How can a public relations firm help?
As Genevieve Hilton, Senior Vice President of Ketchum Newscan Public Relations Ltd., outlines, specific areas in which a public relations firm can help you, before, during and after a crisis, include: • Carrying out a risk audit, i.e. systematically going through your entire organisation and identifying all the possible areas of risk. If there’s any risk that’s in the quadrant of both serious and likely, that’s the one you start preparing for first. • Devising a crisis management plan, identifying roles and responsibilities, and gaining internal buy-in. • Training spokespeople and all staff about what to do and say in a crisis. • Holding simulation exercises. There’s nothing that can prepare you better for a crisis than a simulation exercise. You can make it feel real, and people will in fact act just like they would in a real crisis. That reveals an enormous amount about your structural or organisational readiness, and you’ll figure out pretty fast what you need to be doing to prepare
