Why Your Crisis Communications Plan Needs to be SOCIAL

Editor’s Note: The following was written by Patrice Cloutier, a specialist in emergency information and crisis communications, emergency management and business continuity. This post originally appeared on Patrice’s blog – which is totally worth checking out by the way!

S for strategic
O for operational
C for collaborative
I for informative
A for adaptable
L for lasting

Strategic:
Your crisis communications plan needs to look at all your audiences and identify channels that will be used to communicate with them during emergencies and crises: getting the right message to the right audience using the right channel. Because our audiences are diffused, our communications planning must also be diffused.

This introduces the need to prioritize engagement and highlights the importance of identifying key stakeholders and key “influencers”. Yes, this means having the ability to ramp up daily/routine social media listening to a full-spectrum social media monitoring operation.

Operational:
Your messaging can no longer be limited to statements or one-way directives. To be effective, you need to engage in conversations. That’s what “socially convergent” audiences now expect. You need the ability to listen, not just monitor social media.

Also, very importantly, you need to set up the flow of information to all elements of your organization/crisis cell so that all relevant information/intelligence is shared with those who need them to plan, respond and ensure your business continuity.

Collaborative
Crisis communicators and emergency information officers don’t work well in silos or when they’re kept in the dark. Open up data, share data and integrate it from other parts of the organization. But don’t forget to think more broadly as well.

Open this capability to all elements of your organization/EOC to build up internal resiliency. Internal communications is essential in this regard. Your crisis management function and crisis communications group cannot work effectively without one another. By the same token, it’s crucial to synchronize your crisis management/communications posture across all your outreach channels, including those used for marketing. Avoid selling cruises while one of your ships is sinking off the coast of Italy, for example.

Informative:
The information you provide in a crisis or disaster has to be actionable and shouldn’t simply consist of posturing or vague messaging. Having established a presence before any incident will help you become a trusted source during a crisis – but you will remain so only if the messaging you send out has value to your audiences because it’s prompt, accurate and actionable.

The more risk/hazard specific you can be, the better.

Adaptable:
All plans need to be flexible and able to be applied to various situations. Your plan should outline how you will integrate your website and social networks. You need the ability to use different social network platforms to maximize your reach to diverse audiences. Having broadcast-ready material helps.

Lasting:
Will you be able to sustain your plan during activation? Do you have enough resources and staff? Do you have a process to do constant social media monitoring? To be effective in the use of social networks, you must have the ability not only to monitor but to respond and interact. Do you have enough trained people and the right technology to do that? To respond to media and public inquiries on the web?

Lasting means a scalable approach where the right resources are applied to get the necessary results. A critical precursor of success is the ability to transition from a pre-incident social media posture, to a heavy monitoring and engagement effort and back to routine engagement.

If you are SOCIAL in your plan, chances are you’ll communicate successfully during a crisis or disaster.