165: How Real-Time Data Can Keep You in Control in a Crisis with Zack Condry

When communication, public relations, crisis, digital, data analytics all meet at the top of the mountain. My guest is the guy to call. Welcome to a podcast that uses current events and tested media and PR strategies to help you manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. Zach country is a guy that's going to help you also build an indestructible reputation. He is the president, Risk Communications, a digital first agency that focuses on corporate communications in high pressure situations. So regardless of the challenge, Zach and his team, they specialize in developing and executing digital communication strategies to help organizations tackle the critical issues and public affairs issues or major crises, regulatory obstacles, and a lot of those reputation management challenges. Now, Zach, he's my kind of people because his agency is cutting edge. It's where PR and reputation and data all happen in the same place. You don't want to forget about the numbers, the analytics, the sentiment when there is a crisis. And it's not just about the traditional and the messaging that's a huge part of it. But nowadays with digital social media technology out there, with AI out there with people giving their opinions online, both good and bad and toxic, you need someone who can help you manage that space. And Zach is the guy. Take a listen, Zach Country. Even though you and I are going to speak for a brief time on this podcast, I know I could talk to you truly for hours about this topic because it is so topical and that is the digital crisis and that is what you do for a living. So welcome Zach.

Hi.

All right, so let's first talk about your past. So tell me, you worked five years in corporate communications and also you worked in some high profile campaigns. So let's just touch on this to build a baseline to get behind. Who is Zach Condrey in the do today?

So five years in kind of big box corporate communications, the Edelmans of the world. But anyway, so coming out of college actually didn't. I graduated eventually, but I left college briefly to go work on a political campaign in San Diego, California. And thus began my campaign experience and my role in politics. I ended up managing and running political operations for. In eight different states. Yeah, eight different states in six years, I believe it was.

Let's make a pit stop here for a moment. Give me your highest profile campaign.

My highest profile campaign was probably, you know what, I have a lot of answers for that, but I'm going to do a plug.

Okay.

My very good friend Kevin Faulkner is running for governor of California right now. Like right now in the recall. And so in 2005, when I left college. He was the campaign I worked for in, oh, five. He was running for City Council of San Diego.

Okay.

We won that race. Actually met my wife on that race. I picked up my wife's phone number on a Kevin Faulkner for City Council sticker. Kevin then became mayor. He was like incredibly successful and well regarded as mayor of San Diego, which is obviously a huge city. And now he's running against Gavin Newsom for governor. So I don't know that he's a city council race in San Diego is my most high profile. But I love Kevin dearly and he is very relevant right now.

Oh, yeah, you can't get any more relevant, I don't think when it comes to politics and races right now in California. But you also worked on another campaign or. I don't know if it was a campaign or if you actually worked for the staff of the other side of the country here over in New Jersey when they had some hiccups.

Yeah. So I went around the country and I managed these political races as an operative. Right. I was like a 1099. They didn't even do W2s back then. But anyway, so in 2010, I began working for this political digital firm, a digital consultancy called the Prosper Group. Still around, Great firm. And my most notable candidate was Governor Chris Christie and worked on his race in 2013, which is notably known as the Bridge Gate election. So total smooth sailing there. Nothing happened. No big deal at all.

No big deal. So it's the Bridgegate campaign, not the George Washington Bridge Lane closure scandal campaign. They had to condense it.

We didn't have a nickname for it. It was the. It was the oh, crap campaign. But luckily the governor's side handled most of that and I was on the campaign side, so that was fine.

But let me ask you, the reason why I bring that up is because, you know, so that. Let's call it a scandal. I mean, that's certainly what it was. What was memorable to me about it was the email, that damning email that said, you know, time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee, that it something left a digital footprint that really caused a crisis. And this is back in 2013. Right. Which is such a long time ago. But I want to ask you about that work in particular when you were handling the scandal or working around it, did it leave any type of an imprint with you that shapes or forms the work that you do today in 2021? Any lesson you learned?

So post Bridgegate, that's when I decided, hey, I think I want to get out of this cyclical political thing and actually set my hair on fire for companies. And I don't know that it was that that particular instance had a sort of a impact on me and how I deal with clients now. It was sort of more the broader political aspect of, I mean, there's no working hours in politics because you sit there and think about it. With political campaigns, there is a finite deadline. In corporate communications, we create these work back plans, we have milestones, we've got all these sort of buzzwords. But there's election day in politics, the first Tuesday of November. And you either do it or you do not. There's no, hey, the CEO can't make it, he's on vacation, let's push it back. There's none of that, it's over. And it's very black and white. And so I think that that kind of macro aspect of politics really affects how I deal with clients and how I do work now.

What do you think if Bridgegate happened today? So let's say Chris Christie's in office, the email comes out from his deputy chief of staff, you know, time for some traffic problems. Knowing the pattern, the usage of Twitter, let's just put it on a platform, let's put it on Twitter. Do you think the outcome would have been a little bit different? Would Chris Christie been able to skate how he did if that happened in 2021 in the digital environment that we have now, if he was dealing with more of a digital crisis?

I mean, if it. You're so, so let's get the hypothetical correct. So if it's, if it's in 2021.

Right.

Basically today, let's say today, I think it wouldn't have been nearly as big of a deal because it would have moved much faster and hotter.

Oh, it would have burned hotter, but it would have been quicker. It would have moved through quicker.

Right. Because I mean technically Twitter was still was around, but it was it the Twitter and Facebook of today.

Yes.

And there is, there's the news cycles and sort of those little micro Twitter cycles are so quick, people just move on, Boom, move on, boom, move on. And so I think it would have been a bad week. I think the operational outcomes probably would have been the same, but in terms of communications and reputational fallout, I think it would have been significantly less interesting.

Okay, then define a digital crisis for us right now.

So I mean, to me a digital crisis is no different than a traditional crisis in 2021 of if there is a corporate crisis or individual or political candidate or what have you. It's going to happen on digital. Yes, earned media will be a part of it. But it's my POV that any crisis that happens is a digital crisis. Me as well, and to me a crisis. And I'm sure we'll get into this later, but people over, they talk up the word crisis way too much. I want to stop using that word, to be honest, because a crisis is something, in my opinion, a crisis is something that threatens a company's license to do business. If not handled properly or if ignored or what have you, the operation ceases to exist. I mean, that is a crisis. Everything else is an obstacle, a speed bump, a crummy week or month. And I think that's important context because this isn't real data. But you know, you're looking at 80 to 90% of what people call crises are actually probably just issues.

Yes, I completely agree with you. I think the word crisis has been redefined over and over again. But people still associate it with a 911 or TWA 800 crashing, you know, near off Montauk. It's really, they're defining it as these little issues like I call them just critical communications. Now. It's just critical to the moment, to the incident, whatever it is, but you can get through it. All right then. So how then. So in the company that you formed, Everest Communications. So give me the elevator pitch for what you do.

So we see, I just said I don't want to use the word crisis, but I'm going to try not to. But so we basically. So we're a digital. We call ourselves a digital first agency. To my point of kind of digital is traditional and vice versa. Nowadays we're a digital first agency. So what we like to do is we help companies understand their reputational issues and help them work through them. And that can come in three phases. The preparation, you think something might happen or you're particularly worried about something. I mean, for instance, we're working with a hospital right now. They're particularly worried about ransomware because ransomware attacks have hit hospitals big time in the past few years. And so we're kind of game planning on that. So it can be from the prep side, what I call the activation side of when the thing actually happens. And then probably the most important piece to me is that reputational recovery of what happens after that crisis or that issue. And how does the company respond and use digital to their advantage to elevate themselves?

I assume that you're going to tell me that everyone should take step one and Prepare for any type of critical issue or crisis that could impact them.

Yes, I would argue that that's the hardest part because you have to get clients to wrap their heads around that because they've never done anything like that before. Because the other two phases, the activation, they're just looking for a lifeboat. They just need help, they don't care, just do it. You're the expert. That's the easy part. And then the recovery piece, they've already been through the mess, so they understand, hey, we should probably listen to this person because we need to. But the prep part is actually the hardest part because you have to sort of get them in that right mindset.

So if I hear you correctly, it sounds like the problem for a lot of mid to small sized businesses or even like a hospital that may have maybe less than 1,000 employees, they're afraid of a digital crisis and they wouldn't know how to respond to one. Or do you have clients that think they can just handle it on their own?

Sure. I mean, I think everybody has clients that think they can handle it on their own and maybe they can, I don't know.

But what's the danger there? What's the danger if you're not handling it properly?

Experience and data. Right. So I kind of got off on a sidetrack there. But one of the things our company focuses on is providing data and context to those tough reputational issues. So we use a number of different pieces of software that understands the social conversation, search traffic, all those sort of reputational platforms like a Reddit or a Wikipedia or something like that. So we use a lot of different pieces of software to provide data and context to likely non digital communicators. C suite to say, hey, we should really pay attention to this, or hey, this is not as bad as it needs to be. So we're very focused on data and we provide that to the client. And that's typically speaking what they don't have or know how to use. And that's from, you know, Fortune 100 companies to, you know, small businesses.

Do you have an experience or a client that is a real, that is a real win for you in terms of what your, what your services provided to them that help them manage a digital crisis?

Yeah, I think. So what's a good one?

What's a juicy one that everyone would know?

I can't. Well, I'm not going to tell you any names, but you could make a lot of. You could Google, it'll be, you could explore something, It'd be fine.

Okay.

But so we worked for a large entertainment provider which everybody has heard of. So they had gotten hacked and it was a ransomware attack, and the hacker had asked for millions of dollars worth of bitcoin and the company wasn't going to pay and they were going to run out the clock on the hacker. And the problem is the hacker got access to scripts and episodes of a very popular TV show.

Oh, so we're talking about streaming.

Yeah, I mean, I think at that time it was 2017, so I think there was streaming.

I think they were streaming pre pandemic. Okay, all right, so we're talking about entertainment. We're talking about something that people are watching. Right.

Everyone knows everybody watched this show. I think on Sunday evenings, everybody watched this show.

Oh, another clue. Okay, keep going.

And loved it. But anyway, so the hacker got access to a number of the different shows and scripts and all sorts of stuff, and not only this show, but other shows from this entertainment provider. So it was our job. So we got a little bit of a heads up from the client, probably about a week. So it was our job to kind of put a monitoring system in place that alerted us as soon as possible when rumors hit social media.

Okay.

So we were able to use our social media conversation kind of trackers and set up ASAP alerts.

Hey, Zach, so were you using software but also manually? Did you have employees or contractors manually searching platforms as well?

Yes, absolutely. I mean, so the platforms, I'm going to get off the story for 30 seconds. So the platforms, it is mainly Twitter, which is great for digital crisis reputation management because that's kind of where that event driven stuff takes place. But a lot of Twitter is open, right, because that's how people converse. Whereas LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, those other sort of main socials are much more private. So you're gonna see a lot of lot more dark social. So we set up ASAP alerts for Twitter and then manually search on those other platforms.

Can you explain dark social?

Yep. So I assume your Facebook profile isn't open to the entire world where they can see your friends and your posts and everything. So you're posting behind a privacy wall, which is what someone like me can't see. So I can't see that you posted about some article and you're really angry about xyz. Only your friends can. And maybe a select portion of your friends. I don't know. But that's kind of what we're talking about when we say dark social of.

When I hear dark social, to me it sounds dark not moms bragging about their kids. Right? Or I guess that could go dark, but. Okay, so back to our Sunday evening event. So you're monitoring online, you're monitoring all over social, using software, using manual. So what happens next?

So it hits. So there is an article in a trade publication, and we kind of knew it was coming, but it hits. And it's like SEO Bonanza, right? So popular TV show plus ransomware plus hack, and all these things combined it into one. I mean, it's like clickbait heaven for a reporter.

Right?

And so in that week prior, we had come up with some external statements what a external website looks like. We were really concerned about customers, subscribers, because they, you know, this is very important to the company, and we want to make sure that they're taken care of. And, and they don't, don't think that their data has been stolen and all of that stuff. I mean, you know what a typical ransomware response would be. But so the article hit, and we're watching social conversation, and it comes in, comes in, comes in, and we find out that customers actually don't really care about the hack. They don't want to see the hacked show. They don't want to be spoiled. They want to sit on their couch with their significant other or friend or whomever, eat their popcorn and watch the show and kind of tweet about it or Facebook about it or whatever. They want it at that certain time. And so it was really interesting to me to see the brand love that this organization had at that time in the middle of a crisis.

What's interesting, if I'm hearing you correctly, that even though the ransomware was threatening all the, I guess, subscribers, if you will, their privacies, they were less concerned about that hack and that they didn't want a spoiler of the show. Like, they really wanted the show to air at a certain time where they could watch it live with everyone else.

That's right. So, okay, so we had all these external things planned and we were kind of holding, holding, holding, because the social data didn't tell us, hey, people really care about this. However, the company, and we saw some of this in social data as well. The company employees were really upset and they were worried about their personal data, any sort of HR records, the health of the company, all that sort of stuff they were particularly worried about. So what we did was we went completely inward. And so we wrote up a letter from the CEO using facts and empathy. Hey, we're all in this together. Here's what we're doing. We love you guys, you're great. And sent it internally to employees and we knew it was going to get leaked, so we wrote it in a leakable manner.

Oh, I love that.

But we totally didn't do the external piece. No website, no nothing.

And you didn't do that based on the research and data that you noticed that you didn't necessarily have to correct. Okay, so you were responding to the crisis by monitoring the crisis and that was dictating your response.

Sure, that's right.

And without it, you could be responding to the wrong crisis if you miss.

The or you could be kicking up dust. I mean, ultimately my responsibility as a, as a communicator is to do no harm. But the best way I can do no harm is to provide as much data and context as possible for us to make informed, strategic decisions. Sometimes I'll give talks at Georgetown or wherever and I will say to communication students and I'll say, if you're a communicator in 2021 and you're going by your gut, you should just find another job.

That's good advice.

There's too much data out there. Like, give me a break. Don't. I mean, look, having experience is critical, but also having the back the backing of a bunch of metrics, it's pretty good too.

Okay. Yeah, I agree with you. And it's interesting you mentioned Twitter. I agree with you. Everything happens on Twitter, right? You make it, shake it. Everything's happening on Twitter. But the up and comer I see in terms of shaping really even news and journalism, like newspapers are just picking up stories that they find on TikTok. Tell me about the impact of TikTok compared to a Twitter.

Well, so Twitter is event driven mainly. They've messed with their algorithm some and so particularly when you're using the app, it's a little bit more difficult. But that doesn't actually change the social data, which is fine. But Twitter is still more event driven. That's where journalists talk. That's where these sort of key public influencers talk. TikTok is kind of more the wild west masses. And so you're going to get a lot more sort of viral nature on TikTok and a lot more emotion. Right. You're not seeing a lot of video or straight to camera type stuff on Twitter, maybe from TikTok over to Twitter, but you're not going to see any sort of original content in that regard on Twitter. So I think TikTok is very dangerous.

Why? Tell me why.

It's because it's it's just so widely used and it's, it's so emotional and it's so algorithmic that things can just spread and go crazy.

Yeah, I, it sounds like. Do you think am I putting more weight on TikTok than you are? I'm thinking of when Trump was really out strategized by all the. I think it's the btk. Now I'm sounding like a Gen X or trying to talk about Gen Z world, but BTK Stans or whatever, who they bought up all the tickets when he had his campaign. Oh my gosh, was it in Omaha? That was a movement like that was an absolute groundswell that happened on TikTok. And I think there's something to be said about Gen Z. Like I think that is a powerful, powerful generation. But Gen Z, I don't find them to be the Twitter culture. Right. Like, so you're going to get your, your journalists, you're going to get your, your movers and your shakers there. But there's something happening on TikTok so.

I, so here's my response to that. Where did the whole TikTok ticket buying conversation actually take place?

Are you going to tell me it's not. Oh, it's Twitter?

Well, so it happened via TikTok but the news actually spread from major publications. It spread off of Twitter. So I think of Twitter as sort of a special entity of very event driven, very now and TikTok I'm going to lump in with sort of the Facebook and Instagram. So the world of much more emotional, much more kind of a slower pickup, however, much more kind of longer lasting because you're going to get a lot of anecdotes, you're going to get a lot of personal stories, you're going to get a lot of visuals. With Twitter it's, it's. I know fake news used to be a hashtag, but you're going to get, you're going to get a lot of news, you're going to get a lot of data, you're going to get a lot of sort of straight stuff, whereas on these other platforms it's going to be much more passionate.

Yeah, I would agree with you there because the, that the TikTok, it was K Pop stands, you know, they're the ones who, you know, sank that rally. I mean really, they were digitally bested. It's never going to happen again. But they were absolutely.

Oh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put, I don't know, I mean it might happen again. Well, I Think there are some campaigns that are absolutely horrible at digital.

Yeah, well, they're horrible at digital, but I think. Don't you think some campaigns are putting provisions into place to kind of prevent that kind of K Pop Stans thing from happening again? But you're absolutely right about when it lands on Twitter, it lands harder. More people see it, it leaves more of an impact there. So tell me about the life cycle, in your opinion of a digital crisis. What happens? So let's even use the Tulsa. When the teens tank the T. Tulsa rally. It happens on Twitter, but you're saying that's not really where the bang is. So what's the life cycle of a digital crisis?

I mean, it just depends. So to me, there's three kinds of crises generally, but digital as well. And shout out to Dan Weber at Edelman DC who came up with this. But I'm stealing it, Dan. So there's three kinds of crises, right? So there's event driven.

Mm.

Which is. Yeah. I mean, something like that, which it. It peaks really, really high and then just floats down.

Okay.

There is sort of systemic. Right. So it kind of looks like a wavelength. And that's kind of going to be your. Like that's going to be your Nike sweatshops.

Okay.

Kind of something they always have to manage. Could kick up at any time, but they kind of just have to work on it type of deal. Sorry to pick on Nike there. And then the last one was what I call the Lance Armstrong curve, which is. Or FIFA as well, is something that starts as an issue, is not controlled, and then just becomes a massive crisis. So the life cycle of digital crises or crises generally are based on those three things. Systemic just sort of sticks around. I mean, it sticks with the. With the company that they have to manage. Lance Armstrong's done.

Right.

So there's no saving his reputation because he didn't manage it.

Right.

So life cycle of that is, I don't know, forever.

Yeah. Well, not only not manage it, but made it worse. You know, when you lie, that's not managing a crisis. Yeah.

And then. And then event driven is pretty quick. It depends on the gravity of the situation. It depends on the societal and political landscape at the time, but can be pretty quick.

Okay, so, all right, so there's three. You're giving me three different examples then of what can happen. A timeline of a crisis. So what is the solution like? What is the desired outcome that a business can expect? If they are. If they. Let's say they've prepared for one or even if they haven't they're managing their, their digital crisis right now. What are the solutions for someone if they had to manage it on their own, like how they had to start planning it? What would be three things that they could do to help them manage a digital crisis?

I would focus on data first and foremost, whatever data you can get your hands on. Right. So if you own a business, you have access to, you know, backend access to your social media accounts. So try to get an understanding of. Okay, so this many people normally post on a daily basis on our social media accounts. Okay, so we've had the negative thing happen. It's now been a gross increase in X. The net negative increase is Y. And try to understand kind of the context there because it might not actually be that big of a deal. You know, don't feel like the world is caving in on you because again, data and context is absolutely critical.

You know, I think context and just as an aside is so important because I think if as a communicator, helping someone, whether you're at a firm, you know, or someone like me too, it's. You have to massage that context. I think there's so much fear in the context that you have to give them the actual context. When people don't understand what, how people are conversing about their brand online, there's just so many unknowns.

So internally I will, so we'll produce these monitoring reports for crisis clients and internally I call them security blankets because that's really what they are.

Oh yeah, I like that.

And I don't think about our main client, the head of communications or general counsel or whatever. I think about the CEO.

Oh, do you?

And I want our documents and our data to be CEO proof and for that individual to take that first page of the security blanket, first page of the report and just be able to read that and understand the context of.

Does it need to be CEO proof? Because, you know, communications understands it like they're not as gonna be as fear driven as a CEO. A CEO needs to understand precisely what's happening.

Yeah. I mean, generally speaking, marketing people aside, but generally speaking, this, the higher you go in the C suite, the more likely they are to spin out.

Oh yes, that's so true.

Because if, because if you think about it, and I always think about how these things affect people personally.

Yes.

Of, you know, a communicator, that's kind of part of their deal. Right. That was probably in their job description. Literally it was reputation management or crisis communications or urgent issues or whatever. Right. That's in a lot of communications job listings. But for a CEO, it's to maintain profitability. And he sees people going crazy on social media and he's like, oh my gosh, our customers hate us. And so it's my responsibility to provide him personally with the security blanket and say, hey, it's not as bad. Or maybe it is as bad, but here's the way around it. Or here's kind of what we're seeing and here are the trends and here's how we think it's going to go.

All right, what about number two then? What's the next thing?

What was the question again?

So the three things, so the first one that, you know, how can you, what is the solution for just for managing a digital crisis, we mentioned data, you know, providing the context. What is something else that, that they could do?

So I think crisis prep. And so, and I don't mean some crazy playbook, I don't mean some, you know, bunch of scenario planning. Here's what I want communicators to do if they're at a small or mid sized business, don't hire a firm right now. Just sit with your executive leadership in a room for like an hour and say, okay, what situation keeps us up at night? What are we most worried about? And you'll get a bunch of crazy answers. You'll get, you know, data breach, you'll get space aliens. Executive impropriety. Actually, that one might not make the meeting. But all these sort of crazy things, then I want you to map them out, think about them and think about how you would handle it. You don't have to write things down, just sort of think about like, hey, here's, as a company, here's how we would approach this. Or hey, we had this happen before. If this was really big, here's how we would approach it. And then map it out in terms of threat versus probability. Space aliens, hey, maybe it's a major threat. Maybe it's like the movie Independence Day. Probability is highly unlikely. So I don't know that you need to spend a lot of time on that. But a data breach, yeah, absolutely. A high probability and could be a high threat. So I would suggest you plan for those. Something like that. And it all varies by, you know, by company, quite frankly, it varies by individual. Going back to the personal piece.

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

And sit in a room and map that stuff out.

And varies by experience, you know, depth of resources. Yeah, I totally agree. All right, so we have data, we have one, we have data, we have the crisis Prep and then what's the third thing that they could do?

So I would, I would take into account, I would not discount paid. So have an understanding of what paid would look like during a crisis for you. Because when you have a bunch of grumpy customers, it's all organic. You have the ability to take your customer list, to take your key influencers list, media list, what have you, whatever audiences, and then target paid ads to it. It's absolutely incredible. For instance, I think about a couple scenarios where John Oliver show. You've obviously seen the John Oliver Show. I've had many clients lose their minds over being featured on John Oliver. You should watch search traffic during the John Oliver show. It just super spikes and then just fades away. I mean just like a massive spike and then goes. So what I might suggest is if you're gonna be featured on the John Oliver show, get search ads going for a lot of different keywords. Just take over your search ad keywords for like two hours and then do reputational response messaging, you know, leading them to whatever page you want, but only during that thin period. And then go back to your marketing.

Where are they putting paid ads and what are they saying? So let's say you have a company, John Oliver stands up in his monologue, mentions it. Where are you putting paid advertising and what's in it?

First I would say search. Okay, so a lot of times what happens with John Oliver is he lets people know about, you know, companies that are doing X, Y and Z that maybe people haven't heard of. And, and so people are going to want to go to Google first to search more information of, hey, what the heck's going on with this? How are they, why are they doing this? So they're going to go to Google first to find out more information, then they're going to go to social media to say X company is bad because of Y. So I would probably go search first and then if we think it's going to be really big, I'd go to Twitter. I don't know that I would do Twitter ads first and foremost, but definitely maybe pin a tweet, have some relevant content, organic content. And then if we think it's big enough, go ahead and put paid behind it because that's the event driven piece as well. And then I would look to Facebook and making sure you're covered on the back end with your customers.

That's a good plan. And you're letting your stakeholders know that you're on it, that you see it, that you understand what's happening.

Yeah. I mean, I know I talk a lot about, like, you know, making things less bad, doing no harm, using data, but ultimately, especially on digital, silence is a comment. So you can, you know, be quiet and not. And just hope that it rolls off your back, but your stakeholders know and understand what you're doing. They know you're not dumb, and you're not in a, you know, not in a vacuum.

Oh, I have a great way to wrap up everything in a bow right now. We're going to go back to the beginning, Zach.

Okay.

You are a political operative back in your governor days, and now you're working for the governor of New York, Governor Cuomo. It is the day after the damning AG report about sexual harassment. What is he saying anything? Nothing. What would you instruct him to do if you worked on his campaign or not? Campaign? I'm sorry? If you worked with him, if you were in his office, or if you were a paid consultant.

I mean, at that point, it sort of ceases to be digital. Right. It's so big that you have to take into account, you know, the. The criminal aspect of it, and then you have to take into account the. The individual. Right. So. So in politics, it's very important to remember that the individual matters most. I mean, I can't even tell you how many candidates I've said, look, it's your name on the ballot. Do whatever you want. You just. You just pay me to give you advice. I take that sort of like, I'm disappointed in you approach. And Cuomo decided he was just gonna power through. And did he even apologize? I mean, he sort of did this. He did this thing of, yeah, I kiss people and I hug them, and I would just tell him to shut up. Shut up, lay low, and have just a written statement.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Not only did he not apologize, he did not even accept responsibility for it. He deflected it and then created a video montage of photographs of him hugging people to show this is what he always does. He goes, hey, but I hug people. I kiss people. This is what we do.

That's. That's the political ego for you.

Yeah.

I mean, well, and frankly, social media helps stoke that over the past year and a half.

Yes. Yep.

But, you know, when you get to an issue that big, you got to look at. You got to talk to counsel.

Right.

You got to say, and clearly they didn't talk to Ken. Or maybe they did. Maybe. Maybe they did or. And ignored it, and he didn't listen.

Yeah.

But when something like that Happens I, I just let legal lead. I give them the data that they need and I help them in whatever regard is needed. But I let them lead because I do not want to. A, I look, I don't want to be deposed, but B, I want to keep things as above board and legal and proper as possible. And so you got to let legal drive those sort of things. And clearly they did not.

Yeah, clearly. Hey Zach, as we wrap up, I always want to provide the listeners with an indestructible tip. It's this idea, a thought, some type of instruction that helps them protect their brand and make it somewhat invincible in this digital environment that we're in. What is an indestructible tip that you could share with any communicator, a CEO, someone running a business that wants to build indestructibility online with their reputation.

Start now. And I would take your key stakeholders, customers, opinion leaders, media, whomever, whomever are your key stakeholders and I'd think about what reputation building, what a reputation building paid plan looks like. Paid digital. I would do it. I would, I would do it now. It doesn't have to be a very big buy. I mean seriously, when you're talking about these kind of niche audiences, it's, it's a few thousand dollars. But I would do it now to build up your reputation amongst these audiences that might be interested in you having a crisis. And then when a crisis, if a crisis hits, use that paid, amp it up, push it up, make it relevant to kind of what's going on in the crisis. And it doesn't have to directly mention the crisis. Obviously depends on kind of what's going on and conversation. But it certainly can be about how good of a company you are, all the goodwill you've done. Use all of that stuff and you're paid. It doesn't have to be organic. I mean, that's why big tech is. Big tech is because they make it really easy for you to reach targeted audiences and don't only use it in.

Marketing, you know, outlier advice. People don't commonly think that way, especially when it comes to reputation management. But wow, that is powerful advice and it's tried and true. I mean it works, you know, and not everything has to be organic in a public relations kind of way that puts some money behind it. Hey Zach, thank you so much. How can people find out more information about you and your work?

Sure. So our, our, our URL is EverestComms.com c o m m s.com and you know, reach me there. Happy to happy to chat. Happy to sort of dive into an issue. It's it's what we love.

Oh Zach, thank you so much for chatting with me on this topic. Like I said I love it and I'm hopefully my listeners have not figured out your client ex from from earlier and then the podcast though I think they could put two and two together. But thank you so much for sharing the information today. I know it was extremely helpful for the listener. Thank you.

Great. It was fun. Have a great day. You too. Thanks.

My thanks to Zach country for being a guest to explain how real time data can keep you in control of your crisis. Another guest where I wish I had more time and more freedom to have Zach give me the juice on some the of more of the projects that he's working on as well as the ones he's worked on in the past. You can find Zach and his team at everestcoms. Com. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.