From Perception to Proactivity:
The Keys to Developing Your Resilience in a Business Crisis

Collaborative Post

The best defense is, as they say, a good offense. When you are working on improving your company's reputation, there's so much we can leverage for our overarching sense of protection. There's so much to comply with in the modern day, whether it's in terms of our advertising, data protection regulations like CCPA and GDPR, as well as intellectual property rights. We must have abilities to become more resilient, whether in a time of crisis or reputational disrepute. Here’s a number of approaches to administer:

Develop Your Immediate Response

If you don't have the equivalent of an emergency drill to run through, then you won't be prepared as much as you can be. It's vital to assemble a crisis management team that comprises members from PR, customer service, senior management, but also the legal department as well. Having someone on your legal team who is an expert witness in social media can be an invaluable asset these days.

A social media expert witness provides specialized knowledge and testimony in legal proceedings relating to social media platforms and assists judges, juries, and attorneys in interpreting data and understanding complex technical aspects of social media within the legal context.

So many of us seldom have an understanding of the legalities of social media, but these experts cover key areas like user behavior, content creation, privacy concerns, as well as policies and procedures. They can be absolutely worth their weight in gold if you find yourself on the receiving end of an online defamation case or privacy issues. Having that first-response mindset is critical, but like a good old-fashioned fire drill, you need to practice it as well.

A Clear Communication Strategy

Developing an effective communications strategy during business crises is crucial because you need to maintain trust while also mitigating any potential damage.

In addition to the aforementioned crisis management team, you need to perform a thorough analysis to identify potential crises specific to your industry and business, because this will then help you tailor your communication plan to address the most likely scenarios.

Similar to A/B testing, you can create a number of different responses based on the most common crisis situations. You can then identify primary and alternative communication channels, whether it's through press releases, your website, social media, as well as internal communication tools.

Once we've got an understanding of this foundation, you can develop pre-approved messages and statements in the form of templates, as this will enable quick initial responses when time is critical. It's also important to select and train appropriate individuals who will represent the company during a crisis, and this is where thinking on the spot training is absolutely pivotal.

We may think that we need to have all the answers, but we don't always, and learning those tried-and-tested tactics that politicians and people in positions of power use can help you to control the narrative.

Monitoring Public Perception

If there is one thing that we need to understand, it is our audience. Engaging with your audience is key to building trust and exercising the best form of damage control.

This is where tracking with monitoring tools to look for hashtags and keywords relating to your brand can give you a better insight into public perception across various platforms. Monitoring and analysis are always key, particularly in marketing, and the same applies when it comes to a crisis. The only difference is that we are looking for the negative rather than the positive.

Long-Term Recovery Approaches

There's a major difference between the smaller picture and the bigger one. When you adjust your long-term strategy based on lessons you have learned from the crisis, it becomes a far better way to learn from the experience so you can emerge stronger and ultimately be more trustworthy.

This is where employees having a far better understanding of what your company values are can make a big difference. For the sake of long-term recovery, you need to reassess your position and ensure it aligns with new company values.

A crisis can occur that damages reputation from the inside as well, which is why focusing on strong internal communication can empower employees far more effectively.

Dealing with any crisis is almost like a game of dominoes because as soon as one goes over, a lot of the others around can follow. This is why developing resilience in the midst of a crisis is not just about how reactive you are, but about how proactive you can be as well.

—End of Collaborative Post—

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