Handling a PR Crisis

There are many strategies for getting more media coverage, but one of the easiest ones is for a company to end up in a PR crisis situation. T Companies can’t always plan for what might end up happening, and when most crises emerge, instead of improving their credibility through publicity, they end up damaging their reputation. To avoid such situations, companies need to plan ahead of time and figure out all of the different crisis situations that they might end up facing one day. Aside from planning, companies also need to take several other things into account, such as developing relationships with journalists as early as possible, following the rules of a PR crisis, creating a response, and developing a crisis budget.

Developing Relationships

A company’s PR efforts should always be focused mainly on the people that are already influencing the target audience. That means businesses have to start developing relationships with relevant journalists, bloggers, and influencers as soon as possible. Then, if a company is going through a PR crisis, it’s going to be a lot easier for that business to reach out to the people it already has an established trusting relationship with, and share their situation in a way that helps consumers see where the business is coming from.

Budgeting

Sometimes certain PR efforts or resources are too expensive for a business. When creating a PR budget, companies need to take into account all of their priorities, and then make sure they have some extra cash left in the budget in case they need to promote some last-minute releases or get outside help when mitigating a PR crisis. While it’s smart to start working with a PR agency as soon as it’s possible for a business, plenty of smaller businesses don’t have the kinds of budgets needed to do so. Instead, during a PR crisis, companies can ask for a consultation from PR crisis experts who can help them navigate the situation and mitigate the crisis.

Crisis Response

Businesses should always have a PR crisis plan before a crisis happens. In that plan, the business can outline potential responses to various PR crisis situations that the company might find itself facing. The great thing about planning a crisis response beforehand is that whenever there’s new information about a crisis, that response can be updated accordingly. This makes companies better prepared whenever a crisis happens, which mitigates the situation and lessens the potential damage to a company’s reputation. It also means that the company will fully understand what the rules in a crisis are, such as always being prepared beforehand, making fast decisions, adjusting quickly, and showing the public that the company cares about what happened.