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Due to the sensitivity of the conditions that must be reported, working in crisis communications entail a huge deal of strain. But with the proper mindset and etiquette, you’ll surely avoid going the wrong direction.
In this installment of our Featured Leader series, we got a wind of Almora Boucher’s thoughts about engaging communities in times of a crisis.
Almora is the Manager Digital and Campaigns for the Department of Fire and Emergency Services WA and she has quite established herself as an authority in social media crisis strategies and protocols.
As a highly motivated and dedicated communications professional, Almora possesses a wealth of experience in strategic communications, social media management, marketing, brand development, and team leadership.
As of publishing, Almora is speaking at our 18th Social Media for Gov Summit which starts today. For now, learn from Almora as you read through her responses to our queries on crisis comms!
My guiding principle when dealing with crisis communications is “What’s in the communities best interest?” This could relate to what information we prioritise telling people during the crisis lifecycle, the format we communicate it in and how to best use our resources to help keep the community informed.
We have found that it’s not necessarily been the style of the content that we post that has set our personable image, it has been the team’s engagement and humorous response style that has made our audience feel like they’re interacting with actual people rather than a faceless organisation. In more difficult times our approach is to lead with empathy when engaging with communities who may be experiencing highly stressful situations.
The main goal should be producing content that is of interest and relevance to the audience on a specific platform so that they see your content and organisation as adding value to their lives amongst all of the information and entertainment that they scroll past every day. Most, if not all Social Media Managers, get asked to post content for the organisations sake and to meet an internal KPI, but it’s our job to question whether it’s relevant for social media, does our audience need to know the information and if so, which platform is it best to be served on.
Read also: The keys to engaging digital campaigns with Eloise Young (commsroom.co)
Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
