When there is no crisis (yet), you make crisis communication part of your social media strategy. Set up your organization in such a way that you have your script ready. Your script includes things like: which crises, whether obvious or not, could break out in our organization? In which form of crisis are you going to raise the alarm, inform or curb emotions or a combination of the two? Who is going to do what in which social media? Of course, just like in classic crisis communication, your communication strategy depends on the type of crisis. Does all hell suddenly and unexpectedly break loose (flash crisis) or has something been smouldering for a while (dormant crisis). Is it a management crisis or are there deaths and injuries in a fire? Is a teacher abusing a student or is there a whistleblower who leaks painful emails (as happened to the ANWB when an ex-employee showed emails in which the management deliberately kept their customers ignorant of their double insurance)? List the possibilities.
1. Deny
Don't deny that something is going on. That initial denial phase is a natural brother cell phone list reaction for organizations and companies. After all, you want to protect your brand or image with all your might. But denial can make you the target of ridicule.
2. Telling too much
If you go for openness: don't tell too much. That's called the transparency paradox. Mayor Wim Denie of Moerdijk initially said about hazardous substances from Chemiepack that they didn't know if they had been released. However, Denie then came up with the word nitrogen oxides and he told about an existing list of 50 hazardous substances! In other words, too much of this kind of information brings fear and speculation. Incidentally, the interview of Omroep Brabant with Denie became a YouTube hit.