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Clarity in communication
A communications team is often considered a ‘nice to have’, but is one of the functions most critical to your organisation in good times and bad. Communicating effectively is a skill and not all engagement will add value to your business or build trust. In fact, poor messaging can cause significant damage to your brand and reputation. Working with our global network of experienced communications and crisis experts, we offer a strong, evidence-based suite of services to clearly articulate and amplify your business voice including:
When a media interview goes wrong it has the potential for embarrassment and long-term reputational, financial, or legal difficulties. Very few people are comfortable publicly responding to hostile or stressful situations. Footage may also remain online as a permanent reminder of an incredibly difficult moment in time.
After two decades fronting live and pre-recorded media interviews for situations including aviation and security incidents, severe weather events, chemical spills, medical mishaps, accidental deaths, and reputational issues, we have the right experience to represent you and be a confident, credible, and trusted media spokesperson for your business.
If you do need to front the media, preparation is essential. Annual media training works if you get to put it into practice on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, or fortunately, most people do not have regular opportunities to engage in media interviews. This means, when the times comes, that training done months, or years, ago is often the last thing on your mind. At StormBirds, we conduct intensive, practical just-in-time sessions to help you prepare for and deliver confident, clear, and consistent messaging in media interviews at short notice.
When a story is hot, the media look for people they can get a comment or response from. This means, anyone in your organisation or family could be approached or ambushed by media for comment, or filmed in publicly accessible spaces, just doing their job. This is very confronting for people who have no experience with media and are unprepared for how to respond.
We conduct briefings with front-line staff, executive teams, and families to prepare them to manage these situations. We talk about what their rights are, how the media behaves, how to provide no comment, refer media enquiries back to the organisation, and other practical advice and strategies to ensure they feel safe and you are able to manage your messaging.
Globally, the media cycle today is 24/24/7 (24 minutes into the half hour cycle/24 hours a day/seven days a week). If things go bad, in less than 30 seconds, footage or comments can be uploaded to world-wide social networks. You could receive calls from media just minutes into a crisis. If you don’t respond almost immediately, media coverage about something significantly affecting your organisation may be controlled by others (on-lookers, commentators, competitors, ‘experts’) and you could lose more than just your voice.
After nearly 20 years of being on call 24/7 for global news outlets, we can offer a professional, round the clock point of contact and ‘triage’ service for media. Knowing that someone highly experienced in taking ‘cold calls’ is the first contact point for your business gives peace of mind that you won’t ever miss an opportunity and will be able to contribute positively to news coverage, especially during crisis.
Building social media channels and audiences during the good times means you will have established avenues for communication during crisis. This allows you to deliver your message directly to your audience, bypassing news outlet gatekeepers. Social posts are also often followed and reported by media, so it is crucial that your messaging is timely, factual, credible and, in line with information distributed in media releases, internally, and on your website. Crafting short, informative, and regular social media messaging while under pressure or during a rapidly changing situation, takes skill. Responding to negative social campaigns or community outrage also requires a strategic approach. We can help you prepare your channels and provide practical processes so your team can confidently and competently manage issues and crisis communications on social media channels.
Communicating effectively with purpose and influence takes skill and planning. Corporate narrative should reflect your company vision and values and you should have a clear plan for each of your stakeholder groups. The importance of clarity, consistency and reliability in your corporate communications becomes very apparent during disruption, when you need people to trust and act on your advice.