How can you maintain messaging consistency across channels during a PR crisis?

Having a coherent, single source of the truth is vital. This is the core of your messaging which can then be optimised as appropriate for your audience matrix of stakeholders. While the language, nuance and detail should vary, the core messaging should always align and be consitent. Also knowing your optimal cascade cadence is crucial to ensure the right people receive your messages at the right time.

Plan ahead: Craft a crisis communication plan with clear, pre-defined messages. One voice, one team: Establish a central team to craft all outgoing messages, ensuring a unified voice across platforms. Train your spokesperson: Train designated spokespersons on the key messages and how to deliver them effectively. Consistency is crucial! Adapt, don't alter: Tailor your core message to fit different communication channels, like press statement, release, or social media

Team should decide what should be the message and one spokesperson should speak to Media. In Indian context the message should go in English , Hindi and also vernacular language which is equally important.

One thing to consider as you develop key messages is to create categories for those messages. Overarching messaging will frame the issue in a general sense, however, messaging should be tailored to each audience, such as employees, customers, partner organizations, the news media and, in some cases, government or regulatory agencies. Each audience has differing interests and perspectives. Just as important as the messaging is the sequencing of messages: Which audience do we communicate with and in what order? Creating a tight sequencing is necessary for control of the message.

Why on Earth would you reconsider a fundamental for a time of crisis? I'm being serious. You should already have this locked down. The only difference between a regular time and a crisis time is that everybody should be on-deck for the latter. A crisis requires a drastic and immediate increase in resources. Everything else remains exactly the same. So, if you want to maintain consistency for a crisis, then you shouldn't change how you approach the consistency of your messages. Don't add variables. A crisis is never the time for that. I'm being abrupt on purpose. It's called Classic Style. Get the book called A Sense of Style by Steven Pinker. It's the best and most practical writing book I have ever encountered. Take care.

Don't wait for a crisis to knock on your door - prepare for one. Set up a crisis management team to anticipate and mitigate potential threats to your business. Think of every conceivable scenario - a negative customer experience, unfavourable reactions to a product launch, or a disruption in your supply chain leading to inventory shortages. Then, put a plan into place as to how you would navigate these potential crises. While it is impossible to predict every conceivable crisis scenario, having a well-prepared and comprehensive crisis management team and a repository of actionable strategies ensures your organisation is on the front foot, ready to respond swiftly and effectively to any challenges.

In today’s social media age, content is key. Not that messages aren’t important but rapid, accurate information is needed so that your employees, stakeholders, customers, etc…, become trusted sources. In order to be impactful, the content you create needs to leave people who share it feeling good about your messaging. Studies show people really only care about how they feel after seeing your message not necessarily the wording of it. So focusing on the intent of the message is critical.

I would argue that empathy is important in every communications vehicle, with each audience, not just on social media. Demonstrating authentic empathy and concern is fundamental to most every crisis response. In most crises, there are people -- human beings -- who are impacted and organizations that do not keep this concept at the forefront of their response are bound to alienate key constituencies.

Here is where coordination within the organisation and having a long-term plan for communications strategy is crucial. Communications, whether internal or external, needs to be accurate in a crisis. In order to be accurate, the PR needs to be part of the key executive management and challenge and question all intended messaging. In reputational crisis there will be added scrutiny on what you do. If the messaging then isn’t aligning with what you’ve said you’re doing, the public, stock holders or at the very least the board will hold you accountable. PR professionals need to keep a clear head, dare to question if needed and act in a way they can stand behind their decisions also in the future.

Picture this: you speak a second language. When you're speaking in your second language, you should be thinking in that language. This makes it much easier to construct your sentences and to understand when someone is speaking back to you. Here's what I don't get: if we as communications practitioners are expected to speak to our audiences in a way that they can understand the information, process it, and make a desired decision, then why are we as communications practitioners talking about what we do in would seem to be a whole other language? We should be discussing situations and scenarios instead. It would be much more practical for the format of this forum. I'm obviously doing this wrong. Thank you for the invite. Take care.

Be well prepared- list down scenarios and have a core team in place to manage the crisis. Identify one spokesperson who will be the voice for the brand. Keep a close watch on developments across social channels (can help address the crisis before it becomes much bigger). Identify important issues where you will put out a view. Leverage social media handles of the brand and the leaders to drive consistency and amplify your message.

During crisis situation, leadership and decision making process on Crisis Response Team take significant contribution to ensure all team member in organization, as well as action taken by them will follow the same (crisis) plan. Therefore it's is critical to chose the right person on crisis response team and to ensure each team member know their to do list, know their role & responsibility during crisis handling situation. The team will ensure centralized information, act as a hub for crisis-related information and updated key messages & set priority on communication channels & key stakeholders based on ongoing evaluation process.