In the last article we discussed the role and responsibilities of the communications team leader. This article covers the duties of the communications analyst, the person who ensures the response is effective.
An Important Crisis Management Role
The analyst gathers and interprets data about the crisis from several sources to determine the effectiveness of the organization’s response and makes recommendations based on that data about how to improve reaching stakeholders with important information about the crisis.
The analyst also maps the progression of the crisis to ensure the appropriate audiences are included in the response and whether there are changes in the crisis center of gravity requiring adjustments to the organization’s communications. There are discussions about the various stages of crisis in When the Balloon Goes Up: The Communicator’s Guide To Crisis Response.
Throughout the crisis the analyst also adjusts the data sources to obtain the best possible information about the crisis and the response. For a sample of these reports visit Media Monitoring: A Look Outside Your Organization.
Monitor for Mistakes
As if your analyst didn’t have enough to do, he or she should also monitor coverage for substantive errors, mistakes in important facts and discrepancies. If the errors are about your organization someone on the team should contact the editor or news director and ask for a correction. Do this judiciously; editors are usually very protective of their reporters and stories.
For example, I was the spokesperson for an emotional situation involving the eviction of a service station dealer who was six months in arrears in his rent.
A consummate marketer, the dealer convinced about 40 of his customers that this was a classic case of “David versus Goliath” and persuaded them to walk around the premises carrying signs reading “Down With Big Oil” and “We Love Sam” – for purposes of this example the dealer’s pseudonym – when the media arrived.
In a newspaper article the next morning a reporter wrote the dealer “owned” the facility. Although seemingly a trivial point, the owner of the property was the heart of the issue. I called the reporter to explain the situation. He thanked me for clarifying the issue and said he would fix the “mix up.”
His follow-up story read, “There is some confusion about whether the dealer owns the station or leases it from the oil company.” My next call was to his editor who corrected the situation.
…But Ignore Small Mistakes
Sometimes it’s best to ignore small mistakes that don’t change the essence of the story.
One night lightning struck a crude oil storage tank at one of our refineries creating a spectacular fireball. Fortunately there were no injuries and the tank was located where there was no danger to our neighbors.
A television reporter did a live report with the burning tank in the background. She was complimentary about how the refinery emergency team responded, saying, “Thanks to the company’s quick response this tanker fire has been confined to the immediate area.”
Some of the engineers at the plant were upset because she confused a tank with an oil tanker ship. They wanted the refinery’s public affairs manager to call the TV station to correct the error. He explained because the error didn’t change the essence of the story he wasn’t going to press the issue with the news director.
Test Your Skills as an Analyst
To understand the pressure the analyst is under try this exercise:
- Choose an actual breaking crisis to monitor – it doesn’t have to be in your industry.
- Select a media source such as Google News.
- Visit the Crisis Response Communications website article Media Monitoring: A Look Outside Your Organization and complete the updates and reports it suggests to track your selected crisis.
- Analyze the effectiveness of the response based on the data you collect.
- Produce an hourly update regarding the effectiveness of the response.
- Rate the organization’s response efforts.
- What did it do well; what could it have done better?
- Does your crisis communications plan include the items and tasks the organization did well?
By the way, the formats for recording analyst reports should be included in your Crisis Communications Plan. The early hours of a breaking crisis is no time to be discussing what information is needed and how it should be presented.
Don’t Fly Blind
How you staff your Crisis Communications Team is a factor of available people, the type of crisis and your professional judgment. However, the role of the analyst must somehow be incorporated into any effective response. Someone from outside the organization, for example, a public relations or communications consultant, could fill. It could also be combined with the writer’s duties (more on that in next month’s article).
Without the metrics and feedback provided by careful analysis of your communications and the progression of the crisis you are flying blind.
Share Your Experiences
Do you have any experiences analyzing a crisis response? Please share them with our visitors by sending them to Contact and we’ll feature them in our website’s “Articles” section next month.
