I’ve experienced some personal challenges these past few weeks, which reminds me of how we need to be prepared for downs in our life. How can we be prepared for unexpected situations in public relations? Having a crisis communications plan is essential when managing a crisis.
Here are a few things you can do to prepare:
- Identify who will be in your crisis management team and have contact information handy
- Decide the different level of crisis situations
- Outline examples of crisis situations
- Outline the expectations for each role on the team
- Based on the level of crisis, identify who will be in your crisis management team
- Know your crisis response process
- Identify your key constituencies
- Create media log sheet
- Develop a crisis response toolkit
- Role play with your spokespersons
When you can prepare for the unexpected and conduct training sessions with your key spokespersons, you are further along on the road to recovery in reputation and risk management.