Crisis Communications

Crisis Communications  

Crisis communication is the collection, processing, and dissemination of information that is important to address problem. Crisis communication is often mentioned in the same breath as reputation management – if an issue becomes a crisis and is not handled properly, the result can be (permanent) damage to reputation.  

Of course, you want to be ahead of this, and you can do this by making sure you have a plan for the communication around a crisis and afterwards. With an efficient and crisis strategy and associated communication team you maintain the trust of stakeholders and guard the reputation of your organization. 

Why are crisis communications important?  

A crisis is very difficult to prevent, and you don’t have control over how your audience will react or how you’ll be portrayed in the media. What you do have control over is how you deal with the communication surrounding a crisis.  

Media monitoring can be an effective tool here. Journalists, customers, and competitors spend a large part of their day monitoring the media. During a crisis it is important that you know what they see and what they share with their network about your organization, product, or brand during a crisis. This allows you to get ahead of, or respond to, any possible scenario.  

What is involved in crisis communications?  

A crisis communications plan generally involves a four-step process: planning, collection, processing, and dissemination of information. 

• Planning: Before a crisis hits, you need to have a plan. Create a crisis communications checklist to keep track of all the steps you need to take and the best channels to share your message. Part of this should include an understanding of the common crises in your field and how to address them. 
• Collection: This is any research before or at the beginning of a crisis. Typically information collection includes industry trends, media monitoring, social media listening, and due diligence research.
• Processing: During a crisis, you’ll need to process the information you have coming in. Analyze public sentiment—visualizations of negative news is helpful here—to understand how best craft messaging to prevent any major damage.
• Dissemination: This is how you get your message out. Share any pertinent messaging to stakeholders via agreed upon channels such as press releases, social media, or interviews.  

How to write a crisis communications plan 

A good crisis communication plan includes: 

1. A detailed plan that should outline the steps an organization would take as soon as it realizes a crisis is about unfold and what is it the organization needs to achieve through the crisis communication. The plan should also include what qualifies as a crisis.
2. Preselect a crisis management team and decide who oversees each part of the plan, including the collection of information and dissemination of information to key stakeholders, journalists, and the public.
3. Define the key messages. Identify the cause, brief description of the incident, future crisis plans to handle the negative consequences of the incident, and plans to prevent future occurrences.
4. Determine how to share the information with your internal organization. It’s especially important to make sure that your executives are all on the same page.
5. Organize lists of stakeholders and media lists that would need to be contacted in case of a crisis. 

How LexisNexis supports crisis communications 

Nexis Newsdesk^®, our flagship media intelligence solution, along with our Social Analytics offering, empowers you develop strong crisis communications programs by providing you access to the information you need to stay on top of any problem. It enables you to: 

• Create personalized news searches around topics of interest and potential crises
• Analyze brand awareness and how you are perceived
• Monitor what people are saying about your company, your brand, and your competitors in near-real time so you can quickly respond to developments
• Track multiple topics across nearly 4 million articles daily, spanning 75 languages and more than 100 countries, for a comprehensive view of the media landscape
• Stay abreast of 24/7 broadcast-news coverage with monitoring of more than 2,000 TV and radio stations around the world and access to full-length transcripts and related videos
• Keep track of the buzz across social media, including Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, as well as thought-leader blogs, podcasts, microblogs, video/photo sharing sites, industry forums and more
• Convert your research into easy-to-digest charts and graphs to share news and insights within your organization
• Stay up to date on the latest news thanks to customized alerts and newsletters
• Share copyright-compliant news and information with colleagues and clients using customizable distribution tools, including branded newsletters and RSS feeds 

Nexis Newsdesk’s features include: 

• A customizable dashboard
• Branded alerts and newsletters
• Embeddable interactive charts
• Advanced analysis and filtering capabilities
• Personalized searches and alerts
• An unparalleled array of content 

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