How do you leverage the power of influencers and advocates for your crisis communication?

Remember that influencers and advocates are influential because they have built trust with their audience. By partnering with them during a crisis, you can tap into that trust and effectively communicate your message to a wider audience.

You are borrowing their trusted relationship with their audiences. That requires you to build a trusted relationship LONG BEFORE you are in a crisis. Otherwise, its just a paid quid pro quo.

Leveraging influencers and advocates in crisis communication is about choosing the right voices to amplify your message. It's crucial to pick influencers whose audiences align with the affected stakeholders. Before any crisis, build a foundation of trust with these influencers, ensuring they resonate with the organization's values. During a crisis, keep them informed with accurate details and clear messaging guidelines. Their feedback can also be invaluable, as they provide a direct line to public sentiment. Post-crisis, recognizing their support helps in nurturing long-term, beneficial relationships. Through these steps, influencers and advocates become trusted voices that enhance the credibility of an organization's messaging.

Influencers and advocates can be an extremely important part of a crisis response, and very helpful to reach audiences who don't follow your own accounts. Advocates often have high levels of trust and engagement on their accounts, and may be using channels you don't use or even have access to as an organisation. They can help you to reach a larger audience but also niche communities impacted by an issue or incident. Wherever possible research potential advocates and build relationships with them ahead of a crisis.

Alles sch?n und gut. Die wichtigsten Kommunikator:innen in der Krise sind die Heads der Organisation. So lange die Lage unübersichtlich ist, übernimmt der Head of Communication die Kommunikation nach innen und au?en. Sobald gesicherte Informationen gegeben werden k?nnen, spricht der Kopf der Organisation zur Innen- und Au?enwelt. Und das 1. empathisch und authentisch und erst dann 2. faktisch.

Focus on engagement, not audience reach - audience reach can be super misleading. For many crises/misinfo campaigns etc you need folks who have genuine influence in the offline space as well as online, i.e. those who can authentically engage in the spaces occupied by the audiences that matter to you (and authenticity here is also key... but thats another article, which should probably be read before this one).

Knowing your audiences is the first and last rule communications. This means knowing who they go to for information, who they trust and who speaks to their personal values. These people are often "micro-influencers" who might not have a huge "reach" by certain metrics but who carry outsized influence with their stakeholder community.

Stakeholder mapping and prioritisation is crucial in the early stages of a crisis response. In an ideal world you'd have the resources to keep in touch with all groups all of the time. But realistically you will have to prioritise stakeholders by the interest they have in the situation and the power they hold. Once you have identified key groups, then map out the best ways to reach them and where advocates can help with this. This research and planning will then allow you to find and work with the most relevant advocates for any situation.

Es gibt zwei wesentliche "Matching-Indikatoren": die Werte bzw. Reputationsfaktoren einer Influencing Person und die Bekanntheit der Person innerhalb der für die Organisation relevanten Zielgruppen/Stakeholder. Das sind die wesentlichen Entscheidungsparameter zur Identifikation von Influencers und Fürsprecher:innen. Erst dann kommt der Parameter "Budget" dazu.

I think it's essential to conduct thorough research and analysis to understand the landscape of influencers and advocates within your industry or relevant to your target audiences. Look for individuals with a strong online presence, a highly engaged following, and a track record of providing valuable insights or commentary on topics related to your organisation or the crisis at hand. Additionally, consider influencers and advocates who align with your brand values and have demonstrated a genuine interest or connection with your organisation. Use data-driven tools and analytics to evaluate their reach, engagement rates, and the demographics of their followers to ensure you're targeting the most relevant and impactful individuals.

Taking the time to "listen" or to watch how influencers interact with their community members gives you insights into how to get their attention, gain their trust and build a stronger relationship with them. You're able to understand what they care about, how they react to topics and what fuels their passion. The knowledge you gain here will help you attract and enlist the help of influencers when crisis strikes.

Seek to build a long-term mutually beneficial relationship. Consider what they value, what they want or need, the "cultural currency" that they operate within; never ask for anything from them for free. They don't owe you anything and in all likelihood don't need you. It will be super obvious if you or they are looking for a purely transactional relationship. Nothing wrong with that - but it may lack necessary authenticity to get the job done.

Influencer:innen sollten nicht mit einer Aktion/einer Kampagne integriert werden, sondern über verschiedene Ma?nahmen und Zielgruppen hinweg. So entwickelt man die so wichtige Bindung und Identifikation der Influencer Person mit der Organisation und sorgt dafür, dass die Partnerschaft auch bei den relevanten Zielgruppen wahrgenommen wird.

In my experience, it's essential to approach these influencers and advocates with transparency, respect, and a genuine desire to collaborate. Clearly communicate your intentions, provide them with accurate and up-to-date information about the crisis situation, and seek their input or feedback on your communication strategies. I believe in offering them the opportunity to be part of the solution and contribute their unique perspectives, rather than merely treating them as amplification channels. By fostering a collaborative and mutually beneficial relationship, you can increase the likelihood of influencers and advocates actively championing your cause and amplifying your messaging.

Engage influencers and advocates by reaching out with a clear, compelling message about the crisis. Offer them exclusive information, access, or opportunities to contribute to your communication efforts. Build relationships through personalized interactions and demonstrate how their support can make a meaningful impact. Ensure your messaging aligns with their values and interests to foster authentic engagement.

Perhaps some of these tactics generically work in issues-related matters, but in a crisis context, this makes no sense at all -- and frankly, it sounds a bit stupid. It feels like someone has asked ChatGPT "develop a marketing engagement plan involving influencers and apply it in crisis comms"... How would influencers / advocates 'engage' in conversations about your crisis and 'co-create' rich content to share your crisis comms messages? Perhaps on the long term this could apply for reputation recovery, but I don't see this work in active crisis comms. Also, I think as communicators we need to be extremely careful with such tactics. It's a bit evil.

All of these tactics are acceptable. But the devil is in the details. Its all about the execution and the nuance. But if you wait until a crisis to do any of these things, they're destined to be failures.

In my opinion, it's important to clearly define the roles, responsibilities, and expectations for both parties. This could involve co-creating content, such as blog posts, videos, or social media campaigns, that align with your communication objectives while allowing influencers and advocates to maintain their authentic voice and credibility. in addition, consider inviting them to participate in media briefings, virtual town halls, or other events where they can directly engage with your stakeholders and address concerns or questions. I believe that providing them with regular updates, data, and talking points can help ensure consistency in messaging while still allowing for their personal perspectives and insights to shine through.

It's really important to understand the usual type of content and style of the influencer or advocate you are looking to work with for a successful collaboration. Then you can provide them with the information you'd like them to share in the right format for their audience.

Collaborate with influencers and advocates by co-creating content that addresses the crisis and aligns with their voice. Develop joint campaigns, such as interviews, live sessions, or social media posts, to leverage their reach. Provide them with key information and support to effectively communicate your message. Monitor the collaboration's impact and maintain open communication to adapt strategies as needed.

While you need to build relations in peace-time, one has to acknowledge that a significant part of the organization will be focused on solving the crisis and addressing operational issues and root causes. Engaging with influencers or advocates, while you only have very limited information, and are focused on mitigating the impact (contacting impacted employees, families etc.) looks good on paper, but is likely something that can be done, once the dust has settled and the immediately impacted people have been taken care off.

Leveraging influencer relationships to engage in a dialogue and inform an issue or for third party validation can be an effective strategy. But it requires intention and commitment to a long term program whose ROI will be difficult to measure empirically. It isn't something that you can kick off in a moment of crisis.