BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

With all of the talk about how the Obama campaign' s mastery of digital media helped seal its victory in November, I' m reminded of another president that used technological advancements in communications to cement his place in history.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first American president to utilize radio as a primary vehicle for communicating with his constituents. From the declaration of the first federal bank holiday in 1933 to the declaration of war with Japan following Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt utilized his famous fireside chats to calm the public in times of great uncertainty and share his plans for moving the country from crisis to prosperity.

Roosevelt' s fireside chats were so effective that they still live on today in the form of the President' s Weekly Radio Address.

Though predecessors like Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge had radio technology at their fingertips, neither viewed this new technology as anything other than a novelty. Their refusal to recognize the history-altering power that radio wielded is reminiscent of the many CEO' s whose companies are taking a beating in the blogosphere today.

Much like President Roosevelt' s realization in the 1930s, today' s CEO' s need to work with the blogosphere in crisis the way the most sophisticated of them do on the brand side of their companies. Treat the bloggers like journalists - for that is who they have become - and recognize them as the pulse of their consumers; the early warning system for crisis; the instant pollsters for politicians, and the assignment editors for traditional journalists. 

In an era in which Matt Drudge' s share of the online news market is greater than that of the New York Times, if you' re not engaging the blogosphere in crisis, then you are ceding control of the conversation to someone else.

Engaging a new form of media before others is an opportunity  that a President whose likeness now graces Mt. Rushmore fully leveraged - and one that today' s CEOs must engage to control the conversation when a company is in its most vulnerable moments