While no business wants to think about future crises that they might need to deal with, if you fail to plan for things like this, you might as well plan to fail if and when a real crisis arises for you. Because of this, it’s vital that every business thinks ahead about how they’ll handle a variety of crises that could happen.
To help you in doing this, here are three tips for creating a crisis management plan for your business.
Put Together A Crisis Management Team
One of the first steps that you can and should take when putting together a crisis management plan for your business is to put together a crisis management team. This way, when something happens and you need your business to move fast in addressing or responding to a crisis, you’ll all know exactly who you should be turning to.
On this crisis management team, you should seek to include people with a variety of skills and backgrounds that will be helpful in different kinds of crises. For example, you’ll want to have someone who’s great at communicating, who can craft the right message for your business, who can handle the IT aspect, who has solid relationships with your customers and clients, and someone who knows the ins and outs of your business well. With their powers combined, your crisis management team should be able to handle anything that’s thrown at your company.
Craft The Right Responses Beforehand
To help make things easier, as you’re considering the kinds of crises that might happen to your company, you may want to craft some responses and messages that you can use as a template in the event that this crisis situation actually happens.
For many people, it can be hard to think clearly and make the best decisions when they are feeling frantic or are in a state of panic. And so if you’re trying to release a statement in this state of mind, things might not go as well as you’d hoped. But by crafting some message points beforehand, you can ensure that everything you’re wanting to convey will be communicated well.
Pause Other Scheduled Posts
When your company is in crisis control mode, you’re going to want to pause all other social media and other postings for the time being. During the crisis, all of your communication should be about this, how you’re responding to what’s happening, and what information you’re needing to share with your followers. This crisis social media strategy can save your business during hard times. Then, when things get back to normal, you can then start posting your scheduled posts as before.
If you don’t yet have a crisis management plan for your business, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you set this up for your organization.