We love the saying “stay ready so you don’t have to get ready”, and it’s definitely our preferred approach to crisis communications planning.
As you start considering your crisis communications readiness, we recommend adding these tools to your toolkit.
The first is a risk assessment tool.
As you create a crisis comms plan, the first step is to identify possible areas of risk that could lead to a crisis. While there is no way to predict when a crisis will occur, you can take some steps to determine what fires are more likely to burn within your organization. Look at where your biggest areas of risk are. If your business entails manufacturing, could on-the-job injuries be a concern? If you sell consumer goods, are you prepared for a cyber-attack where PII data may be compromised? Are you prepared for an attack on your brand’s credibility on social media?
At KVA, we leverage a tried and true risk assessment framework recommended by PRSA. It’s a great way to take an objective view of the facts by determining the likelihood and anticipated magnitude of the crisis.
We’ve prepared a downloadable version that you can use to kickstart your crisis communications planning process.
The second is a sample checklist to evaluate the impact of negative coverage in media or social media.
If there’s negative coverage on your brand or organization in traditional or social media, you need to get a handle on the details and impact right away. Especially if your brand or company is small, it can be hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve created a checklist that can help small businesses gather details about the negative coverage and use the info to make decisions about next steps.
