A lot of advice online about crisis management often feels like it’s targeted towards bigger companies (who might or might not already have a crisis management strategy in place).
As a startup, it can be difficult to find solace in that advice (or even find the advice entirely useful). This is why we’re here with some of the best practices you should consider during crisis management as a digital startup.
Don’t worry. All this advice has been sourced from other digital startups, small businesses, and PR professionals who know your struggles (or have been in the trenches themselves). In other words, we’ve catered these insights to meet your specific needs.
Let’s dig in, shall we?
Hennessey Digital: Partner with the right experts
Jason Hennessey, the founder and CEO of Hennesy Digital, recommends partnering with PR experts who can help you navigate the situation.
“When a crisis does happen, the best way to keep it from escalating is by partnering with experts who can help you navigate your way out of it. This is especially true for startups. Trying to handle things for yourself will most likely make things worse for you,” he says.
Another piece of wisdom he has for digital startups? Building a stellar reputation online even without any crisis in sight.
“Managing a crisis starts well before a crisis emerges. Business owners should understand that a stellar reputation is the best safety net you can give your business — it can even turn your customers into defenders of your brand when the need arises,” Jason shares.
Husam Jandal: Outline a plan for social media interactions
Husam Jandal, a digital marketing consultant with startup clients, recently provided his advice on LinkedIn on how startups should navigate crisis management.
One critical piece of wisdom he shared was to create a plan for social media interactions because it may often happen that your loyal employees, freelancers, and other stakeholders would come in to defend you and address the issue at hand.
He recommends being transparent in your communications and informing your team and stakeholders about the following:
- The issue at hand
- What you’re doing to resolve it
- How they can help (to prevent further damage)
He also suggests:
- Having a style guide in place to ensure you speak in the correct brand voice and don’t unintentionally use phrases/words that could get you into further trouble.
- Include your crisis management policies in your (future) employee onboarding documents.
- Being extremely communicative about everyone’s roles and responsibilities during a crisis situation.
Renee PR: Do proactive media monitoring
Renee PR, a tech PR agency that caters to small businesses and startups, created a specific guide on how to effectively plan for a potential crisis.
Note: In fact, Joyce Imiegha, a communications expert who’s helped multiple digital companies, wrote this guide.
She recommends opting for a proactive media monitoring approach. For example, you could use tools like BuzzSumo or Talkwalker alerts to track brand mentions alongside anything said about your company, leadership, people, industry, etc.
She says, “The goal is to systematically track both online and traditional media mentions and conversations related to your brand and industry and make it a standard practice.”
Joyce, like Jason, also recommends partnering with the right expert and delegating the responsibility of keeping up with your mentions across the web to them.
Side Note: You can also use Agility PR Solutions for AI-powered media monitoring to get coverage across socials, web, podcast, broadcast, and all other online channels.
Multiple companies: Embrace a calm attitude and lead with strategy
A common piece of advice among PR folks (that we have personally seen given to digital startup clients) is to:
- Embrace a calm attitude (especially as company leadership)
- Create a strategy for addressing this issue
To do this, you’ll also need to:
- Map out your risks and potential losses.
- Decide how to communicate with customers.
- Find which stakeholders (e.g., influencers or loyal customers) you can partner with to make your brand shine once again.
In some instances, digital startups have opted for a very transparent approach. They address the issue head-on (either on a company blog or a social media post), explain why it happened, apologize for it, and address what they’re going to do about it and how they will avoid it from happening again later down the line.
You could either opt for this approach or you could create a specific strategy tailored to the issue you have on hand.
Other best practices for crisis management
Before we wrap up this post, here are a few other best practices we recommend you consider when building and training a crisis management team:
- Opt For Video Content: Videos are a great tool for crisis communication, offering an immediate and engaging way to connect with audiences. We’d also recommend including video captions to ensure accessibility, helping viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing or those who prefer to watch without sound.
- Use a Media Database: This database will help you partner with the right PR experts and publish your side of the story to effectively manage the crisis.
- Leverage Social Listening Tools: Social listening tools can give you insights into the conversations happening around your brand and help you understand how the perception of your brand has changed.
Become strategic about your public reputation with Agility PR Solutions
Let’s face it. You never know what types of crises you will face over the duration of your business. And the crisis management process looks different for everyone.
So, if you’re planning to be strategic during crisis management, you’ll need a tool that even PR pros use—and that’s us.
Agility has helped startups and big businesses monitor customer conversations and company reputations using social listening and media monitoring tools.
You can also use our services to connect with the right PR experts, access a media database, etc. To learn exactly how this tool operates (and how it can help you in real life), book a demo for Agility!
