Five Tips For Crisis Communications

Cathy Kelly runs through five key tips to get prepared for a crisis. She also talks practically about how best to look after your team in a crisis situation and how to avoid the mistakes her and her teams made when managing a crisis.

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I’ll be sharing other free resources with you over the coming weeks and months. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep up to date with the latest resources.

FULL TRANSCRIPT
Today I’m going to be talking to you about how you manage and prepare for a potential communications crisis. So it could be something along the lines of staff redundancies, it could be a major health outbreak, or it could be a security breach. But effectively it’s something where you want to contain and control some of the messages going out. A lot of this you can prepare in advance believe it or not.

I am a former journalist and I’ve also got around 20 years’ experience of working with, and writing for the media on major media campaigns. But I’ve also worked in house with various organisations including hospitals and different health trusts. I’ve dealt with some of these situations myself and there’s nothing like first-hand experience to know what you’re talking about and to learn from your mistakes and we did make some mistakes.

So the first time I had to deal with a crisis it was something which came out of the blue for one of the major London hospitals we worked for at the time. We were literally were glued to the telephones dealing with media inquiries and giving interviews for around 10 hours. During that time we didn’t eat enough, drink enough or even go to the loo enough. So we learnt by the end of it that, that’s really not how you do it. In terms of managing the situation in terms of communication materials that we gave out and shared with the media, we did a good job. But we didn’t do a good job of looking after ourselves.

So one of the key things is to look after your team in a crisis. To make sure that you have people being runners and feeding them, giving them drinks, letting them having toilet breaks. It sounds really basic, but those things are incredibly important.

The second time I had to deal with a crisis I was on my day off, and I had young kids, and I ended up having a little incident room in my kitchen, in my house. So I was dealing with national journalists and dealing with a measles outbreak. But because I had frequently asked questions already written and prepared in case that happened. Because I had holding statements and because I had details of journalists, it didn’t panic me so much because I had everything to hand. I also had details of other directors and I had their contact details.

So what I would say first is to look at your communication channels and to make sure that you have as much in place as you possibly can. You need to look at internal communication channels, because the first people you should be trying to reach are your staff, because they’re going to be having to deal with this with you, and they’re also going to be reacting to it, and potentially reading about it, or watching it on the news. So you need to find a way, or find different ways of reaching different groups of staff in the best possible way. This may be through email, through your intranet, through cascade systems within your organisation, with managers’ briefings. All sorts of things that you may have in place. So tap into those and have things written in advance if you can to actually make things as quick and easy as possible for you, so you’re just slotting in the details specific to your incident.

The other things you need to think about are the external systems that you have in place. So you’re effectively going to be using things like social media, your website, and the media, in terms of issuing holding statements and possibly press releases about the incident, which has taken place. So you need to make sure that you have all these things set up in advance.
Towards the end of the video I’m going to be sharing a free resource with you. It’s a media crisis template plan, so that you can apply to your own organisation. So look at maybe areas, which you should be addressing and things that you need to focus on. To make sure that you’re as ready as you possibly can be. Because by being ready you really take the heat out of an incident, because when it strikes, it strikes without any warning. That sounds very obvious, but you need to make it as least stressful as possible for you, because it will be pretty frantic. You won’t have time to think about other things.

One of the things I wanted to focus on a little bit was what should actually go into your media contingency plan. So this will be all the telephone contact numbers for all the people that may be useful for you in that situation. So it’ll be people like your communications manager and director, the different directors responsible for perhaps different parts of the organisation. Key people that you need to be able to contact in a crisis.

You also need to think about your key media contacts, who are the media that you have on side that you trust, that you can use to your advantage and to brief in these situations. Also media who you need to reach who perhaps you don’t have those relationships with. Have them all in your plan so that everything’s to hand, it’s easy as possible for you, and is quick to reach the people you need to reach with your messages.

You also need to split the incidents into different types of incidents. So for example here we have a critical media inquiry with a camera on site. So someone’s pitched up, they’ve heard about something that’s happened, perhaps it’s a security breach, or a potential bomb alert. They’ve turned up with a TV crew, so you need to be able to react to them very quickly. You need to know what to do when that happens. So for each incident you have a page in your plan. So if that thing happens you pull out the page, and you run through the process. You’re not having to think on the hoof, you’re not having to make it up as you go along. It’s ready, it’s prepared for you. You’re taking the heat out of the incident.

You also can maybe look at things like a riot or a major disturbance. Perhaps you might have a death on your premises or in one of your stores. It may be a fire or a bomb alert, or even damage to property. So you have emergency checklist, and you work through those checklists. By following a particular checklist you are reacting to it in a way, which you feel comfortable and in a timely fashion.

Five Tips to Prepare For Crisis Communications

How To Get Media Coverage To Build Credibility

How to Get Media Coverage to Build Credibility

Former journalist and experienced PR Consultant Cathy Kelly reveals how to get media coverage to build your credibility as an expert.

• Do you want to raise your profile as an expert?
• Does your competition appear in the publications you should be in?
• Do you want to speak at relevant industry events?

If any or all of the above relate to you then you’re in the right place. This video will help to get you the coverage you want. Keep watching because I’ll run through some of the golden rules and towards the end of the video I’ll share a winning template so that you can start putting these tips into practise.

I’m going to be addressing and suggesting ways to solve some of the PR pains you might be experiencing as a business owner, director or manager responsible for communications.
I’m Cathy Kelly and I’m a former journalist and PR consultant with more than 20 years’ experience of writing for and working with the media. A recent campaign with a client resulted in a film on a prime-time terrestrial TV channel and in leading national and international media outlets including The Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Forbes, Al Jazeera and CNBC among others.
I’ll run through some of the golden rules and towards the end of the video I’ll share a winning template for putting your press release together so that you can start putting these tips into practise.- I’ll be sharing more free help and being your virtual PR consultant so subscribe to my channel to make sure you don’t miss anything over the coming weeks and months.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I’m Cathy from Catherine Kelly PR and I’m going to be talking today about how you can establish yourself as an expert within your field. So do you feel perhaps that your competition are dominating the news within your chosen publications? Or perhaps they’re speaking at industry events where you think you could be taking the podium? Well I’m going to share a few tips with you today in this short video about how you can actually go about redressing the balance and getting yourself into those places which you think you should be at.
My name’s Catherine Kelly and I’ve got more than 20 years’ experience of working with and for the media gaining international and national coverage including on prime time television. And I’m going to be sharing some top tips that’ve been proven to work over and over again.
One of the really good places for you to start, is to build a solid media list. And when I say a media list, I mean, details of media’s contact details but also details of when they go to print, good days of the week to contact them because that’s really important.
It’s no good phoning a journalist on deadline day, they’re not going to want to know. So I usually start by building a relationship with journalists by sending them a press release. And by clicking on the link towards the end of this video, you can download a free press release template which I’ve put together which will guide you through how to put a winning press release together, step by step. You can then issue this press release to the journalists, ideally with a professional quality photograph. And then follow it up with a phone call on a day which isn’t deadline day and when they’ll be happy to talk to you.
You can also offer to do what’s called “A Thought Leadership Piece”, where you’re expanding on a particular topic and giving your view as an expert in that field. Or you could offer to do a regular column or regular piece or even to be a regular speaker if they need somebody to speak on a particular subject area.
Another area that you can look at, is actually speaking at a conference or key event. And you could contact the event organisers and offer to speak on a particular subject area which you feel comfortable talking about.
These are all ways in which you can raise your profile in the way which you want to be seen. And if you want more tips and free materials? I’ll be uploading these on a regular basis. So please subscribe to my YouTube channel and go to catherinekellypr.co.uk where I’ll be sharing lots of free information over the coming weeks and months.

How to Get Media Coverage to Build Credibility

How to Reach The Media

How to Reach the Media – Approaches to PR

Get ready to share your news by following my top tips. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel to view forthcoming videos

Catherine Kelly PR

Cathy Kelly has got more than 20 years’ experience of working within the industry, first working as a journalist, and then as a London PR consultant specialising in crisis management and PR for hospitals and health trusts.

She has written for and dealt with many media, setting up filming and various media interviews – most recently BBC’s The One Show. She’s worked with international and national publications and media outlets including The Times, The Telegraph, The Engineer, Business Insider and many green and sustainable media.

FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Approaches to PR – getting started

• Do you have a good story?
• Do you feel overwhelmed by the task of sharing it?
• Are you unsure how to collate your media list?
• Do you want to know how to contact journalists?

Hi, I’m Cathy from Catherine Kelly PR, and I’m going to be helping you to solve some of your PR pains, and one of the most common ones is how you actually get media coverage when you haven’t done it before.

You might be a director or communications manager or somebody responsible for communications within an organisation wanting to raise your profile or reach the media, and you just don’t know how to do it.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to search for publications online. You might want to start with something like Google and start looking at the industry that you’re trying to target. It might be the industry you work in, or it may be a related or parallel industry.

Another good free resource you can use is journalisted.com, which lists details of journalists and the sorts of subjects that they’re actually interested in and writing about at the moment.

Type of publications – look online – make a list

• Google is a good place to start
• Call media outlets for specific journalist’s contact details
• Search and connect with journalists on Twitter
• Look at your industry publications – online or hard copies

Research these by searching for publications- start on Google – you can also search and connect with journalists on Twitter – target the right journalist and then either looking up or calling for specific journalist names. Write to each journalist – with a summary at the top.

Top tips

• Call journalists if you have time
• Research what they have written about on Journalisted.com
• Prepare – have an ‘elevator pitch’ – be succinct
• Explain your story and ask if you can send it to them
OR
• Explore a press release distribution service like Newswire, these are expensive
• Use a PR firm, which will have or can create media lists and do the job for you

Writing it

• Make it appealing, different and unique – is it really a story?
• If you’re no good at writing – delegate to someone who is!
• Always include a good, high resolution photograph with your press release
• Email your press release or piece of news to each journalist with a summary in the ‘Subject’
field.

The other thing you need to think about doing is actually getting good, professional quality photography because publications and TV stations are always short of good images. So if your story carries a good image, you’re halfway there.

You also need to have a killer idea for your press release. If you’re not sure whether the idea you’ve come up with really works, then talk to a colleague or a team member or a family friend or somebody that can give you a good, honest opinion on what your strongest story should be, or you can consult an expert.

Do subscribe to my channel because I’m going to be adding new resources and publications all the time, and I’m also going to share with you towards the end of the video a link to a free template for a press release so that you know how to actually go about sharing the news with the media and presenting it in a format that they understand and feel reassured by. Journalists are busy people, so you need to make it as easy as possible for them and not make it feel like you’re just hitting them with a blanket email.

My name’s Catherine Kelly, and I’ve got more than 20 years’ experience of working within the industry. I’ve worked as a journalist, and I’ve also worked as a PR consultant writing for and dealing with the media, setting up filming and various media interviews. I’ve worked with international and national publications and media outlets including prime time television channels, publications such as Forbes, The Times, the Guardian, all the major ones.

I’ve got the experience, and I’m going to be sharing my top tips with you over the coming weeks and months because I know that these things work because we’ve tried and tested them over and over again.

I’m going to be sharing now with you a link to a template, and that is going to help you to actually start to put together your own press release and in another one of my videos, I’m going to be running through step-by-step how you would actually construct a press release and how you know whether that actually is a proper story.

Learn how to write a Press Release using my proven formula by downloading my free template at www.catherinekellypr.co.uk or visit my YouTube Channel to access more free resources over the coming weeks and months.

How to Reach The Media – Approaches to PR – where to start