Shel Holtz, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, and Jennifer Zingsheim Phillips, founder of 4L Strategies, co-host Crisis Communications: Manage (and Avoid) Crises with Media Monitoring, a webinar sponsored by CARMA.
In the current era of global communication, social media, digital, and traditional news outlets circulate information surrounding crises faster than ever before. PR professionals and communicators must be armed with the skills and plans to handle these delicate situations before they escalate.
This session addresses how to approach crisis management, as well as examples of modern crises and using monitoring tools to manage them.
4. What is a Crisis?
• The public is risk-averse
• The public attaches little credibility to business advocates
• Media’s role is based on conflict
• Advocacy groups will exploit your crisis to their own
purposes
• Emotion, not logic, is at issue
• Crises are characterized by symbols
6. Planning for Potential Crises
• It’s not feasible to plan for every possible crisis
• Planning for problems your organization may likely
encounter is best practice.
7. Pre-Crisis Monitoring
• Use monitoring tools to track what your audience is
saying about your brand.
• These tools allow you to monitor for unusual spikes
in mentions.
• A spike in mentions could mean a problem is on
the horizon.
9. Responding to a Crisis
• Organize into teams to handle the various aspects of a
crisis.
• PR professionals/communicators and legal teams
typically have different objectives.
• Respond quickly and with transparency.
• Prioritize your stakeholders.
• Protect your customers first.
10. Pay Attention to Social
• Social media adds another layer of complication for crisis
management.
• News- and outrage- travels fast
• The multitude of voices can spread rumors
• Crises are turned into memes, compounding a
company’s problems
11. Continue to Monitor
• In the flurry of activity, don’t neglect your
monitoring tools.
• Refine keywords, if necessary, to collect the most
relevant coverage.
• Use the collected coverage to help structure
responses.
13. Your Crisis is Over- Now What?
• Use monitoring tools to conduct sentiment
analysis of coverage.
• How did the crisis affect your organization’s
reputation?
• Use the information gleaned from this analysis to
plan and prevent future crises.