When reading the news these days, it would be easy to assume that Business is more often than not battling against the unexpected and huddled behind closed doors to agree crisis communications messaging. Look at the social media rumour mill that spilled out of control forcing Metro Bank to defend its financial strength from completely unsubstantiated social media claims.
I wonder whether crisis communications, even during the business as usual periods, is actually becoming the norm.
Definition: A crisis could be described as a situation that could seriously interrupt business, significantly damage reputation and potentially negatively impact operations and performance.
It is not new that business is constantly on guard for the unexpected or disruptive. But what is more challenging now is it can come faster at any time of day and in any shape or form – a tweet from an influential industry figure, an image shared on Whatsapp or a viral video tagging a brand. We monitor for just about every kind of media and social media coverage, and have reports sent to us immediately that analyse what has been said. The media, once the bearer of bad news and ruined weekends, is one area where you are likely to get even a little notice of an unexpected issue with journalists abiding by its ethical standards and offering a right of reply.
Here are 6 signs that crisis communications is becoming the norm in your business and you may not even have noticed.
The first and most obvious sign is around fees. You find yourself calling in communications advisors to support on an unexpected development more often than to discuss strategic communications or how to improve your brand profile. You have built crisis support into your PR retainer and/or end up using the agencies time on issue management rather than building your reputation.
You have the budget for crisis support but not for an engagement campaign or thought leadership programme.
You have a corporate communications plan in place to support business objectives over the medium term, however the team spend 80% of their time focused on fire-fighting pressing reputational issues, either internally or externally.
The only conversations you have these days with the leadership team about communications or reputation management is around a crisis. The rest of the time everyone is focused on delivering for the business.
You are proud of the work you have done to protect the corporate reputation of the business and yet you do not feel you have really moved the dial on your broader reputation.
You are exhausted from the adrenaline rush of dealing with issue after issue.