By: Rob Ford, Senior Vice President

The new state of our media is creating a landscape proving ever more difficult for businesses and the communications professionals that represent them. The traits stamping the media apparatus increasingly dictating the behavior of those participating in it are breakneck speed, loud volume, disappearance of long-form, social media (micro journalism), and an emphasis on being first (or not being last) instead of being right.

Before talking about building trust after a crisis, let’s at least mention the need to build trust with your clients and customers on an ongoing basis. Part of that will be in friendly and helpful service and part will be in integrity and honesty. If you have those components going for you, if that crisis (or maybe “when” is better since with social media it’s almost impossible not to meltdown with something or other) comes, those people who have done business with you are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. Or if not, more likely to forgive faster.

Nature of the Crisis

There are many ways to prepare for when your business faces a nightmare about company products, services, or maybe somebody in the organization just happened to say the wrong thing when people were listening. Here are some ways to prepare before the crisis hits.

If by any chance you imagine social media is not all that important, then wake up and join the real world. It’s here, billions of people worldwide use it frequently, and if you are not using it effectively, you’re losing business.

This weekend kicks off a series of events throughout the nation celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr., culminating with a federal holiday Monday marking the civil rights leader’s birthday.

Dr. King, of course, is considered one of the greatest communicators and thought leaders in human history.

Someone once said, “it’s not your customer’s job to remember you, it’s your obligation to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you”.  As the online landscape continues to change, making your mark and achieving greater sales is more challenging than ever. With the drive to attract and retain consumers becoming more competitive, PR firms are working harder than ever to strengthen the relationship of companies with their consumers.

Being visible in a competitive market is all very well, but without strong strategies and innovative campaigns, converting potential consumers to loyal customers is unlikely. Using integrated, media savvy PR campaigns can make a tangible difference to your sales, bringing results and rewards to all parties: you, your brand and your customers.

Fortunately, big challenges equal even bigger rewards. Business risks prone to the communications industry may exist, but so do effective solutions. Communications professionals are more equipped than anyone to address, mitigate and maneuver large threats. Like any business atmosphere, there are compliance standards, financial consequences, strategic obstacles and various levels of operations to be thoughtful of. Partnerships, valid, precise information and evolving solutions for overcoming big challenges is what keeps the communications industry alive, interesting and operating successfully.

Sometimes, when sending out public relations messages, it can be the basic things that trip you up. There you are, creating excellent public relations messages, following press protocols … then waiting and waiting and waiting. For nothing. But, it may not be the actual content of the message that is keeping your PR from being received and published.

Ronn Torossian reminds you to make sure you have taken care of these simple fixes before worrying that your messaging might be off.