Crisis communication: 3 concrete pieces of advice to strengthen your media coverage

Having to deal with negative press and negative media stories can happen for everyone. 

When a negative story hits the media, things often move very fast – sometimes so fast that there is no time for strategic consideration. The attention that follows can seem quite unmanageable and impossible to keep up with..

Luckily, you have the opportunity to prepare yourself in an effective and easy manner before the shitstorm hits and causes irreparable damage to your company or brand. You can use media monitoring as a preventive measure; a strategic tool that allows you to gain a clearer overview of the situation at hand, and provides you with crucial insights when you need them the most.

Is media monitoring a part of your crisis strategy? If not, you should definitely read our 3 concrete pieces of advice. These 3 pieces of advice will hopefully also serve as inspiration for those who already have a strategy but are interested in how others use media coverage and media monitoring to navigate our contemporary media landscape.

Read our 3 concrete pieces of advice about crisis communication here:

1) Be informed before the crisis explodes 

Many PR- and communications managers already have a list of topics that could potentially lead to critical media stories. However, if you do not already have such a list of topics, this is the place to start. You must follow these topics closely and ensure that you get notified as soon as your company or brand is spoken of in relation to these particular topics. 

We also recommend that you get notified when your competitors are spoken of in relation to critical topics, as well as when media channels are discussing these critical topics in relation to your respective industry. This way, you will be able to avoid a communication crisis by staying ahead of the curve. Media monitoring is a particularly fast and effective way of doing this.

2) Understand the reactions

A communication crisis is not limited to staying within the field of editorial news. Opinion makers, stakeholders and the general public itself also have thoughts and opinions about your crisis. These opinions are expressed on social media in particular. Because of this, the act of following, listening and even planning a reaction to a critical debate concerning your company or brand on social media is of crucial importance.

Media monitoring should help you gain a faster and more accurate overview of critical debates as they appear on social media. You should especially follow debates on platforms such as Twitter, Reddit and other forums where discussions about current news take place.

3) Keep an eye on your most important stakeholders’ opinions and statements

A communication crisis is revitalized each time a new and important person addresses it in the media. As such, crisis management relies heavily on following the opinions and statements made by your most important stakeholders closely. In this way, you will be ready to react proactively to stories brought forth by the media. 

Make a list of your stakeholders and make sure to establish proper media monitoring set-ups of both yours and their media coverage. Stakeholders can be partners, clients, owners, shareholders, politicians, competitioners etc. 

By strategically monitoring your stakeholders’ opinions on and involvement in your crisis, you will be able to save a lot of time. Moreover, having a strategic media monitoring set-up will allow you to react to important statements quickly, and you will be able to react to and prioritize the most crucial media stories about your communication crisis. 

If you want to explore more about how media monitoring can help you before, during and after a communication crisis, we will gladly assist and advise you. You can contact us here info@hypefactors.com