Communicators generally have been slow to adopt new technology – an observation confirmed by a survey published by the PRSA last June.
We are in the season for crisis preparedness planning, a perfect opportunity to make sure you are reflecting state-of-the-art technology in your plan.
In an age where digital and social media fan the flames of an emerging issue and turn it into a highly visible and damaging crisis within hours (United Airlines and Dr Dao, anyone?), no organization can afford to be without the latest tools to ensure it has an early warning and a speedy response to a reputation threat.
Here’s three crucial resources to power your crisis response in 2018:
- Digital crisis management platform – we are biased as we think our own In Case of Crisis, now used by more than 750 organizations, small and large, sets the standard. But we are also baffled that in the digital age storing the crisis plan in an old-school three-ring binder is STILL considered perfectly acceptable. Clunky and hard to access intranets are hardly any better. Crises do not tend to conveniently occur during regular office hours. All that great work in getting your organization ready to deal with the worst goes to waste if you cannot access and activate the plan when you need it! Learn more about our crisis management platform, In Case of Crisis, here.
- Effective social media monitoring – by now if you are not monitoring and evaluating what is being said about you and the issues that you most care about on social media, then you are inviting disaster. Early warning is a key element of crisis preparedness. Social Media Today has a good list of the most popular and effective tools.
- Data and analytics to track emerging issues - it’s good to know what is being said online about your organization and the issues on your watch list. But that’s only the first step. You also need to understand who is in the conversation and how much influence is carried by those people. You need to track the sentiment, supportive or opposed to your point of view, and track the direction and speed of movement of that sentiment. Data analytics is still more often talked about than practiced in crisis communications. Our friends from Fleishman Hillard, Chris Nelson and Ryan Smith, offered great insight into this area in a webinar earlier this year for the IABC which RockDove sponsored. You can watch the webinar on our website here.
2017 was a tumultuous year for corporate crises. There is no suggestion that this was a temporary blip.
In fact, we have said previously in this blog that technology, generational shifts and widespread cultural/political/social upheaval has created a golden age of crisis.
In 2018 you will to need every resource and tool at your disposal to ensure your organization can respond speedily and effectively to emerging threats.
