Monday, February 10, 2014

How To Make A Crisis Communications Plan

By Jerri Perry


There are going to be times wherein a company or a corporation would have a situation wherein their public image will be at risk. Because of scandals, rumors, and other types of destructive happenings, the public could actually have a bad view of the corporation because of this type of situation. Now the only way to handle this well would be to make a crisis communications plan to be able to send a message to the public.

Now the first part of this process would be to simply think of a medium that is most appropriate to address this type of situation. Now this could be any type of channel like the world wide web, the mass media, the press, or just the close networks. Now the goal here is to be able to make the message spread far and wide so the target audience will hear it.

Now the very first part of the plan that will be made would be an overview of the crisis and what exactly happened. Now the first part has to be a report of the exact happenings of the situation and of course the chain of events that actually influenced the situation. So basically, one will have to put some of the signals and warnings that the corporation saw.

Now the second part of this thing would be a list of some people that were included in the entire thing. Most likely, the communications team and the public relations team would make an appearance in this part because they are the front liners of this situation. Now other people who will play a big role in this situation are the media contacts.

After that, one should include how the situation was assessed and what the possible solutions that were used in the situation. Now one should also put there the roles of the people who were involved in the entire management of the situation as well as the things that they did. It is also recommended to add an action matrix in the plan.

After making the assessment then one should now concentrate on creating the message. Firstly, the message should have some important facts of this case as well as some key things that the corporation would want to shoot out to the public. When making the message, one can utilize the five step model for preparing messages.

The very last part would be to explain in details how the management would communicate their message. One of the first things that they will be listing there would be who their target audience is and if there are specific people, their names should be listed there. Then the next thing to do is to put down who the helpers are like if the management would seek help from the media or the press.

So as one can see, it is actually fairly simple to create a crisis communications plan. One of the things never to forget is that this kind of situation has to be fixed in a week or less. If it goes beyond a week, then the bad image may stay.




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