When we talk about enterprise crisis management now, it seems natural to remind managers to look for the root of the problem from the enterprise itself. But in many cases, the occurrence of enterprise crisis is not entirely their own responsibility, and rumors and rumors from various channels are the chief culprits of the deepening crisis. For example, a large number of media articles in early 21 claimed that "Don't ignore the harm of microwave ovens" triggered a serious rumor crisis; In these crises, the uncontrollable and wanton spread of rumors are important reasons for the deterioration of the crisis. In mass communication, rumors are defined as specific information that is spread by the public with no practical basis, and rumors often refer to malicious false information fabricated out of thin air. It can be imagined how destructive this kind of communication will be to enterprises. Especially in China, in recent years, the expansion of mass media forces and the enhancement of consumers' sovereignty consciousness have caused many crises. Therefore, when discussing crisis public relations communication, we should pay special attention to how enterprises should effectively deal with the spread of rumors in public relations crisis. Understanding the spread of rumors in the crisis In the face of complicated clues in the crisis, enterprises may have no time to deal with it, which creates space for the spread of rumors. Rumors spread suddenly and quickly. Like a plague, a rumor often comes out of nowhere and then begins to multiply and spread quickly. Generally speaking, the spread of rumors usually goes through three stages: formation period, climax period and decline period. In the formation period of rumor spread, only a few people talked with each other as the birthplace of rumors, and then the spread speed of rumors began to accelerate and quickly spread to others to form a chain-like spread, thus entering the formation period of rumor spread. In the formative period, the spread speed of rumors gradually accelerated, and rumors quickly started a prairie fire. More and more people participated in the spread and the scope became wider and wider. When rumors are accepted by the vast majority of the public, the spread of rumors has entered a climax. Subsequently, with the weakening of the importance of rumors, the frequency of rumor spread began to decline, and rumor spread gradually entered a recession until rumors completely disappeared. For enterprise crisis management, it is extremely important to control the occurrence of rumors, and the effect of prevention is much better than that of control, that is to say, it is best to expose the motivation of rumors in the formation period. In the crisis public relations of modern enterprises, the subject of rumor spreading and its motivation are quite complicated, and both the consumers, competitors and the public will become the source of rumors, mainly including: competitors; Consumers; Mass media; Other members of the public who intentionally or unintentionally create troubles play different roles with each other. 1. competitors. In the increasingly fierce market competition, faced with the lack of corporate integrity, one party in the competitive relationship will release some information that has no scientific basis and is not in line with reality to attack the other party in order to squeeze across the other party and seize a larger market share. For example, it was once rumored by competitors that Chundu ham sausage contained human flesh. 2. Consumers. In reality, consumers often unconsciously play the role of rumor makers and disseminators, and their motivation is often due to dissatisfaction with products or services, especially when demanding legitimate rights or claims are rejected, they tend to spread rumors to relatives, friends and the public to vent their dissatisfaction. For example, Hengsheng laptop distributed unfavorable comments on the Internet due to consumers' dissatisfaction with after-sales service. 3. Mass media. Modern media is like a tiger, which many enterprises are afraid of. As the saying goes, success is also a media, and failure is also a media. The excessive enthusiasm of the media has no intention of making the news media the main body of rumors. What's more, the deliberate media hype often makes the enterprises gained in the crisis add fuel to the fire. There are countless examples of this. 4. The public. Other members of the public will intentionally or unintentionally play the role of rumors and rumors. Among them, the purpose of those who are interested is to confuse people's hearing and hearing by spreading rumors, so as to vent their aggressiveness and depression. For example, the rumor that the president of Zhengzhou City, Henan Province absconded with huge sums of money caused a run on the Bank of Communications in this city. Rumors spread in the crisis will spread through interpersonal oral communication, mass media, Internet and other channels from the main body of communication. More commonly, the cross combination of the above media will present a complex network structure. 1. Oral communication between people. Interpersonal oral communication is the main way for consumers and the public to spread rumors, and it is also the most intangible and lethal. According to the explanation of mass communication, it is difficult to keep the integrity and accuracy of information coding and decoding in oral communication between people, so it is inevitable that rumors will be distorted and even different from the information of the source by Wan Li. I'm sure we won't be unfamiliar with this. 2. Mass media. Many times the rumors in crisis come from the mass media. Because of the unique public opinion-oriented function of the mass media, their participation will make the rumors form a top-down communication state, spread quickly and widely, and the audience has many, scattered and hidden characteristics. Therefore, the rumors spread through the mass media are more and more difficult to control and easier to gain the public's trust. 3. Internet 4. Combination of multiple media. In reality, rumor spread is not isolated, but often oral communication between people and the combination of mass media and network, so the vortex spread of rumor information has a greater impact on enterprises. For enterprises, the content of rumor spread is various, such as product quality, service, performance, packaging, trademark, asset reorganization, competitor competition, marketing channels, operating performance, financial situation, personnel changes and so on. The worst rumors tend to publicize negative information of enterprises, such as the decline of product quality, unsafe use, the turnover of senior personnel of enterprises, and the bankruptcy of enterprises. For example, Procter & Gamble's trademark is rumored to have the symbol of devil worship. Rumors are often a kind of speculation about enterprises, and their contents are not static in the process of communication. In the process of decoding, decoding and decoding information, memory will change with the passage of time, and rumor communicators play a subjective role in communication. The public at the next level will make the content itself exaggerated with the will of the communicators at the next level, which will also cause extreme rumors. Without timely and effective control, the spread of rumors in crisis public relations can form a strong pressure of public opinion at a certain stage, thus giving a fatal blow to the product image and corporate image. From overstocked products to loss of market, to collapse or even close down. For example, Nestle once triggered a worldwide boycott movement because of its untimely handling during the beginning of rumors. Therefore, it is imperative to correctly manage the spread of rumors. Crisis management of rumor spreading Facing the public relations crisis caused by rumor spreading, enterprises must make their own correct choices. The best way to overcome the influence of rumors is to start from ourselves, take precautions before they happen, overcome their weaknesses and make themselves impeccable; If you are in crisis, enterprises should pay attention to responding to rumors through successful crisis public relations communication and save their reputation. 1. Establish an early warning mechanism for rumors. Being prepared and doing everything in advance shows the importance of forecasting and planning. Enterprises should comprehensively and clearly predict all kinds of possible crises, especially those caused by rumors that are not their own reasons, and formulate specific steps and preventive strategies for crisis public relations. Enterprises can learn from the experiences and lessons of other enterprises, predict the links that may go wrong according to their own internal and external environment, and formulate corresponding public relations measures according to the right medicine, which should be as specific and perfect as possible. If it may cause consumer problems: are consumers really satisfied with products or services? If not, do they have complaint channels? Will complaints be satisfactorily resolved? Will they spread abroad? What will be the severity of communication? Problems in the news media often include: whether the communication between enterprises and the media is normal recently, what is the caliber of the report, and to what extent have there been negative reports? Social public: Is the relationship between enterprises and the government, communities and the public harmonious, and does the enterprise harm them? This requires enterprises to make corresponding countermeasures: try their best to do their own products and services, and send special personnel to communicate and negotiate with consumers in time if there are problems; Contact with the media to prevent the spread of false and unfavorable information; Internal search for the causes of the problem, the conclusion of the nature of the problem and so on. More importantly, the crisis management team should be good at establishing an early warning mechanism for enterprise crisis, and monitor the possible rumor crisis in enterprises. When there are signs of rumors, the enterprise information system will quickly feel them and feed them back to the management in time, so as to be vigilant at any time for publicity and correction at any time. Especially with the advent of the information society, the speed of mastering information will become an important factor to determine the development of enterprises, so it is very necessary to strengthen the smooth internal communication and timely grasp of market information. 2. Establish a crisis management organization. As the saying goes, a bird flies without a head, and the best way to deal with rumors is for enterprises to make organizational preparations and be prepared. British public relations expert Michael? In Crisis Public Relations, Regester put forward the common characteristics of crisis management team members, including: idea-oriented, accumulating creative professionals, constantly putting forward new suggestions and ideas, and constantly enriching and perfecting the crisis public relations plan; Communication, which plays the role of communication and coordination between the preceding and the following, and harmonious cooperation with the news media, so that all parties can communicate smoothly; Bad luck dealer type, constantly using reverse thinking from the opposite side to put forward amendments and try to consider perfection; Documentary, good at summarizing and perfecting, forming a written plan; Humanism, fully people-oriented, inclined to put the interests of customers first, and truly consider the interests of the public, which is the most basic condition for the success of crisis public relations. Nowadays, the trend of customer-oriented management is prevalent, CS concept is popular, and corporate public relations activities attach importance to catering to consumers' psychological needs; Crisis public relations can really win the trust and support of customers only by actually considering consumers and creating value for the public, which is the foundation for enterprises to stand in the fierce market competition. This is also the business philosophy that Chinese entrepreneurs lack and need to strengthen urgently. The author believes that the members of the crisis management team in real operation should include: business leaders, who are the final decision-makers on important issues and are conducive to making authoritative decisions as soon as possible. The reason why the top management should participate in crisis management is to ensure the authority and decision-making of crisis management; Public relations professionals are the theoretical staff and concrete executors of crisis public relations, responsible for the optimization and implementation of crisis public relations procedures; Production and quality assurance personnel, who are familiar with the production process and easy to grasp the problematic links in the production process, are convenient to deal with questions from consumers and the media; Sales staff, familiar with the circulation procedures, are easy to grasp the problematic links in the circulation process; Lawyers, as legal affairs consultants of enterprises, are familiar with the legal problems that may occur in the daily operation of enterprises, which is convenient to ensure the correctness of enterprise behavior in legal procedures. Especially in recent years, when disputes between enterprises and consumers are becoming more and more frequent and the amount of claims is increasingly bullish, lawyers come forward to help solve disputes through legal channels as soon as possible; Consumer hotline receptionists, who are an important link to receive consumer complaints, communicate information and establish an image to the outside world, are the first gateway to crisis public relations. If handled properly, they will often nip the rumor crisis caused by complaints in the bud. As we all know, the PPA storm has left many people at a loss, and there are many rumors in the society. The well-trained full-time operator has become a bridge between China and the United States, customers and consumers, and an extremely effective communication channel. In Contac crisis public relations, the role of the operator can not be underestimated, as can be seen from the fact that the sales hotline was almost blown up. The crisis management team emphasizes that everyone is involved in every key link in the enterprise, that is, it is easier to find out the problem at the beginning of the rumor outbreak and avoid procrastination and wrangling, so as to take timely measures to suit the remedy to the case and take the initiative. It is important to appoint a spokesman for corporate crisis public relations in the crisis management team. At the moment of crisis, it is easy for enterprises to fall into a chaotic state of mixed information, which is not conducive to the formation of effective crisis communication, thus forming a unified external communication voice is the inevitable result of the situation. The spokesperson is responsible for communicating with the outside world, especially the news media, releasing public relations information in a timely, accurate and consistent manner according to the needs of the enterprise's external publicity, thus forming an effective external communication channel. In this way, we can avoid the disorder and confusion of external publicity and the possible public suspicion when the crisis comes, which is convenient for enterprises to control the spread of crisis public relations information. 3. Control information and respond to rumors. In the initial stage of rumor spreading, it is generally easy for enterprises to neglect or ignore it because they think their integrity is not afraid of the shadow, which is typical of the Changde incident of Sanzhu Company. In fact, enterprises should be vigilant when the wind blows and wrinkles the spring water, and look for the source, influence scope and intention background of the rumor, so as to control different types of rumors in a targeted manner. In the classic works of crisis management, the first 24 hours of the crisis are regarded as the focus of the enterprise's work, and the relevant information about the issues they care about is provided to the public as much as possible, and the ambiguity is prevented by expanding the amount of information to eliminate their mystery about the enterprise-related issues, which is one of the important methods to reduce the further spread of rumors. After rumors appear, enterprises should quickly make their own judgments and determine the principled position, scheme and procedure of corporate public relations; Briefly explain the crisis overview and enterprise crisis management measures that the enterprise has mastered to the news media as soon as possible, clarify the position and attitude of the enterprise, win the trust and support of the media, and avoid the deterioration of the situation. After the rumor came into being, the people who are most concerned about the enterprise's response measures are nothing more than the news media, competitors and the public. News media, an inevitable phenomenon in the information society, is the increasingly important position and role of news media in society. Their judgments on enterprises often influence public opinion, and their public opinion will be related to the reputation and brand image of enterprises. Now, the power of news media is unprecedented, they will be more concerned about the crisis process than enterprises, and they will also have more self-righteous corresponding measures to remind enterprises; At the same time, it tends to protect the weak, which secretly and invisibly increases the difficulty of enterprise crisis management. Avoid a misunderstanding: try to avoid meeting the media before the truth comes out. In fact, even if you don't contact the media, the media will make up various reasons to speculate. Isn't the escalation of many domestic crises the result of not controlling the spread of unfavorable information in time? Don't try to hide it, it will only make things worse and worse. It is better to contact the media in time and strive for their objective and true reports. Never forget, an important principle of crisis public relations: openness. At this time, we should also pay attention to the situation of blindly drawing conclusions and making some promises before the events are clarified, which often makes it difficult for enterprises to justify themselves and fall into a dilemma. Corporate crisis public relations will be carried out with all kinds of suspicions. Enterprises should pay attention to informing the media of the latest situation and progress in time, and also set up special information communication channels to facilitate the inquiry of the news media and the public, paving the way for the day when the truth comes out. A big problem here is that their keen reaction and excessive attention to the enterprise crisis will inevitably lead to the distortion or irrationalization of the report, so can they win it?