How quickly can you take control of the narrative during a crisis?
What should you do during a data breach crisis?
How should you handle journalists during a crisis?
Our latest crisis comms refresher webinar was packed with key crisis media management principles, food for thought, best practices, common errors and plenty of insightful, strategic discussion.
Hosts James White, our CEO, and Sean Ryan, one of our brilliant trainers and the leader of our new Organisational Resilience Programme, guided the audience through what you should already have in place to effectively manage a crisis, what you need to do during a crisis and how to recover after one.
And they faced lots of questions about what to do when it hits the fan.
In fact, there were far too many to answer in an hour session.
So, it fell to me to tackle your other key crisis communication questions.
A great place to start. This is essentially about those all-important holding statements.
They are crucial to effectively handling a crisis and responding quickly when the worst happens.
Effective holding statements, prepared and approved in advance and easily adapted to cover the specific incident you face, will buy your organisation crucial time until it gets a better understanding of what has happened and can issue something more detailed.
By responding quickly through a holding statement, you can position yourself as a trusted source of information and help control the narrative during the crisis rather than letting rumours, speculation, and misinformation set the agenda.
I don’t think there are any ‘cons’ to having holding statements prepared. Just ensure you adapt them to the specifics of the crisis. And make sure you don’t say anything you might need to contradict in subsequent statements.
This could be a long answer. Or a blog in its own right.
So, I’ve looked to focus on just a few critical points.
I think the key advice – and something that features a lot in these answers – is being able to start communicating quickly.
Delay is often the cause of the main reputation and PR damage. And it also infuriates journalists.
Make sure you put any victims at the heart of your response. The CARE crisis communication framework we teach during our crisis management courses starts with Compassion.
When you are in crisis media management mode and the pressure builds, you can easily become defensive and view journalists as the enemy.
That mindset must be avoided. Remember that even in the social media age, journalists are still a crucial way for you to get your message to your audience.
Think of journalists as people you work with, rather than people you ‘handle’.
Something I have always tried to do is give journalists a timeframe of when they can expect more information. What that means is that in statements, I would say something like ‘a further update is expected at…’.
When they have an idea of when more information is coming, it can prevent a bombardment of phone calls to the media team.
One that note, a simple step you can take now is to ensure the press office contact details, including a phone number, are easy to find on your website. There are few things more infuriating for a journalist than struggling to find this basic information when they urgently need to get hold of someone.
And one final point on media calls. Something we find works well during our crisis management testing exercises is assigning someone to triage all calls from journalists and putting them on to a shareable document or spreadsheet. It enables responses to be prioritised strategically rather than chronologically.
We feel your pain.
Social media enables a crisis to spread at a frightening speed.
A positive of this is that you can get a feel for public sentiment about the incident in real time. And it can help you potentially detect an issue before it becomes a crisis.
But there are now numerous channels, and many people do not question the validity and reliability of sources on them.
You should have a good understanding of the channels your customers use the most – and where you believe they would expect to hear from you – and prioritise keeping up with what is being said on them.
That is where the social media part of your crisis management will count.
But to be fully across social media, you will need to consider using tools like Meltwater, Brandwatch or Sprout Social, which use AI to track conversations, analyse sentiment and spot trends.
The key question for you to consider is whether you need to respond everywhere or just on the channels that are key for your audience. That needs to be a strategic decision and should be covered in your crisis management strategy.
Data breaches have been the cause of many recent high-profile crisis media management incidents.
And Sean explored how M&S responded to its one during the crisis refresher session.
Whether you are a household name store or a comparatively small organisation, the crisis communication principles for data breaches are the same.
Firstly, make sure they are included in your crisis comms plan - we can review your plan as part of our Organisational Resilience Programme.
And then test that plan. Knowing in advance how you will respond to a data breach will enable you to communicate much more effectively if it happens.
Having a plan in place will also help you start communicating quickly.
The next point is a bit of a balancing act. Your customers will understandably want clarity about what data is involved. They will crave reassurance. The key for you is to try to do that without playing down the significance of what has happened or saying something you later have to correct.
Stick to simple language. Talking about things like a “configuration vulnerability” (we still remember that Capital One) will not help your audience.
A data breach can feel different to a crisis where someone has died or been seriously injured. But people still need to know you care. Data breaches cause people significant problems. So, apologise for the situation your organisation has put them in and put them at the start of your responses.
Data breach crises also tend not to be resolved quickly, as we saw with M&S. You need to communicate throughout.
Keep your customers updated on the actions you are taking to rectify the situation, and the steps they need to take to protect themselves, and what you are doing to try and prevent something similar from happening in future.
Effective internal crisis communication is a vital part of crisis media management.
But it can sometimes be overlooked in the rush to communicate externally.
That must be avoided.
The key principle is that your internal audience should not be learning about the crisis and its latest developments through the media.
Your employees will have concerns. They may know people who are affected. And they will want to know that the organisation is doing the right things to manage the crisis and resolve the situation.
And a lack of information can make them anxious.
So, make sure they hear information from you first, and they receive regular, transparent updates.
Internal communication during a crisis should be empathetic. Show you understand the impact the crisis is having and ensure they know support is available.
And establish opportunities where employees can ask questions and raise concerns.
Video updates from senior leaders are an excellent internal crisis communication tool, helping to show visible leadership.
Finally, ensure internal communications is involved in crisis communication and crisis management exercises so you can be confident your internal channels and messages work.
Great question. Taking control of the narrative during a crisis is all about speed.
The quicker you start communicating, the more control you can take.
The longer you leave it, the more the vacuum will be filled by others, which can lead to the spread of misleading and false information. And reputational damage.
What does that look like in practice?
Well, the age of the golden hour is long gone. You don’t have 60 minutes to gather information and gain a greater understanding of what has happened before you start communicating during a crisis.
You probably have more like 15 minutes.
That is an incredibly tight and daunting deadline.
And that is why holding statements are essential. They enable you to start communicating quickly and position yourself as a trusted source of information.
But holding statements only hold for so long.
So, you must continue to communicate to maintain control.
If you don’t, you can expect to be inundated with calls, emails and social media posts from frustrated journalists and customers.
Social media is quick and direct.
It has undoubtedly changed crisis media management.
And its pace can feel scary.
But it shouldn’t lead your crisis media management response.
Social media posts, mainstream media statements and internal communication should all happen at the same.
Variations of the holding statements we have discussed throughout these answers should go out across these channels at the same time.
When you have more to say, social media updates can include links to media statements to help provide more detailed information.
If monitoring shows false or inaccurate information is spreading on social media, correct it in your statements and consider challenging it directly.
Social media does, of course, enable you to communicate directly with customers. And you may decide to try to respond to every post.
Many organisations still attempt to do this. If that approach is part of your plan, ensure you avoid falling into the trap of it looking like you are copying and pasting each response. It looks robotic and does not suggest you care about what is being said.
James and Sean will host more crisis refresher sessions and media training webinars throughout the year. Keep your eyes on your inbox for your next invite. You can also find out more about the Organisational Resilience Programme - a structured programme combining leadership alignment, crisis preparedness, capability building and on-demand support - by clicking here.
Media First are media and communications training specialists with more than 40 years of experience.
We have a team of trainers, each with decades of experience working as journalists, presenters, communications coaches and media trainers.
Find out more about our crisis communication training courses.