By Daniela Dálio
One of the most dreaded situations for media relations professionals, being them on the agency side or the client side, is having to deal with crisis management in the media. It is an extremely delicate process which requires total transparency and agility to successfully manage the image and the reputation of the company.
Despite there being no ready-to-go, 100% reliable formula for this, there are a few basic principles that should be followed in order to minimize the negative effects from the exposure of a crisis.rce.ag
One of these principles is always trying to anticipate the crisis through, agency and client together, identifying topics, issues, data and information which represent a possible risk. For this to work, it is necessary that the partnership between the client and the agency is well established and solid enough to be able to critically analyse and evaluate this sensitive information.
Having a process manual for crisis management as well as a ready-formed committee of strategic executives, with their roles previously defined, is also something of extreme importance. With this, it is possible to optimize the time and have a good chance at making the right decisions.
Once a crisis has established itself, a strategic plan to manage the crisis is fundamental. Collect as much information as possible and define the actions that will be taken together with the client/agency (depending on the perspective). In this moment, transparency when it comes to information is fundamental for the communication to be assertive. Once again, the confidence and trust in the relationship between client and agency is of utter importance.
Lastly, the monitoring of everything that is being published in relation to the crises, both in print press, online and social medias, as well as a continuous assessment of the actions that are taken, cannot be forgotten.
