A crisis communication plan is a map to help you navigate a situation that may attract negative media coverage to your company or executives.
Your brand reputation is VALUABLE!
You think a crisis won’t happen to your company but, after years of building your company’s reputation, why would you leave your response to chance?
I was interviewed by Acuity Insurance and their social media team about how to attract the media to get free publicity and how to handle the media during a crisis.
Acuity will share all the videos with their clients soon. In the meantime, here is some of the information I shared with them.
What are the three key elements for your crisis communication plan?
Three key elements are:
- Create a Crisis Communication Team. I call it a Compass Crisis team because someone needs to be assigned to handle the DIRECTION of the message. You have different audiences – different directions. Your employees should be your Northstar! They should know before the media.
- You need to have a quick call sheet with everyone’s cell phones numbers. It’s best to print it, laminate it and keep it in your wallet or in your vehicle. I’d also put your quick call sheet in a shared document cloud service for easy access anywhere.
- You need to have a system in place ( a conference call) so everyone can assess the level of the crisis and what type of communication is really warranted.
If it was an employee posting threatening messages on Facebook, you wouldn’t alert the media. You should consider what was posted and let HR know and maybe law enforcement depending on the level of the threat.
When your crisis does rise to the level of the media remember two things – it’s not about you. It’s about the audience you’re addressing. You are not just a professional company with no feelings. Your customers and your employees want you to be human!
For help creating your crisis management plan and to have Katrina coach your executives about how to address the media, click here to let us know more about your needs.
In cases of a media emergency – call us at (262) 423-7170.
