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Crisis Communications Master Class: Change the Way You Write

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The world has changed and so must you.

The world doesn’t have time to read what you wrote. Yet, you need the world to comprehend your message. So, what’s the secret?

If you missed last week’s crisis communications master class use this link to access the replay.

You’ll learn 10 reasons why you should change how you write a crisis communications statement.

In the class, we challenged conventional writing and crisis management wisdom, we ruffled feathers, we insulted your English teacher, challenged your Public Relations professor, brushed off your legal team, and empowered you to change the way you write crisis communications statements.

We focused on ways to:

  • Increase comprehension by your stakeholders
  • Ensure greater accuracy by the media
  • Speed up the statement approval process
  • …and much more

As a bonus, schedule a confidential discovery call to privately discuss the crisis communications challenges that you want to conquer in 2021 by using this link https://calendly.com/braud/15min

Be well; be safe; be prepared,

The SituationHub Team

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:

15 Questions to Ask Before You Use Facebook for Crisis Communications

Can You Handle a Crisis When it Hits by Winging It?

Crisis Management Lessons from Hurricane Katrina vs. COVID19

Photo by RetroSupply on Unsplash

Change the Way You Write Crisis Statements

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It is time to change the way you write crisis statements and crisis communication news releases.

The world has changed and so must you.

The world doesn’t have time to read what you wrote. Yet, you need the world to comprehend your message. So, what’s the secret?

It begins with using short declarative sentences.

In crisis communications speed is critical.

If something is factually correct and fast it is better than overly word-smithed and slow.

If you tell the audience who, what, when, where, why, and how quickly, they will forgive the absence of writing in prose.

If you write the way people talk, your stakeholders will comprehend your message more quickly.

If you write your crisis statement like a TV news script, you greatly increase the likelihood that the media will copy and paste the bulk of your script into their script with minimal edits.

As a word nerd, I’m probably going to piss off a whole bunch of people with this blog. (Can we say “piss off”?) Ok… we don’t want to offend anyone, so let’s say we’re going to ruffle some feathers.

As word nerds, we were all taught proper writing styles by our English professors, our Public Relations professors, and even our Journalism instructors. If we wrote the way they wanted, we got an A. They were conditioning us.

But guess what? You are a grown-up. Your English teacher taught you something that worked great 20 years ago. Your Public Relations teacher is teaching you old-school techniques.

We’re going to give you permission to be a grown-up and carve your own path. We’re going to tell you to break the rules!

We’re going to dig deeper into this on our next Crisis Communications Master Class on Thursday, November 11, 2021 at 1 p.m. CST. Use this link to register for the class.

You’ll learn 10 reasons why you should change how you write a crisis communications statement.

You will learn how to:

  • Increase comprehension by your stakeholders
  • Ensure greater accuracy by the media
  • Speed up the statement approval process
  • …and much more

Sign up for the live class or sign up for the replay. Your free admission is courtesy of SituationHub.com

Crisis News Release Reality: This Scares Me

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With Halloween on the horizon, I thought I’d confess something that frightens me. The question is, am I more frightened than you?

It scares me to think how many companies are ill-prepared to communicate quickly with the media and their employees when they have a crisis. Boom – fire, explosion, workplace shooting, chemical release, natural disaster…

Does it scare you? It should. But most companies kick this can down the road. Being prepared is not a high priority. They think they will just magically figure it out as all hell is breaking loose. Yea… that never works. It’s frightening åhow many executives think this way.

It frightens me so much that I spent four years building an app called SituationHub.com.

In one to three minutes it can automatically write a crisis news release. Most ill-prepared companies take three to four hours to get a first statement out.

We have two months left in 2021. How about you set a goal for us to talk about how SituationHub can take away the fear for all those crises that can keep you up at night.

In the age of social media, you have only minutes to get communications out to the world. Can you get a message out in minutes? If you wait more than a few minutes, the media and social media can destroy you, your revenue, your reputation, and brand.

That should frighten you. But does it scare you enough to take action?

Use this link to schedule a time for us to talk.

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:

15 Questions to Ask Before You Use Facebook for Crisis Communications

Can You Handle a Crisis When it Hits by Winging It?

Crisis Management Lessons from Hurricane Katrina vs. COVID19

Photo by David Menidrey on Unsplash