How do you identify and prioritize your audiences and their information needs in a crisis?

Identifying and prioritizing audiences and their information needs in a crisis: Segment Audiences: Classify by role, impact level, and urgency (e.g., employees, customers, media). Assess Needs: Determine specific information requirements for each group (e.g., safety updates, operational changes). Evaluate Impact: Prioritize based on who is most affected or needs immediate guidance. Monitor Feedback: Use real-time feedback to adjust priorities and information delivery. Communicate Clearly: Tailor messages to address the unique concerns and needs of each audience segment.

For crisis management, it is recommended to have a previously defined protocol, which should be reviewed periodically. One way to start is by identifying all your brand's stakeholders. After analyzing each audience, think about the priority and the timing for the internal and external communications. It's important to consider that there may be different communication channels to get your messages across to those who need to receive the information. Also include in detail what each stakeholder needs to be informed of during a crisis. For example, is it necessary to reveal all the details of the event to shareholders or just an executive report?

Objectives should align with the organization's overarching crisis response strategy and consider the primary goals of communication, such as ensuring employee safety, maintaining operational continuity, and protecting the organization's reputation. Once objectives are established, organizations can identify key stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, and regulatory bodies, and prioritize them based on their relevance and impact on the crisis situation. By understanding the specific information needs and concerns of each audience segment, businesses can tailor their communication strategies effectively, ensuring that critical messages are delivered promptly and comprehensively to mitigate the impact of the crisis.

Picture a crisis as a fire. You wouldn't use the same size extinguisher on a kitchen blaze as a burning building, right? It's the same with information! In a crisis, identify your audiences like different fire zones. The closest "flames" (most impacted) might be employees who need immediate instructions. Further out, worried customers might need reassurance and updates. By understanding their needs (what info calms them?), you can tailor your message for each group, putting out the fire efficiently!

- Each target group has individual topics - For this reason, the need for channel-specific communication is increasing - The boundaries of information are currently blurring between "what is relevant to me" and "what is unimportant to me" - Especially in times of crisis, the target group-specific channeling of information in communication must not miss the mark

You must prioritize based on impact from the crisis and understanding their relationship with your organization. You need to be very specific - eg you can’t write government for example. While level, which ministry, which official etc. you also need to account for sequencing and understand which stakeholder needs information first before others do.

With a crisis, the first audience segments you need to identify are: - directly impacted (external and internal) - affected (indirectly) - related communities - supporting (e.g., mid-managers) - leading If you're clear about this, then the timing/order, types of messages needed, etc. is all much easier to plan.

La segmentación es parte fundamental, yo agregaría una segmentación a audiencias con equipo y sin equipo de cómputo, ya que varias veces me ha tocado en experiencia que esas audiencias no se les toma en cuenta por priorizar canales digitales y en ocasiones representan hasta el 50% de los colaboradores totales. Es vital tomar en cuenta esta segmentación que te ayudará a buscar el canal adecuado para ellos.

Many organizations struggle to prioritize the crisis/incident well. This can lead to over- and under-reacting to lots of scenarios. Before you can prioritize the audiences, you need to prioritize the level of crisis. For example: - Tier 1: Issue with significant risk and potential scope of impact; core team activated & full response plan activated - Tier 2: Mid-level risk or scope of impact; core team activated & messaging reviewed before sending - Tier 3: Low-level risk and scope of impact; local response - Tier 4: Very low risk or impact; watch and monitor