PART 2

Here are more main steps for  planning and handling  a crisis by Desiree Peterkin Bell:

2. Explain the Situation to the Stakeholders

When suffering from a crisis, it is important to reach stakeholders to explain the situation and what measures of corrective action are being taken. A business should have a planned method of communication that will allow them to reach relevant stakeholders as quickly as possible. In order to develop the most strategic response to send to stakeholders, it is essential that businesses gather intelligence from social media and traditional media to see who is saying what about them, and use this information to prepare a response that will counter any bad press. For this to happen, a monitoring system such as Google Alerts for websites, and Hootsuite for social media should be implemented in advance. A holding statement is a message designed for use immediately after a crisis. It should be planned in advance and continually updated to best suit the situation. This holding statement can be used as a message to relay to stakeholders.

3. Review Crisis

When reviewing the crisis as it is occurring, it is essential to not react until enough information has been gathered. This will ensure that the response given is the most appropriate to the situation. The PR crisis plan should be pre-prepared and and rehearsed to prevent the response from being delayed any further than necessary. A crisis-specific message should be developed that contains no more than three main messages for stakeholders. These messages should be adapted for different forms of media e.g. twitter character limit (links should be used to larger article).

After the crisis has concluded, the business should review the experience and determine what can be learnt to help for the next crisis. A list of pros and cons should be made and corrective action should be taken to ensure that the next PR crisis plan is carried out even more efficiently. It may be tempting for businesses to think it won’t happen to them, but it’s always better to be prepared for the situation than have the entire business crumble because of a lack of planning.

Despite the growing trend of planning for crises, a large majority of businesses remain unprepared for a crisis and would be unable to effectively manage the situation. Fortunately, with the services of Desiree Peterkin Bell and her business DPBell & Associates, you can create a tailor-made pr crisis plan to save your business from almost any situation. To find out more about Desiree Bell and her crisis management services, visit her website.