Listen up for clues about incoming crises
You’ve established crisis management plans and your people are trained. Good to go, right?
Well…kind of. Even with excellent preparation, it still takes time to mold messaging specifically to fit the situation, and, especially if you’re a larger organization, to get the green light from the C-suite and actually start the ball rolling. Take too long to get through this process, and your reputation could be taking flak before your defenses are in place.
The earlier you can start, the better, and you can often get a good jump on things by keeping an ear to the ground. No, we don’t mean literally, Lone Ranger and Tonto-style. Today, social media and web chatter in general are your warning signs, and if you pay close attention you can spot many crises coming a mile away.
Here’s how it should work:
Track – Various tools (HootSuite and Customscoop are a couple of our favorites) make it easy to track mentions of your name, your competition’s names, industry terms, and key words specific to your organization.
Observe – Once you pick up negative sentiment about your organization, it’s time to determine whether it warrants a response. Watch to see whether it’s a few grumbles that can safely be ignored, or a larger movement that’s growing in potential and must be addressed.
React – If it looks like the negative sentiment is picking up steam, you probably have a crisis headed your way. Pick up the warning signs early enough, though, and you can head it off at the pass. Try dropping messages to a few of the loudest/most influential voices and addressing their concerns via DM, PM, email, any format that takes the discussion out of the public eye. If that fails, it’s time to rally the troops.
You can’t spot every crisis coming, but when you do it gives you an enormous advantage. Put a web monitoring system in place today, and find yourself preventing crises before most people ever even know they exist.
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/