Creating A Crisis Communications Plan

By Jerri Perry


There are going to be times wherein a company or a corporation would have a situation wherein their public image will be at risk. Because of scandals, rumors, and other types of destructive happenings, the public could actually have a bad view of the corporation because of this type of situation. Now the only way to handle this well would be to make a crisis communications plan to be able to send a message to the public.

When making these kinds of plans, it is very important to include what kind of medium one would be using in order to deliver the message. The mediums could range from internet channels, the media, or simple word of mouth communication. As long as one is able to get the message to be viral, then he should already be successful.

Now when making these plans, one must first start with an overview of what the crisis was and how it happened. There must be a detailed report of the crisis as well as what happened before the said event and the happenings that led to it. In other words, one should include the warning signals that the corporation experienced before the whole event took place.

Of course the next page would include some people who are sorting out this situation. Now the names people from the communications team and the public relations team will be listed here because these two teams are the ones who will spearhead the whole campaign. Of course the media contacts will be the weapons that will be used.

So the next part is a complete assessment of the details of the situation and some solutions that were proposed in the process. Of course this part will now showcase the people who were included and what their specific roles were in the solution of this problem. One may actually use the action matrix to help when making the plan.

After making the assessment then one should now concentrate on creating the message. Firstly, the message should have some important facts of this case as well as some key things that the corporation would want to shoot out to the public. When making the message, one can utilize the five step model for preparing messages.

The very last part would be to explain in details how the management would communicate their message. One of the first things that they will be listing there would be who their target audience is and if there are specific people, their names should be listed there. Then the next thing to do is to put down who the helpers are like if the management would seek help from the media or the press.

So basically, that is a simple template for making a crisis communications plan. Now one thing to take note when addressing this type of situation is that it should be addressed as soon as possible. Advisably within a week so that the bad image will not stick.




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