, and do brand promotions.

Crisis Team Leader (Sabrina)

 Prepare the Crisis Management Team
 Practice through simulation exercises
 During an incident, convene the team and conduct an initial briefing
 Manage the team and set expectations early
  Identify the key issues, accept the new reality quickly, think strategically, create options and
make key decisions
 Oversee ongoing briefing cycles at regular intervals
 Engage with both internal and external stakeholders, engage with media, higher management and
generally meet the needs of a diverse group of stakeholders

Incident Commander (Katlynn)

 Record and classify received Incidents and undertake an immediate effort in order to restore
 Responding to the Incident Analysts regarding escalation issues in a timely and appropriate
fashion
 Create incident reports
 Provide support to employees and customers
 Implement effective procedures
 Maintain incident logs and process incident reports for review with upper management
 Provide training for support teams
 Initiate Closure of Related Incidents

External Communications (Angel)

 Develop an integrated communications strategy for the company to utilize during a crisis
 Develop relationships with key media to secure and grow media coverage both online and offline
 Monitor press stories relating to the company
 Communicate to internal customers and stakeholders
 Ensure that the company’s message is consistent and reflects the organization’s strategic vision
 Publish videos and photography on company website and blogs
 Collaborate with marketing to develop the advertising, marketing, and promotion plans

Internal Communications (Nina)

 Ensure employees are informed
 Working closely with senior executives
 Establish organizational messages
 Formulate their organization’s internal response to crisis PR situations
 Communicate through several channels, such as a staff intranet, email bulletins, social media and
regular newsletters
 Ensure workers are engaged in company initiatives
 Edit, design, and print internal publications.
 Measure and present results of communication efforts.

Legal/Regulatory (Catrice)
 Produces information by transcribing, formatting, inputting, editing, retrieving, copying, and
transmitting text, data, and graphics
 Coordinates case preparation
 Conserves attorneys time by reading, researching, reviewing, verifying, and routing
correspondence, reports and legal documents; drafting letters and documents
 Collects and analyzes information
 Organizes client conferences, and attorney meetings; scheduling couriers, court reporters, expert
witnesses, and other special functions
  Coordinates preparation of charts, graphs, and other courtroom visuals
 Prepare expense reports.

Social Media (Justina)

 Deliberate planning and goal setting
 Develop of brand awareness and online reputation
 Content management
 Administrate the creation and publishing of relevant, original, high-quality content
 Identify and improve organizational development aspects that would improve content (ie:
employee training, recognition and rewards for participation in the company’s marketing and
online review building)
 Create a regular publishing schedule
 Monitor trends in social media tools, applications, channels, design and strategy.

Risk Assessment Grid

1- 4 Scale 1 - 4 Scale
Event Severity Probability
1 App Malfunctions (freezing, crashing) 2 2
2 User data could be stolen 1 1
3 Website could be hacked 1 1
4 Scammers 1 1
5 Computer Viruses from website 3 3
6 Insecure cookies 4 4
Viral challenge promoted by users on our platform
7 2 2
becoming deadly
8 Someone committing crimes online (live) 1 1
9 Cyberbullying 3 1
10 Invasion of privacy 2 3
11 Ad viruses 4 3
12 Backlash from a new feature 4 3
13 Application Program Interface (API) change 3 4
14 Connectivity issues 3 1
15 Mobile device overheating 4 3
16 Microphone faults 3 2
17 Keypad problems 3 2
18 Country lock 4 3
19 Login Problem 3 2
20 Message send problem 4 2
Top Three Concerns
1. Our website could be hacked by a serious predator. These hackers could possibly get millions of
our users’ personal information such as their credit card information, emails, addresses and
social security numbers. This could influence our clientele to stop supporting our social media
platform, and also discourage potential users from registering for a Redbook account.

2. Redbook employees could try to be the cause of an information leak by releasing confidential
business plans to the press before the actual release date. Releasing business ideas that have not
yet been confirmed can cause an upset among stakeholders. This is because some of the ideas
that haven’t been approved yet may be “bad” ideas and the customers may become very
frustrated.

3. There could be an app malfunction/virus that causes the app to crash and the device to run
slowly. This could make users very frustrated because it not only causes problems within the
app but with their device as well. This could ultimately lead to users deleting the app and
downloading the competition’s app.
 INCIDENT REPORT FORM
(If you answer yes to any of these questions, Crisis Team Leader notifies team.)

Date of Incident:
Time of Incident:
Location of Incident:
Incident Response Leader:
Incident Report Form Draft Number:

Briefly describe the incident including all relevant facts.

Were there any injuries or threats to life?

YES NO
Please describe.

Have you been contacted or visited by the media?

YES NO
Please list.

Have you contacted or visited the media?

YES NO
Please list.

Are local, federal authorities on the scene or have they been contacted?
YES NO
Please list.

Have the organizations systems (IT, databases, etc.) been negatively impacted?
YES NO
If yes, please describe how.

Have regulators been contacted or are they aware of the incident?

YES NO
Are any buildings or locations now non-operational?
YES NO
If yes, identify which were impacted and explain.

Does the incident threaten our current operations?

YES NO
How?

Has an evacuation been ordered?

YES NO
If yes, please describe.

Were outside vendors/contractors involved?

YES NO
If yes, please list.

Is the situation under control?

YES NO
If no, how long do you estimate before it is under control?

Has any business services been affected?

YES NO
If yes, please list.
Has an attorney been retained regarding the situation?
YES NO
If yes, please name.

Was there a negative social media reaction?

YES NO

Was there negative feedback from employees?

YES NO
If yes, list what they were.

Did the company lose any revenue?

YES NO
If yes, how much was lost.