This week I decided to take a turn from social media and
focus on public relations. I found an article on PR News about five ways to
build a crisis team. You never know when or where a crisis can occur. It only
takes a moment to tear down a brands reputation. It is important for a company
to have a group of people prepared to handle these situations. This group of people
will work as a team to respond to the crisis and figure out how to rebuild the
brand at any time.
This article highlights the five points on how to build a
powerful crisis team. I wanted to share this with all of you because a crisis
team is crucial to have when building or running a brand.
1.
Establish a baseline
The baseline is used to determine the
positive and negative mentions. This then makes it possible to know exactly
when a situation has turned into a crisis. This information should then be shared
with management so they are on the same page.
2.
Assign members to communicate with media,
stakeholders, and the public
This can occur on social media channels,
online newsroom, or individual accounts. Pre-assigning members is the best way
to ensure you reach key stakeholders.
3.
Create a crisis command center
Have a command center where you can
consolidate, report, and process from a data standpoint. You can a specific
area where crisis is set up and you have members of each team working on a
solution in the drill sessions.
4.
Invest in training, planning, and drills
It has been noted that it is well worth the
spend when you have money specifically saved for drills and training for crisis
situations.
5.
Get an executive buy-in
It is extremely important to make the case to
upper management that their organization could be wiped out by a crisis.
Crisis control is detrimental when crisis comes along. There
are keys steps to take to build a top crisis team. I hope you have also learned
something about how important crisis management is. Remember that a crisis can
come along at any time and threaten your business, so make sure your team is
prepared!
I did an internship with a marketing agency that was trying to get more into the PR role. The PR team I worked with did not have a lot of crises, but I could tell when it happened because they both went into the conference room for hours at a time. It is always best to be prepared. One time my job was to make a media list in a specific area because they thought some crises for one of their clients could happen there. I never saw it get used but it was better to be prepared just in case.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great resource. Thanks! Crisis preparation is really important in the PR world. Getting organizations to understand that investing in the time and money to plan for the worst will pay off in the long run. Thanks for sharing what you thought about the article!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post! Crisis prevention is a MUST in the public relations profession. It is very important for companies and organizations to have a plan in place just in case. We are all bound to have a crisis at some point, it is just a matter of when, not if. The article you debriefed gave grate steps to take into ensuring proper crisis prevention. Thanks for sharing!
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