Crisis Communications Planning - TCW Academy Course
Approximate Time to Complete Course: 20 minutes
This Course is Ideal for:
- CEOs / Presidents / School Superintendents and All Leaders
- Communication Directors
- Members of the Crisis Communications Team
- Media Liaisons
During an emergency, communication is a critical component of the response. So critical, in fact, that a separate crisis communications plan should be developed and referenced in your organization’s overarching emergency response plan. Your crisis communication plan will be leveraged by those in your organization tasked with communicating with multiple key stakeholders during an emergency and ensuring that critical two-way communication occurs between multiple response entities.
Your crisis communications plan will develop detailed responses for several scenarios identified in your emergency response plan and provide clearly defined responsibilities for all people assisting with communication efforts.
Crisis Communications Team: Understand the types of people and roles to include on your crisis communications team.
Stakeholders/Audience: Identify your organization’s primary internal and external stakeholders.
Communication Methods: Plan for how you will communicate with each stakeholder group.
Scenario-Based Responses: Learn to identify every possible emergency scenario you may face and determine how each of those scenarios will be handled.
Message Templates: Don’t wait until you have an emergency to begin crafting messages. Create templates now.
Media Relations: Understand how to engage the media during a crisis and when to call a press conference.
Prepare Your Crisis Communication
In this course, you will:
- Understand how to develop an effective crisis communications plan,
- Identify personnel to serve on your team & key stakeholders,
- Develop detailed communications solutions for possible emergency scenarios,
- Create message templates & distribution materials, and
- Prepare media response strategies.
Additional Resources
Use Microsoft Editor for Spelling and Grammar Support
For those of you fortunate enough to have an editor on your team who checks for spelling and grammar, you probably won’t benefit much from this post.
However, for all of you who are operating as a team of one or two, it is critical that all of your writing efforts undergo a review that – at a minimum – checks spelling and grammar before it is distributed. No matter how experienced a writer you are, a review will be beneficial.
If you do not have an editor on staff, there are useful tools available to help do the job. Microsoft Editor is one of those tools.
The Top Trait You Need for Effective Crisis Communication
Several qualities and skills are required to communicate effectively during an emergency. Accuracy, speed, preparedness and transparency are all critical traits organizations must possess to successfully navigate a crisis.
However, there is a single top trait needed during your crisis communication efforts.
Disney Makes a Rare Public Relations Mistake in Johansson Crisis
It’s critical from a public relations perspective that every organization refrains from personal attacks on individuals with whom they disagree.
Disney recently stumbled in a war of public comments with acclaimed actress and Black Widow superhero Scarlett Johansson.
5 Critical Components to a Great Press Release
There are many times when your organization will want to attract the attention of the news media. On the other hand, perhaps you’re contending with a crisis that has attracted media attention.
You must create an effective press release to deliver the message as intended and ensure the media tell your story accurately.
Trust in Media Plummets and it Impacts You
Trust in American national news media continues its rapid decline – but local media largely has the trust of their communities.
This article will explore media’s current trust problems and ways to navigate media coverage when they point their cameras your way.
A Complaint Management System to Turn a Critic Into an Advocate
Every organization has their critics and must have a complaint management plan to prevent a critic from becoming a crisis.
Sometimes, criticism is warranted. But if we’re being honest, organizations don’t always receive complaints that are warranted, or even sane.
But whether or not we believe a complaint (or the complainer) to be reasonable and rational, we must come to an internal agreement in our organization on a complaint management system. Use these 10 keys to develop and implement an effective complaint management system to turn a critic into an advocate.
