Your questions answered from our crisis comms webinar

If a crisis struck your organisation tomorrow, what would you do?

Do you have a crisis communications plan? Are you confident it works?

Facing a crisis is daunting.

It can expose you to massive scrutiny. And it presents a substantial and long-lasting impact to your reputation.

We recently led a webinar covering all things crisis communication and ensuring you are in the best position to respond quickly and communicate with clarity and confidence when the unthinkable happens. You can watch it here and read about it here. 

Understandably, there were plenty of questions.

In fact, there were too many for us to answer during the session.

So, our expert panel – our CEO James White, expert crisis comms trainer and journalist Elisa Colton, and former communications manager Adam Fisher – reconvened to answer them for you in the blog.

 

What's the best approach for managing social media in a crisis, especially in the event of negative content being posted by users to an organisation's channels?

The ever-growing use of social media undoubtedly brings challenges. And it can feel unnerving if you are being tagged on negative comments and people call for a boycott of your product or service.

But don’t be afraid of social media during a crisis.

Many of the same crisis communication rules apply – respond quickly, show you care, provide regular updates and direct people to where they can get further information and help.

There are a couple of additional things to consider. Do you plan to respond to everyone who mentions you? And if you do, can you do it in a way that doesn’t make it look like you are copying and pasting the same response robotically?

And finally, do you know how to turn off any promotional posts you have scheduled to go out? The last thing you need when you are already under pressure is for a poorly timed social media post to damage your reputation further.

 

How do you ensure your internal and external crisis comms are joined up?

This is crucial.

In a fast-moving crisis, it can be all too easy to focus on your external messages and forget about your internal communication.

Organisations become preoccupied with what the media are saying and how the story is being reported by the mainstream media and by customers on social media.

But their employees are their ambassadors and can be the strong brand advocates they need during these difficult times.

So, it is vital internal communication is not only taken seriously in a crisis media management situation but is also involved in all crisis comms planning.

An internal comms representative should be part of the crisis team and be involved in crisis test exercises.

During a crisis, ensure external and internal comms colleagues are working closely together to ensure message consistency and that both audiences are hearing updates at the same time.

 

Do you have any tips to embed a crisis comms plan within an entire organisation? We have many teams who work with public audiences - how do we train them to spot a potential crisis and how should we embed this training?

There are a few things we recommend.

Firstly, ensuring everyone in your organisation has a basic level of media awareness, will help them identify potential issues and understand how best to raise them with the comms team.

We have created branded online courses for our customers to help them do just this.

An introduction to what the media is looking for in a story, what could turn into a media crisis and how to escalate things to your comms or media team can be delivered online in less than 20 minutes.

And, if you have customer service, sales or reception teams whose telephone numbers are easily found it is well worth including a basic module on managing journalists who call them.

This could potentially be included as part of an induction process.

Then you need to make crisis planning part of your internal comms. Tell your employees what you are doing around crisis planning.

When you test your plan, tell people what you have changed, and the lesson learnt from the exercise.

Also, ensure people can easily access your crisis plan – don’t keep it on a dusty shelf.

 

In times of crisis, is it best to show compassion, or remain factual and dispassionate?

Compassion is vital.

President Theodore Roosevelt summed it up best by saying: “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Companies may not feel things, but people do.

So, you must show your customers and potential future customers you understand the severity of what has happened and the impact it has had before moving into the detail of the incident.

If the crisis revolves around an accident, show how you are helping those who have been injured. If the crisis has been caused by a loss of data, highlight how you are helping affected customers and working to ensure it cannot happen again.

Use emotional, human language throughout your responses.

If you missed the webinar, we would suggest watching it here to learn the CARE message development acronym we recommend using during crisis media management.

 

What level of media crisis would warrant actively choosing not to put a spokesperson up for an interview? Or is this such a bad look that it's always preferable to put someone up, to avoid the organisation looking cowardly/weak/guilty?

Always put someone forward for interviews.

If you don’t, you create a vacuum and the media will turn to others to fill it, leading to the spread of speculation and rumour.

This means you quickly lose control of the narrative.

The approach can also make you look secretive and defensive when you should be striving for transparency to establish trust.

The only time we would suggest you don’t put people forward for interview is when you don’t have a spokesperson with the relevant experience and media training.

 

How do you think technology has changed the way we communicate during crises? And what are the benefits and challenges of using digital channels?

 Arguably, the biggest challenge is that when a crisis strikes you need to respond more quickly than ever.

Social media - and the lightning speed it shares information - increasingly serves as a crisis trigger and you can rapidly find yourself trending. And because all of us have smartphones, footage of what has happened can be shared quickly and widely.

Equally, rumour, misinformation and negative comments can rapidly circulate and be amplified.  

Another challenge is that in some organisations, digital channels have blurred the lines between comms teams and customer services. People use ‘help’ accounts, not necessarily managed by comms teams, to raise issues and concerns. This can be a vulnerability if a reputation threat is not quickly identified and escalated.

It is also worth highlighting that traditional news sources are also now digital. Newspapers don’t have to wait for the next print run to cover your crisis, they can report it online and push it through their socials and websites. TV and news stations run 24/7 and are always after the next story.

But digital channels also present crisis comms opportunities.

It allows you to communicate with your audience in real-time. And, if you select the right channels, you can speak directly to them – and address their concerns and fears - rather than just reaching them through the media.

It is also easy for brand advocates and influencers to share your responses, potentially adding credibility and countering misinformation.

And monitoring online channels effectively can help you spot risks before they become major issues.

Like all forms of crisis management, consider the risks and opportunities and how you will use them in advance. A crisis is not the time for trial and error.