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| RJ Bardsley |
Whether or not the current era of uncertainty has roots that go back before January 2025, doesn’t matter. What matters is that communications professionals – those of us who work for brands rather than the government – are living in a new era of uncertainty. Unlike past phases of uncertainty, this one isn’t based on the market, an oil embargo, a housing collapse or some natural disaster. This era of uncertainty seems to stem from US government activities.
No industry will go unaffected – everything from steel to chips to the hospitality market is going through a time of flux. As communications strategists, this impacts our jobs. If you’re rethinking your PR or comms program for this new environment, here are five suggestions for navigating eras of uncertainty.
1. Reassess and pressure-test your messaging – Public perception tends to shift during eras of uncertainty. In the immediate aftermath of the dotcom burst, there was a shift away from the exuberance of late nineties tech narratives.
There was a focus on proven track records and more traditional business models. The present-day era is a swirling current of shifts in opinion on everything from DEI to AI, and comms teams should be thinking about how this impacts the brands they work with. For example, if you represented a brand that supplies chips to Tesla, then Elon Musk’s current role in the Federal Government could represent a new communications element to take into consideration. Take this time to review your messaging and narrative and re-examine potential areas of conflict.
2. Prioritize intelligence – If you’re using listening tools, now is a good time to turn them up. If you’re not using them, then I would highly recommend making the investment. For agencies, consider rebuilding your industry intelligence and media analysis offerings. If you’re not already investing in AI to help do this, now is a good time to look into that. Manual search and analysis programs are incredibly important too. Consider developing a “basket” approach, where your team manually scans and analyzes specific coverage of a client/brand across a small basket of outlets (such as your top five most important publications). Your AI and algorithmic tools will give you breadth of intelligence, but a small, targeted manual program will give you a detailed knowledge of what your most important publications are focused on and how their tone of coverage may be shifting or not.
3. Update your crisis comms manual and plan – This goes without saying, and should be something you do on an annual basis, or upon a significant business event, like a change of management, etc. With shifting directives from the government and swings in public opinion, you may want to rethink what a communications crisis could look like and where it could come from. Here are a few things to consider as you revise a crisis plan:
• How are you assessing safety of your team and/or your customers?
• Will you face contradiction/backlash from new or non-traditional sources?
• Rethink your spokesperson matrix – if possible, try and ensure you have a variety of potential spokespeople from different backgrounds and/or political affiliations. This flexibility will help you make game-time decisions based on audiences, outlets and affected regions.
• Rethink disruptions. With the potential for cuts in government workforces and resources, should you be anticipating shortcomings in infrastructure or authorities in the case of a crisis?
4. Your audience is changing – adapt to this. Audiences are getting narrower and deeper. There are a lot fewer sources of broad, global or national audiences.
Keep this in mind as you’re planning outreach around particular events or news announcements. You may want to start thinking about separate communications vehicles for different audiences – a press release, a podcast, an interview circuit and a LinkedIn Live. While this might add cost to a campaign, it will help ensure more accurate, effective coverage.
5. Stick to Your Principals – Here is the thing with eras of uncertainty: you can’t let them affect who you are as a company or as a person. For example, DEI as a concept is going through a period of re-examination by the government (an understatement). But, diversity is good for business: different backgrounds, opinions and approaches are important for creating strong products, great services and brilliant ideas. And equity and inclusion are fair. They were fair concepts a hundred years ago, and they will be fair concepts a hundred years from now. If your company is built on a heritage of inclusion, don’t back away from that. But as a comms strategist, understand that the landscape has shifted, and you’re going to have to stay aware and be prepared to engage in new and different ways.
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RJ Bardsley, is Partner and Co-CEO of Wireside Communications, an international, independent strategic communications, marketing, and public relations agency specializing in the tech sector.
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