I had originally shared these ten steps on crisis management and how to put together a plan over on Kami Huyse’s blog, Communication Overtones, but after last night’s PR 2.0 chat where we discussed crisis management and social media, I realized that so many companies still struggle with crisis management.
Often they think they need a HUGE three-ring binder that includes a page on every single possible crisis that might occur. And that–my marketing, PR and communications friends–is completely unrealistic and ineffective! Not to mention that it could take forever to get an actionable plan together.
When it comes down to it, managing a crisis isn’t about a plan…but knowing how to properly handle ANY crisis that might occur with authority, sincerity, confidence, compassion, etc. It comes down to skill/experience versus having a playbook. And whether you’re a company engaged in only traditional PR or public relations 2.0, these steps will help you to get started in the right direction.
Here are the ten basic steps that I have used successfully for years:
Basic Planning:
1. Invite all departments that could be affected by a potential crisis to a meeting (marketing/PR, legal, manufacturing, IT, executives, etc.).
2. Document each department’s crisis concerns then rank them from low to high in crisis level and low to high in level of potential.
3. Make a color-coded table of the crisis situations (Red = high level crisis, high potential, Orange, high level crisis, medium potential, etc. Colors can vary.).
4. Select the crisis team (typically one key person from each department).
5. Select who will be the spokesperson/people during a crisis (a media trained spokesperson is ideal).
Basic Strategy:
6. Invite the crisis team to a meeting to review the table, agree on each situation and its level and potential.
7. Develop a potential response for each situation (obviously until the situation occurs, you can’t have an exact & accurate response, but it helps to be prepared).
8. Develop a business card size call tree for the crisis team. Make sure that there is one person who is the ONLY key contact for media (when it comes to blogger relations, you may have more than one person). It’s that person’s job to contact the rest of the tree and inform them of the crisis situation.
Basic Practice:
9. Select a partner to work with the key contact to randomly test their crisis situation skills (ex: “Hi, this is Sue from the Daily Herald, word on the street is that your company will be having massive layoffs this week any comments?”). Or practice writing comments for potentially negative blog comments & posts.
10. Take notes on how the practice calls/comments were handled. Evaluate, repeat, practice even more.
[From the original post] …10 easy steps to crisis management, it’s impossible right? One might think so, but I’ve found that when potential crisis situations are actually ranked (from the potentially realistic to the potentially outlandish), discussed and strategized for it actually helps to curb corporate risk aversion. It also helps when there’s a crisis team in place that is all on the same page, practiced and confident. That said, these 10 steps assume that you are dealing with a team that understands public relations and is media trained. When it comes to actually speaking to your publics during a crisis, the key basics of being honest, forthright, etc. still hold.
Your thoughts? Can you plan for a crisis in 10 easy steps and still be effective?
If you want more background, examples and details, you can read the original post over at Kami’s blog.
NOTE: The PR 2.0 chat is held every Wednesday night at 8pm EST on Twitter. The hashtag is #pr20chat. All are welcome to participate! (There’s a different PR 2.0 topic each week.)
Tags: crisis management, PR 2.0, Public Relations, Social Media
With all the focus on new media these days, organizations can’t forget these traditional PR basics. I think we definitely have to develop shorter, leaner and more effective plans for almost everything today. Thanks for reminding us about crisis management.
Thanks for this practical advice.
One thing I would had is that brands should really work on crisis prevention.
If you’re already known and trusted in your target communities, you’ll find help to fight the crisis.
Fewer people will spread rumors on people they know.
Best
Killer stuff Beth. Really useful post. I’d add that the crisis plan needs to include protocols for content creation in different formats. One of the truisms of social media crisis management is that you have to respond at the flash point, not in an asynchronous fashion. If it breaks on YouTube, you need to respond on YouTube, not with a press release. So, someone in your organization needs to be able to get a video created and uploaded FAST. I’d include video, audio, tweets, blogs, etc. in the matrix of potential messages.
Thanks for the really insightful post, Beth.
This is one piece of information marketers all over the world will find very useful.
I would just like to emphasize that whether you’re a tenderfoot entrepreneur or a veteran business player, these ten basic steps are very much a great addition to your crisis management plan.
Great post, Beth, and great chat this week. The best way to deal with a crisis is to plan for it! It’s time for the massive 3-ring binder to become a doorstop and for the plan to become an ongoing conversation. A plan is great, but if folks don’t practice, and don’t have ongoing conversations about “What if?” they are going to get caught out, and the crisis will potentially be worse.
Great post for communications crisis management. Any advice for operations crisis management? I often wonder why airlines and banks and financial planning firms, etc. are NEVER prepared for crisis, so just when you need your brand to perform its best, the people on the front lines get reactionary and rude when confronted with irate customers. This is always the moment I switch brands.
I would focus more on preventing crisis through knowledge.
Most companies can spot some area of potential crisis well in advance and detect best defense.
I believe that monitoring market and customers thoughts can help in preventing (Disclaimer: monitoring is what my company core business)
This is what I suggest to my clients: look internally, define crucial area, monitor those area, build case and staff, put everything in a drawer, refresh from time to time.
With the many cases of food contamination, recalls etc in our fresh food industry, these plans are MUST-HAVEs for our clients. Your suggestions are right on, but I would make one more: be sure to get media training. The media can kill you with the tough questions. Knowing the right answer is one thing: being self-assured, sounding honest and open when faced with a mike, is another.
Hi! Ten steps are really ten dynamic steps which give me innovative ideas on crisis plan so this is really easy to understand for the newbies like me.Thanks for the creative one.Keep up post continue and stay tune with us…….:)
Wow! Its a fabulous post which is very creative and one of the best informative one.I really appreciate the ten basic steps and it really works which I have seen before.You should have to give more post on it.Thanks for the effective post.Keep up blogging cont…………=(::)=