Communication During Crisis - Media and General

Communication During Crisis – Media and General

Course Description

This course will teach you how to implement a communications plan including social media response to use in different types of crises; whether a major emergency or a business-related crisis. You will learn how to ready your communication function to respond rapidly and effectively in a crisis to manage perceptions in media and online.

Case studies, practical exercises and scenario testing will be used to demonstrate how easy it is to get caught out and help you internalise the practical steps you can take now to ensure your crisis communications are ready to face any type of situation.

Course Objective

How to develop a practical plan to respond effectively to any type of crisis
Establish your organisation’s readiness for crisis communication activities to mitigate reputational damage
Understand the information needs of different groups of stakeholders (customers, employees, authorities, the wider public, the media
Understand what information will be needed so you can plan ahead
Learn how to make social media an integral part of any communication response
Know what needs to be said by whom and when

Who Should Attend

Communications Managers, Public Relations Managers, Crisis/Contingency/Emergency Manager, Continuity Manager, Planning Advisor/Manager, Emergency Response Coordinator

TRAINING METHODOLOGY

Think differently to alter direction.

The experience of learning to read and write for the first time is likely to remain vivid in your memory. The skill is ingrained and it stays. The primary objective of our training and workshop is to make your new knowledge and abilities as durable as the ones you've already accumulated. They foster fresh ideas. They enable great feats. Individual behaviour and attitude contribute to your organization's success is what we prioritise.

Combining experiential, instructional, and discovery learning with current coaching technology promotes profound transformations in attitudes and behaviour that enable sustainable change in your business. These adjustments improve results.

Our programmes involve with 12 unique learning methodology as below:

Course Outline

Crisis communication planning

Identifying your crisis communications team and assigning responsibilities
Preparing by identifying all potential crisis situations and how you would respond to these
Ensuring that every staff member understands the communication plan to ensure consistency and clarity
Ensuring a fast response; what needs to be in place to be able to achieve this?
Understand who your stakeholders are and establish a notification system to be able to reach them during a crisis
Integrating the use of social media into every aspect of your crisis communication plan

Critical Communication

Encoding
Channeling
Choice of Words
Decoding

Identifying your key crisis-specific messages

Identifying your key crisis-specific messages unique to each situation
Knowing what type of information each crisis’ stakeholders are looking for
Who controls the message going out during a crisis?
The benefits of ‘holding statements’
Avoid reacting without adequate information
Keeping it simple

Communicating with staff

Identifying any potential gaps or bottlenecks in your current internal communication system
How to reach your staff during a crisis; ensuring that you have all the information needed before the crisis hits
Dealing with the ‘human factor’ in a crisis
Ensure staff receive the messages you would like them to repeat elsewhere

Communicating with the media

Practical advice about how to manage the media in a crisis
Assessing what information should be provided and how to communicate this to the media
Meeting the needs of different media groups during a crisis
Managing unexpected enquiries and how to answer questions when you don’t have the answer
Why it pays to engage, rather than avoid the media
How to deal with misreporting

Communicating with consumers and other external stakeholders

Reaching your customers directly if required
How your current communication efforts will aid your message during a crisis
Responding to negative stakeholder responses or confusion
Re-establishing credibility and confidence with internal and external audiences

Using social media

Social media overview: What are the different types, how do they work, who will you reach using these media?
Which social media has proven to work best during different types of crisis situations?
How social media is changing crisis and emergency responses
How to harness the power of social media in a crisis – as an information gathering tool, to communicate internally and externally, to aid your response effort
Managing your messages through social media during a crisis
How to influence ‘chatter’?

Case studies

Examining what angles traditional media channels picked up on in recent cases
Examples of social media responses (good and bad)
What can and has gone wrong?

Group Activity

What makes an effective response in different crisis scenarios including; natural disasters, major workplace accident, PR disaster, major product recall?