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The Covid-19 pandemic has impressively underlined that even the most impactful incidences can come completely unexpected. In business, crises come without a warning call too and one might find themself thinking: “I didn’t see that coming!”. To develop a tactic and avoid crisis, businesses first need to understand what a crisis is how they can prepare themselves against one.
A crisis is any threat to the business’s operations with negative consequences if not managed properly and on time. A company’s crisis management and communication division are fundamental for they protect the public image, the market share and the associated profit from the effects of negative headlines or events.
Usually large companies have an established crisis management plan in place. However, crises hit small and medium size companies too, which are often unprepared against threats. Fortunately, there are now digital solutions, like automated media monitoring, which any company can acquire to be on the safe side in the event of unexpected incidents.
A crisis is often based on a surprising event and is therefore difficult to predict. This is exactly where media monitoring comes in: it permits businesses to observe media coverage affecting the company, the competition, and the industry. It also offers the chance to react immediately at the slightest indication of a negative situation.
In today’s media landscape, traditional manual monitoring has become very difficult: tons of content spread through all kinds of channels such as TV, radio, social media and web TV worldwide. Modern automated media monitoring tools provide a solution to keep an eye on all the desired information according to the needs of a company. For example, observing specific channels, sources, or casts, local or global, and from short to long periods.
A media monitoring tool offers a variety of possibilities for a businesses’ crisis management and communication activities: it provides reliable and immediate notifications as a topic appears in the media as well as insights about the negative or positive sentiment of the information. This helps businesses to understand what exactly their audience is exposed to and take the right steps in crisis situations.
Clear communication is fundamental. Therefore, determining a competent spokesperson is important to inform all parties involved such as customers, suppliers or employees. They will all value a company taking well thought out actions against threats.
On the other hand, time is a crucial factor when it comes to keeping things under control: acting responsibly in the shortest possible time frame is an advantage when handling a bad situation. For example, against negative headlines a company can intervene representing their point of view.
The impact of the different channels must not be underestimated, therefore all of them need the necessary attention. Radio and television are significant for the course of a crisis, but on social media and web TV information spreads faster and negative comments are difficult to control. Social networks like YouTube are increasingly used for official statements by companies wanting to reach a broad audience as quickly as possible.
Once a company has clarified all these aspects within its crisis management plan and has access to worldwide media coverage nothing stands in the way of succeeding even in a crisis situation.
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