Coronavirus Crisis Communication Plan Update

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

The Coronavirus crisis is a perfect crisis communication case study that can encompass every one of the Five Steps to Effective Crisis Communications that we have focused on this year.

In Crisis Communications Step 1, we focused on your Vulnerability Assessment. We mentioned that a Vulnerability Assessment should be done at least once a quarter. The Coronavirus is a perfect example of a potential crisis that did not exist last quarter.

Based on your Vulnerability Assessment, you can determine if your Crisis Communication Plan written in Step 2 needs to be updated. Of particular interest with something like the Coronavirus, would be issues related to social media. If there was an outbreak, the comments on social media could be overwhelming.

The most important update will come in Step 3, which is your Pre-Written News Release statements. You should write pre-written statements that should include a statement of precautions that employees should take to stay healthy and safe, as well as a pre-written statement that you would use if a case of the Coronavirus occurred among your employees. You’ll want to pre-determine how much you would say, whether you would give names and updates on conditions, as well as how you would address fatalities if they happened.

Because an illness or death from Coronavirus would create a lot of media attention, you will want to hold a Coronavirus media training class for your spokespeople who might need to be your spokesperson(s). Media training is Step 4 in the Five Steps to Effective Crisis Communications. Remember to use your pre-written news release as a script for the media training news conference.

Finally, Step 5 is to hold a crisis communications drill. The Coronavirus crisis is an excellent drill scenario. It is very different than responding to something like a fire, explosion, or shooting. Because Coronavirus would involve issues related to HIPPA and employee confidentiality, you will be able to have some interesting policy discussions. I suspect you’ll have some interesting debates between your crisis communication team, your HR team, your executive leadership team, and your legal team. A drill lets you have those discussions now, rather than losing valuable time if a real crisis emerges.

Opportunity Knocks

Coronavirus is an opportunity knocking on your door. It is the kind of thing that will help a public relations professional get a seat at the table. Show your executive leaders that you are thinking ahead and thinking on their behalf.

Also, the Coronavirus has the ability to negatively affect an organization’s revenue, reputation and brand. Those are the precise things we aim to protect through effective crisis communications.

You have your marching orders. Get to work.

If you need to schedule a free strategy call or if you need ask about any of the Five Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, please use this link to schedule a free 15 minute strategy call with me.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash

How to Write a Crisis Communication Plan Part 5: Your Crisis Drill

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC 

Our crisis communication goal since the beginning of the year has been to focus on consistency and continuity, rather than short-term New Year’s resolutions. Today we look at effective ways to test your Crisis Communication Plan by holding a Crisis Communication Drill.

Many organizations have crisis drills or exercises, but they are heavily focused on emergency response, incident command, and natural disasters. While these are all good scenarios, many organizations fall short in their crisis drill because they:

  1. Fail to write news releases
  2. Fail to go through the news release approval process
  3. Fail to conduct news conferences
  4. Fail to test spokespeople
  5. Fail to test their crisis communications plan

Your Crisis Communications Drill is the 5th element of the Five Steps to Effective Crisis Communications system that we have been discussing since the beginning of the year.

A Crisis Communications Drill should test all teams for their ability to respond to the event.

How to Pick Your Crisis Drill Scenario

The scenario for the drill can come from any of the items you identified in Step 1 – Your Vulnerability Assessment. Your drill scenario does not need to be an emergency type issue. Remember, not every crisis is an emergency. Feel free to creatively select a smoldering crisis issue.

When Does the Drill Begin?

Generally you want to tell your team which day to block out for the drill. Some organizations pick a specific time, such as 9 – noon, followed by lunch, followed by up to two hours for the post-drill evaluation meeting. However, keep in mind that on the day of your real crisis, not everyone is at work, so a drill doesn’t have to have a full staff. Also, if you start a drill at rush hour when people are driving to work or taking the kids to school, you can effectively add stress and realism to your crisis drill.

Test the Crisis Communications Plan

The goal of your drill should be to:

  1. Test your crisis communications plan you wrote in Step 2
  2. Test the pre-written news releases that you wrote in Step 3
  3. Test the approval process of using those news releases
  4. Test the spokespeople that you media trained in Step 4
  5. Test your various teams to ensure they can all work together well

Realistic News Conferences

When it comes time for news conferences, make them realistic. The spokesperson should use the Pre-Written News Release as their script. Questions should be realistic and tough, without getting silly.

Post-Drill Evaluation

When the drill is over, evaluate all of the aspects of the drill and make improvements to your Crisis Communications Plan.

Ultimately, a Crisis Communications Drill lets you mess up in private so you don’t mess up in public.

Schedule a drill at least once a year, although many organizations do it once a quarter.

As we’ve mentioned all year, be consistent in doing this every year so that there is continuity and continuous improvement in your organization.

If you need to schedule a free strategy call or if you need ask about any of the Five Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, please use this link to schedule a free 15 minute strategy call with me.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Media Training for Mobile and Other Crisis Communications Tips

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

Media Training for Mobile is a new crisis communications and public relations specialty. It is the latest addition to our 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications series for the new year.

Quick recap – this is the fifth week of the new year. You have been challenged in the previous four crisis communication blogs to end the cycle of broken New Year’s resolutions, in favor of achieving consistency.

Media Training as a Bucket List

Media training is too often treated like a bucket list item that an executive does once in life. Our challenge to you is to conduct one thorough media training for your key spokespeople each year, along with a thorough practice training before every interview.

Today’s video goes deep into media training for mobile, as well as the use of crisis communications scripts for crisis events. Both of these techniques are great ways to improve and intensify any media training that you have done in the past.

I encourage you to watch the complete video, because it will go much deeper into the techniques than this blog will. Warning – it goes so deep that today’s BraudCast video runs about 12 minutes.

In the BraudCast, I share some media training and crisis communication tips that I don’t normally share with anyone except my clients.

Give Up Old Media Training Techniques

This episode of the BraudCast encourages you to give up the old, failed media training techniques of the past in favor of new techniques.

As more people transition from traditional media to news on their mobile devices, you need to recognize that how a spokesperson delivers a message greatly affects public perception and how a news story is edited.

When someone reads news on a mobile device, they primarily see a headline, followed by the lead sentence. Most people draw their conclusion from those two pieces of the news story. Likewise, most people seldom scroll to read anything else about the story, unless it directly affects them.

Therefore, your media training for mobile needs to focus on teaching the spokesperson to deliver a compelling preamble statement at the beginning of the interview, as a way to mimic a reporter’s lead. Your goal is to be so profound and natural in your wording of that preamble, that the reporter wants to capture the essence of it to write their lead.

Control the Lead; Control the Headline

When you control the lead, you then control the headline. That’s because the person writing the headline only reads the lead sentence, in order to gain the information they need to write the headline.

Can You Control the Edit?

When you control the lead, you control the headline, which means you control public perception.

…And More Control

By watching the BraudCast video, you’ll also learn that the way to eliminate bad adlibs during a crisis is to use a well-worded script that anticipates all of the questions you’ll be asked during a crisis news conference.

Bottom Line The bottom line is that media interviews are hard. The variety of ways people receive their news is expanding. This means you must expand your media training to stay up with the times. It’s one of our secrets to effective crisis communications.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan? Use Pre-Written News Releases

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

Two of the most popular crisis communication searches on Google are for these questions:

  • How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan?
  • Do I need a Crisis Communication Plan?

As I sit writing this, I also have an expert eye on the television, where a real crisis is playing out. A massive explosion at an industrial facility has rocked a community and there is no official statement from the company after more than four hours.

Yes, every company needs a crisis communications plan.

Take this quick test:

  • Could a workplace shooting happen where you work?
  • Could an executive be accused of sexual harassment?
  • Could someone be killed or injured in the workplace?
  • Could a natural disaster such as a tornado, hurricane, earthquake or snow storm affect your operations, your employees, and/or your customers?

If you answered yes to any one of the above questions, you need a crisis communication plan. Chances are, you answered yes to all four questions. You need a crisis communication plan.

This is part three or our New Year’s series. Today we look at the third step out of the five steps to effective crisis communications.

Step 3: Pre-Written News Releases

For every vulnerability discovered in your Vulnerability Assessment that we discussed in Step 1 two weeks ago, you should write a pre-written news release. When writing a crisis communication plan for my clients, each organization is given an immediate library of 100 pre-written news releases from my personal library of news releases.

Last week in Step 2: Write Your Crisis Communications Plan, we discussed the importance of being specific in your instructions. One of those should be that within one hour or less of the onset of a crisis going public, your organization should issue a statement to the media, your employees, and other key stakeholders. The secret to fast communications is to have a library of pre-written news releases.

Your Pain, Problem & Predicament

At most organizations, when a situation ignites into a crisis, these things consistently happen:

  • Everyone is consumed by the “fog of war.”
  • Someone sits at a computer, opens a blank Word Document, and they begin to write a news release or statement.
  • After 30 minutes to an hour, the writer presents the statement to a group of executives.
  • The executives fight over the language and debate commas. This often goes on for up to an hour.
  • The writer crafts draft two, based on the feedback.
  • A second review happens with more changes.
  • A final statement is drafted, approved, and released.
  • On average, three and a half hours have passed.
  • While the statement was being written, the media have been speculating, employees have been engaged in rumor sharing, social media has turned public opinion against your organization, and your organization’s revenue, reputation and brand have taken a hit.

Stop

Stop being a part of the same vicious cycle we have witnessed since the dawn of the industrial age.

Start

Start at the beginning of this year to formulate and execute a system that can sustain your organization for decades to come. Start implementing the five steps to effective crisis communications.

Begin now. Today could be the day you have a crisis.

Set dates on your calendar now for when you plan to implement each of the five steps of effective crisis communications.

Your goal should be to do the hard work on a clear, sunny day, so that you are not in a panic of indecision on your worst day.

When you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

When you fail, prepare to see damage to your organization’s revenue, reputation, and brand.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash

How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan Part 2

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

As we enter the third full week of January, we’ll look at how to write a crisis communications plan. If you’ve followed these articles and videos since the beginning of the year, you know that you are being challenged to abandon news year’s resolutions in favor of consistency in behavior, not just for this year, but throughout the life of your organization.

Think of crisis communications expertise as a five step process, called the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications. Think of a crisis communications plan as number three of those five steps.

This week we look at the heart of your crisis communications plan. This is the written document that is the instruction book that one would follow to know exactly what to do, when to do it, to whom specific tasks are assigned, and how fast those tasks must be completed.

  • What to do.
  • When to do it.
  • Who does it.
  • How fast must it be done.

As for what to do, the crisis communications plan must outline how you gather information, confirm that information, and then disseminate that information.

  • Gather information.
  • Confirm information.
  • Disseminate information.

While those are the foundational elements, getting it perfect is difficult and time consuming. When writing my first plan, I put 9 months of work into the document. All these years later, that base document allows me to customize crisis communications plan for clients in five hours. But it was the outrageously hard to get the first plan written, so be patient. Forgive yourself on those days when you want to give up. Also, recognize that if you have other daily tasks to perform, finding the time will be a huge challenge.

Add two other goals to the process of writing your crisis communications plan. Aim to make the plan as thorough and detailed as possible, such that nothing falls through the cracks, yet make it so simple to follow that anyone who can read can execute it.

  • So thorough that nothing falls through the cracks.
  • So simple that anyone who can read can execute it.

Do not make the crisis communications plan simply a policy manual. Instead, make it a document that the lead communicator actually reads and follows in real time during a crisis. What does that mean?

Most crisis communications plans I’ve read are six page documents that say basic things such as, “Consider if you need to call a news conference.” Instead, list the conditions in which a news conference would be called, pre-determine multiple locations where it could be held, identify who your potential spokespeople will be, identify who will write the news release, outline the approval process, and outline the steps needed to prepare for the news conference.

  • News conference parameters.
  • Pre-determine locations.
  • Pre-determine potential spokespeople.
  • Pre-determine who will write the news release and press conference script.
  • Outline the approval process.
  • Outline the steps for a news conference rehearsal.

The fatal flaw with most crisis communications plans is that they are so vague, they require people in the organization to make too many decisions on the day of the crisis. This leads to arguments, debates, and delays.

The more specific your plan, the more terrific. For example, designate a timeline for completing each task. My plans state that a public statement needs to be released within one hour OR LESS, from the onset of the crisis going public. Most organizations take from three to four hours to release their first statement because 1) decisions have not been pre-made and 2) because news releases are not pre-written.

The secret to speedy communications involves relying on pre-written news releases. That is the third step in the five steps to effective crisis communications. We’ll tackle that next week.

In the meantime, take a look at your calendar and map out time for when you will tackle the task of writing your crisis communications plan. If you have questions, use this link to schedule a free 15-minute phone call with me to talk about your needs. If you wish to tackle this task on your own I’ll provide guidance and answer your questions. If you want me to carry the burden for you, in two days I can help you customize a plan and provide you with 100 pre-written news releases. The option is yours to decide which is best for you.

Which ever way you choose, make your crisis communications plan a priority. Aim to finish it in the first three months of the new year.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan? Start With a Vulnerability Assessment

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

“How to write a crisis communications plan” is a popular search topic for public relations professionals at the beginning of a new year. If you are one of those people, EXCELLENT! You are off to a great start for the year.

To achieve your goal, you may want to adopt the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications approach. These are 5 steps that you can take this year, which you then repeat elements of year in and year out, with the goal of achieving continuous improvement and great business continuity.

Step 1 – before you can actually start writing your Crisis Communication Plan – is to conduct a Vulnerability Assessment. I encourage you to watch the companion video to get more details. (And because we are sharing more great tips all year, it would be wise to subscribe to the weekly BraudCast so you don’t miss any of our lessons.)

What is a Vulnerability Assessment?

A Vulnerability Assessment is when you list out all of the many situations that could reach the flash point of becoming a crisis.

How do you define a crisis for Crisis Communications?

A corporate or organizational crisis can be defined as any situation that escalates to the point at which it causes damage to an organization’s:

  • Revenue
  • Reputation
  • and Brand

So grab a spreadsheet and start listing out the many situations within your organization that could damage your Revenue, Reputation & Brand.

The easy place to begin would be natural disasters and weather events. Next, consider emergencies such as fire, explosions, and workplace violence. From there, add executive misbehavior and criminal activities. Issues with workers, such as injuries, fatalities, or labor activity, need to be included. Don’t forget cyber attacks and cyber issues. Also in your list should be all of the many ways that social media can create a crisis. Many brands have had their revenue, reputation and brand damaged by either something they’ve posted to social media, or by something a social media user posted about the brand/organization.

Include Others in Your Vulnerability Assessment

A great way to get buy-in from the C-Suite is to conduct executive interviews. Ask members of the C-Suite what issues they see within the company that could damage the organization’s revenue, reputation, and brand. This is also a great way to get a seat at the table. Executives appreciate and take note of those who take the initiative to protect revenue, reputation, and brand.

Go Big

If you want to go big, organize a facilitated event in which each department sends representatives to discuss possible vulnerabilities unique to their department. I’ve facilitated many of these around the world and it is always eye-opening to see what vulnerabilities teams list, for which the C-Suite has no idea of the company’s exposure.

Prevent a Crisis

Sometimes, simply exposing these vulnerabilities allows an organization to change business practices, policies, or procedures in order to eliminate a potential crisis. An eliminated vulnerability NEVER becomes a crisis.

Your Crisis Communications Roadmap

Once your Vulnerability Assessment is completed, it becomes a roadmap for the next four steps, including:

Step 2: Writing your Crisis Communications Plan

Step 3: Writing a library of Pre-Written Statements

Step 4: Identifying crisis topics for your annual Media Training

Step 5: Identifying crisis topics for your annual Crisis Drill

Get to work.

Next week, we’ll move to Step 2: Writing your Crisis Communications Plan.

If you need help and would like to have a free 15 minute strategy call, use this link to schedule some time with me https://calendly.com/braud/15min

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo by Agence Producteurs Locaux Damien Kühn on Unsplash

Start the New Year with Continuity and Not New Year’s Resolutions

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC 

Here we are at the beginning of a new year. It’s that time of year where people make New Year’s Resolutions… most of which they abandon before the month is over.

What if instead of resolutions you selected continuity? And what if the goal you set was to protect your organization’s revenue, reputation, and brand? And what if you allowed me the honor of being your accountability partner this year?

Why Not Resolutions?

Resolutions are indicative of one year ending and another beginning. Resolutions personify stop, start, stop, start.

Continuity, on the other hand, represents the setting of goals and standards, such as continuous improvement.

When I first conceived the idea of “The 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications,” my purpose was to help organizations, and the people in those organizations, set a course for constantly being prepared.

If a situation rises to the level of a crisis, then you and your organization are prepared to protect your revenue, reputation, and brand through effective communications with the media, your employees, your customers, your community, social media, and all of your stakeholders. If you are blessed enough to make it through the day, the week, or the year without a situation, good for you for being fortunate… but you can rest knowing you are prepared.

Five Steps to Effective Crisis Communications:

  1. Assessing your Vulnerabilities – not once, but all throughout the year.
  2. Writing your Crisis Communications Plan – not just writing it, but working constantly to make it a living document that changes as communications and trends change.
  3. Having a Library of Pre-Written News Releases – and constantly adding to that library as new vulnerabilities are discovered over time.
  4. Annual Media Training – Yes, not just once in life, but at least once a year. Media training is not a bucket list item, but rather a skill set that requires regular practice. In addition to one major training a year, you must practice before EVERY interview.
  5. Crisis Communications Drills – Like Media Training, drill at least once a year. Make it hard and real, hold tough news conferences. Bombard the drill with mock social media noise.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to dig deeper into each of the Five Steps to Effective Crisis Communications. When you follow the five steps you are continuously taking steps to protect your organization’s revenue, reputation and brand.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

How to Get Crisis Communications Training on Your 2020 Calendar

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

December is filled with end of year meetings, budget reviews, and overall wrap up of your budget year. Not to mention your calendar is booked with office parties, gift-giving, and a to-do list the length of your arm.

That’s why January is the time to plan your crisis communications strategy for 2020. Before you just stroll in to the New Year and get back to the grind, let your C-suite, your executives, your public relations team, your communications staff know in DECEMBER that there will be crisis communication training and media training on the books EARLY in 2020. If you need help explaining this to your staff and team members, view this video:

Start by learning about the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications. Now is the time to encourage your team that they can spread the project out into manageable tasks over the four quarters of the year. A free 5-part video series is online here to get you started:

  • Quarter 1 is the time to conduct your Vulnerability Assessment, which is Step 1. Mid-Quarter 1 is the time to write your Crisis Communications Plan, which is Step 2.
  • Quarter 2 is the time to write Pre-written News Releases as Step 3, based on your Vulnerability Assessment.
  • Quarter 3 is when you should conduct Media Training as Step 4, based on the pre-written news releases you have written.
  • Quarter 4 is when you should conduct your Crisis Communications Drill, which is Step 5, based on completion of all of the previous steps.

Once you make the commitment to more effective crisis communications, I’m here to help you achieve your goals and I’m standing by to be your accountability buddy. When you sign up for the free 5-part video series, you’ll be given a chance to schedule a free 15-minute phone call with me to help you set your goals.

If you are the type to take the bull by the horns, and if you are ready to put things on the fast track, Steps 1, 2 and 3 can be completed in as few as two days with my fully customizable crisis communications plan system.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Crisis Communications Case Study from California Wildfires and PG&E

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

The annual wildfire season in California is presenting us with an interesting crisis communication case study. I’d encourage you to follow media reports and listen to what each expert says in those media reports. As we review this crisis, we’ll look at it through the lens of the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, especially the concept of Step 1 – Your Vulnerability Assessment. (If you are not familiar with the 5 Steps of Effective Crisis Communications, follow this link for a free video tutorial.) Additionally, this crisis is a personification of defining a crisis as an event that affects a company’s revenue and reputation.

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has been dealing with a financial crisis after facing lawsuits leading from allegations that the company’s power lines may have started past fires that destroyed homes and took lives.

The liability is so devastating that PG&E has filed for bankruptcy. This is the personification of a crisis that is affecting a company’s revenue and reputation.

Now the electric company is fighting criticism because it has been shutting off power in fire-prone areas as a way to prevent fires. This again, is affecting the company’s revenue and reputation.

If you worked at PG&E, how would you manage this crisis? From the perspective of a Vulnerability Assessment, on one hand you have to assess the potential loss of property and lives if a fire breaks out because a faulty power line starts a fire. On the other hand, you have to assess the financial hardship the company is thrusting upon all of the businesses that cannot operate because they have no power.

One farmer showed the media how $50,000 worth of produce could go bad in his farm’s refrigerator unit that was now without power. This story is multiplied in many ways by many businesses, not to mention all of the homeowners affected by the outage.

My guess is PG&E will face a new round of lawsuits from homeowners and businesses that have faced losses because of the shutdown of power.

A further root cause analysis from a Vulnerability Assessment standpoint would have to examine all of the allegations that PG&E has not properly maintained their power lines, transformers, and equipment. Critics allege that failure to maintain the system is the root cause of the deadly fires. Other critics dig deeper, saying PG&E has spent too many years trying to give money to stockholders, rather than reinvesting in their infrastructure.

What do you know about the company where you work? Is it a publicly traded company that prioritizes stockholders over customers? Are there potential crises like this on your horizon? Do you see competing interests that need to be dealt with now, before they reach a flash point?

Your immediate course of action should be to gather your leadership team together and discuss these vulnerabilities before a crisis ignites. A good Vulnerability Assessment may provide a roadmap that allows you to eliminate a crisis before it ignites. If the crisis can’t be eliminated, it allows you to develop a plan to deal with the crisis if it ignites.

Photo by Marcus Kauffman on Unsplash

Who Should I Communicate with First in a Crisis?

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

Crisis communications and your crisis communications plan require you to know who your stakeholders are. In other words, who needs to hear your message when a crisis or disaster strikes?

In the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, Step 2 is writing your crisis communication plan. This is where you should both identify your stakeholders as well as prioritize which audiences are most critical to get your message to first.

(If you are not familiar with the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, watch our free 5-part video series. Just sign up with this link.)

Media once were the go-to top priority of audiences. That has changed drastically with the advent of email in the 1990’s and then the advent of social media in the mid-2000s.

The first crisis communications plan I wrote was in 1996 and it focused on getting a spokesperson to the media by way of an interview or a news conference. The media were and are the messengers to the masses. However, in 1996, many companies did not have company-wide email and many news organizations did not have either email or the internet. When I left my job as a television reporter in 1994, we had just gotten computers, but they didn’t even have spell check and they didn’t connect to the web. They were just fancy typewriters.

Email and social media have given employees a pathway to forward organizational information to reporters. This is cause for everyone in public relations and crisis communications to recognize that your employees may be your number one stakeholder audience in a crisis.

Ultimately, you need to decide for yourself and the organization you represent.

Here are your likely stakeholders:

  • Employees
  • Media
  • Customers
  • Your community
  • Certain elected officials

However, your crisis communications plan must reflect variables that allow you to prioritize who hears from you first during a crisis.

Which stakeholders should hear from you first in a crisis?

Who you communicate with depends upon:

  • The type of crisis taking place
  • The number of people you have on your communications staff

As a general rule, if your crisis sends the media rushing to your location to report on your breaking news, you should give them top priority as a stakeholder group. Why? Because if you fail to give them accurate information they will go into speculation mode, which you never want.

This quickly becomes a delicate dance, because your employees are likely hearing rumors and your job is to quell rumors by quickly providing facts.

So what do you do?

All audiences are important and your goal should be to get equal information to all audiences as simultaneously as possible. Your ability to do this depends upon how many people are on your communications staff.

If media are at your door waiting for a statement, my preference is that you go speak to them first, before you post any information to your website and before you share any information with your employees and before you post anything to social media.

The secret to success is by sharing one statement with all audiences. In Step 3 of the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, we urge you to focus on writing a library of pre-written statements.

That one statement should serve consistently to all audiences.

Do the dance.

The dance goes this way:

  • Read your edited statement to the media first, if they are on site.
  • As simultaneously as possible, publish that identical statement to your website newsroom.
  • As soon as the statement is published to the web, send an email to all employees who need to know the truth.
  • If you have critical audiences such as customers or government officials, they should also get an email with a link to your website newsroom.
  • If your organization uses social media, you can post a link back to your website newsroom.
  • Time permitting, you should take the same script you read to the media and use it as a video script. You then have the option to create a YouTube video that can be added to your website, as well as videos that can be shared on Twitter and Facebook.
  • Time permitting, you can use the same script to broadcast live on your most popular video channels.

Never publish your statement to your website newsroom if you plan to read it to the media. You don’t want reporters speed reading your statement and ruining your news conference with pre-mature questions.

Likewise, you don’t want your employees forwarding an email or web link to reporters before you send it to them yourself. When you send it to reporters, you are being honest and transparent. When an employee sends the notice to a reporter, then the reporter views this as a scoop from a source and may well blow it out of proportion.

If no media are at your door, your dance should go this way:

  • Publish your statement to your website newsroom
  • Email all employees who need to know
  • Email other important stakeholders
  • Post a link to social media directing people to your website newsroom.
  • Consider recording videos
  • Consider live videos

The bottom line is that all audiences are equally important. But Step 2 in the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications is to write your crisis communications plan.

Your crisis communications plan should spell out:

  • Your stakeholder audiences
  • Your priority of which audience is communicated with
  • The variables for adjusting those priorities
  • The adjustments of your variables and priorities based on the number of people on your communications staff

As always, your crisis communications goes perfectly when these decisions are made on a clear, sunny day. Do not wait until you are in the midst of a crisis.

If we can help prepare you to communicate more effectively in a crisis, please reach out to us to ask for assistance. That’s why we’re here.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

More crisis communications articles:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson