In times of crisis, people look to authority figures for crisis-specific information. In an election year, every crisis is spun by authority figures as a campaign issue. People are more apt to try to find a neutral source of information regarding issues that concern them. More often than not, people turn to the internet to conduct their research. When they lack a pre-selected source of news, blogs or comments, they turn to search.

People in the age of online information expect fast, quick access to the information they need. We have created that expectation in an age of instant information, instant access to news, instant access to stock portfolios.

People are apt to take fast quick action on information, bombarded as they are with media “breaking news” of doom and gloom on television, newspapers and yes, on the internet. (Remember, media’s job is to get you to watch, listen to or read more media, that’s how they get their paychecks.

Consequently it would make sense for a company involved in the actual crisis issue, to try to calm investors and other consumers in order to protect their stock and reputation. Let’s take a quick look at the last couple of months. Below are four captures of Google Insights for the terms, financial crisis, 401k, retirement fund and stock market:

Looking at “financial crisis” for the last 90 days is even more interesting:

So we can see that for August and September, people are very interested in the financial market. That makes sense to me right now after looking at my own 401k.

Don’t you think the best option for financial institutions would be to try to present some kind of upside news to the situation, to keep people from dumping their stock in a media-induced frenzy?

How can business manage consumer confidence?

Well, let us look at the search results on Google for a few of those keywords:

Well, let us look at the search results on Google for a few of those keywords:

401k

Note that there is not one ad by any company that handles 401k programs. The link for “related searches: “fidelity 401k” is a massive opportunity if I ever saw one for Fidelity to provide updated information regarding the crisis. Well clicking on that link produces:

We see that the information regarding Fidelity is all Organic. This is very hard to modify in the time frame of a breaking news crisis. However, Ameriprise is bidding on “fidelity 401k”, Fidelity is not bidding on their own terms in Paid Search. This is a lost opportunity for Fidelity to discuss how they are handling the crisis. (And by-the-way, the Ameriprise page referenced in the paid ad, has no information on the present crisis, just the regular brochure-ware info.)

The only term that has any search relevance to the present issue from the above terms is “stock market”:

None of the copy addresses the issue of the present crisis directly. We now see a Fidelity Paid Search ad in position one. However, does it take us to comforting information about cool heads at the helm, that they have a handle on the problem? Well, no…

What they provide is basically a news page telling you what everyone else is saying, but leaving it up to you to navigate through their site to find out what THEY, Fidelity are saying.

This is a wonderful example of companies being run and marketed using timeframes that were effective when newspapers were the top means of information transfer. But with instant access to breaking news, blogs, opinions, emails amongst friends and then instant stock trades, the old comfortable timeframes just don’t work anymore. A company has to react as quickly as the crisis. As witness the last 6 months….

Companies all, Financial, Pharmaceutical, Automotive, Retail, whatever industry, need to evolve and catch up with the technology, and the speed of transfer of information in those technologies, that is in the hands of every consumer, Mom, Dad, Child, everyone on the planet excepting, it seems, corporations. Breaking news appears, blogs regarding the news appear, stock is sold, yet the corporate message often remains the same, because of inaction. Whether it id fear, no game plan for crisis, a lack of understanding of the online media, the fact remains, inaction is often the corporate message.

React to the crisis as quickly as do media and the consumers

Using Paid Search, Organic Search, Social Monitoring, Mobile ads and search, companies need to learn to respond immediately when news breaks. Now, right now, not weeks or months later. When an accident occurs, situations are controlled by people who react immediately, not stand by waiting for things to get better. And that is how corporations need to react in the future if they want to remain solvent and active with the next generations of immediate access information people.

If the management of a corporation is too complex and unwieldy to initiate such a process, then a Brand management strategy needs to be put into place, a process offered by companies like Outrider. A process where Paid Search, Organic Search, Mobile Search, Social Networking and Monitoring are all coordinated and built to respond quickly to crisis.

After all, a crisis of confidence in a corporation or a government often results from consumer perception of inaction by leaders. And, as one leader has said:

“There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

And any action taken before a stock tanks, is probably better than actions taken afterward.