Best Practices in Strategic Crisis Communications
In a previous article, we covered some common mistakes that many communications professionals make in their attempt to be strategic with messaging to meet business goals and objectives. You can catch up on it here. In this article, we will cover some best practices in strategic communications that you must not miss out to help your brand or client stay ahead with messaging.
- Framing the nature of the problem appropriately: This applies especially in crisis communication. It is important that communicators properly understand the nature of a crisis before attempting to communicate. Sometimes, some crises are very weighty and must be attended to urgently. You can know the seriousness of the problem at hand from framing it and this will guide the crisis communications response accordingly
- Addressing every issue: Communications professionals are sometimes influenced by business leaders and executive officers to sweep some issues under the carpet. This is the exact opposite of best practices in strategic communications. While some problems may be weightier than others, to be ahead of things is not to ignore issues. Some negative sentiments can be handled without issuing a press release, rather other means can be employed like engaging the news source. However, issues should not be ignored as they can pose reputational risks to the business or organization in the long run.
- Stakeholder mapping: This practice helps in identifying stakeholder groups with more power and interest than others in different scenarios. This is useful for stakeholder engagement and to properly manage those relationships. You take a cue on how to manage a stakeholder from their behaviours and this is easy in the digital media era where you can get people’s perspectives and views from their social media interactions.
5 things to pay attention to in strategic crisis communication
- The narrative: What are people saying?
- The language
- The content
- The tone
- The sentiments
This video will give you more insight into the role of strategic communications in integrating crisis management. To learn more, sign up for our upcoming strategic communications course this November.
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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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