What is the role of strategic communications in crisis management?
It is important to define key terms that this article will explore which are; strategic communications and crisis management. In strategic communications, the communications effort and entire messaging must be purposeful and intentional in order to achieve business or organizational outcomes. On the other hand, crisis management deals with incidents that affect Reputation, License to operate, and Stakeholders (RLS). You can also read up on the difference between issues and crisis management.
“Strategic communications is the purposeful use of communications to achieve a specific outcome or to fulfill a mission.”~ Sola Abulu
In our previous article, we established the difference between crisis management and crisis communication. Crisis management is the entire process of actions taken in a crisis scenario. On the other hand, crisis communications involve messaging/response, engagements, stakeholder mapping, and stakeholder engagement that goes on in a crisis. You can read more about it here.
There are many instances where communication is not purposeful. In this case, it can be spontaneous, reactive, tactical, or even proactive. However, for a communications effort to be strategic, it has to be carefully analyzed with the outcome and audience/stakeholders in mind. This applies to crisis management and the communications response. When a business, organization, institution, or any brand experiences a crisis, the response has to be purposeful and after a thorough analysis of the situation and sentiments.
Crises scenarios are very sensitive and cannot be tactical. The business/organization or individual involved in a crisis has an outcome to de-escalate the negative sentiments that are spreading in the media, maintain a positive perception and trust in the brand, and restore normalcy in the operations. This is why the response that the brand involved provides has to be strategic.
The goal of strategic communications in crisis management is to bring together the elements of issues management and stakeholder management together. Internal Journal of Humanities and Social Science wrote on The Role of Communications in Effective Crisis Communication. You may find it useful.
Strategic Communications in Crisis Management
The process of integrating strategic communications into crisis management involves the use of frameworks that ensure communication is purposeful and achieves the desired outcome, which in this case is to de-escalate the negative sentiments.
- The first step is to frame the problem. In problem framing, you understand the cause of the crisis and the concerns of the aggrieved parties. This step gives an in-depth understanding of the crisis.
- Stakeholder Mapping: Here, the crisis communication team aims to know who is involved and which stakeholders have interests in the crisis. A good stakeholder mapping answers these questions; “who is saying what?”, “What issues do they have against the brand?” It is unwise to undermine or ignore any stakeholder, especially in the social media age where people’s voices are easily amplified to become forces of influence.
- The messaging can then be drafted to answer the questions in the minds of people and resolve the crisis ethically.
If you want to learn more about issues, crisis, and reputation management, join our second cohort by signing up for our upcoming course here and be CPD Accredited.
When strategic communications frameworks are applied in managing a crisis, it gives no room for error and assumptions and it makes the process of de-escalating smoother.
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Sola Abulu & Associates is a strategy and communications consulting and training firm committed to enabling businesses, brands and organizations to achieve their objectives through strategic communications, organizational effectiveness and reputation risk management
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