Crisis communications

It is about stopping the crisis using communication to provide effective reactions to the event that caused it and, on the other hand, to ensure that the loss of credit and image capital is minimal.

A crisis situation will create public opinion about what happened. The presence in the media will causethat the crisis becomes public domain, which will force to propose a series of communicative actions that give some explanation about what happened and what will be the guidelines to carry out to amend the situation.

Public opinion demands to know the development of eventsand deciding under the pressure of the fast pace, forces to implement a range of communicative actions and, at the same time, explain the reasons and incidence of the crisis. Therefore, communication applied in crisis situations should not be improvised.

Specialists point out that crisis communication management is:

"the ability of an organization to reduce or anticipate future risk factors, to quickly and effectively assume communication operations, which contribute to reducing or eliminating the negative effects that the crisis may affect his image or reputation”.

The previous definition speaks, on the one hand of the importance of prevention in times of calm, through a communication strategy to anticipate the crisis. On the other hand, he considers image and reputation the possible big losers in any problematic situation.

Sources:
Chapter 5. Internal communication in the XXI century.
Chapter 6. Communication strategies in crisis situations, taken from: Enrique Jiménez, Ana Ma.m "We are Strategists", ed. Gedisa. Barcelona, 2015