How do you align your crisis communication strategy with your brand values and tone?

You need a crisis response team and plan before there is a crisis. Crisis communication is a vital skill, but not every business owner and executive has that skill. The first step in your assessment should be to understand who has these skills on your team and who will support you externally when a crisis hits. Protecting your reputation starts well-before you need to respond to a crisis. Spending money on experts may seem expensive, but it is always less than the damage of not handling a crisis well.

Beyond these considerations, another question is absolutely fundamental: Is the company/brand directly at fault, or is it facing an external event? The answer will have significant implications for the stance it must take in response to the crisis at hand.

This is a delicate dance of information, responsibility and timing. You want to assess the crisis, who are stakeholders, what's the loss/impact, how does it affect those impacted? Speak to all involved. Remain calm. Asking a lot of questions helps get a thorough view of what is actually happening. Should a statement/press release/video content need to be released, ensure that the tone is sincere, honest and one of taking responsibility, and providing solutions (next steps) as well ask keeping communication channels open.

The question might suggest that in a crisis you can't always remain " on brand". On the contrary this is the one time your brand values absolutely have to shine through. It's always tempting to want to be quick in response to a crisis but the added value of taking a step back can work wonders.

It's important to remember that goals and values aren't just something that you list on your website; they need to be authentic to your company and just as importantly, to customers and other stakeholders. Once you've established these goals, it's absolutely crucial that you flesh them out a bit and spell these out in practical terms so that everyone from senior leadership to new hires can easily identify and apply them. When aligning this framework to reputation management, it's important to constantly ask the question "Does this response ladder back to our overall goals?". If you can't answer that question, it may be worth reevaluating.

A crucial element missing from this article is the integration of cultural sensitivity in crisis communication. In our globalized world, crises can have international implications, affecting diverse audiences. Developing a crisis communication strategy that considers cultural nuances, language differences, and regional sensitivities is essential. This approach ensures that your message resonates appropriately across various cultural contexts while maintaining alignment with your brand values and tone. It involves adapting your communication style, choosing culturally appropriate channels, and possibly engaging local spokespeople to ensure your message is received as intended in different markets.

There are various AI tools in the market that make this task quick and easy to accomplish. For a human to manually collect and analyse data would be incredibly time consuming and labour intensive. By the time you finished, things will have moved on so much that the insights gained are irrelevant. AI does not have this limitation. It can continuously monitor a high volume of data in real time, providing you with the most accurate snapshot of your audiences at any given time. Employing a social listening tool enables you to keep a finger on the pulse to see how your messages have landed, and highlight areas you may need to address. Moreover, these tools can flag your next potential crisis before it has a chance to spiral.

Ideally you would have had a comprehensive crisis plan that has all the elements that you eventually needed in the crisis, or most of them. See how your planned approached really worked in real life and adjust what didn't.