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M3L05: Make your communication plan: Evaluation tools and crisis plan Evaluation

7. Evaluation tools 

The final part of your communication plan is to determine what your key metrics or Key performance indicators (KPIs) will be to measure whether the efforts made have deserved the grief. 

Here we leave you different KPIs that can be useful for monitoring and evaluating your actions and how they are getting closer to your goals:

  1. COMMUNITY AND MANAGEMENT KPIs: Number of visits to the blog, number of followers (Twitter/Instagram/Tik Tok), # of YT subscribers, # of blog posts, etc.
  2. ENGAGEMENT KPI’s: Number of impressions on Twitter/Instagram, number of views on YT, comments on Twitter/Instagram/YT/blog; number of likes in RRSS; number of shares in RRSS.
  3. CONVERSION KPI’s: No. of blog conversions; n of conversions on Twitter/Instagram/YT.

The evaluation of the actions carried out must have its own timeline. After establishing our timeline with dates to carry out the actions, we must set the frequency with which we will evaluate our actions.

For example: If you have set yourself the goal of growing your digital community, you will want to measure this fairly frequently to establish a growth rate per time increments and the consistency of this. This will help you identify (or start) the actions that had the greatest impact and were most relevant to your goal(s). 

If content is king, data is queen: Making informed decisions is crucial. For this, part of your evaluation strategy must be very focused on the specific data that you can receive. 

EJ: Visits to the site, community growth, etc. 

Now you…

Activity: Use these questions to measure the results of your actions:

  • Has your communication been received?
  • When did your audience access the information?
  • What parts of your communication were consumed?
  • Did your target audience understand what you were conveying?
  • Can you improve your communications?

8. Crisis plan 

Communications are a delicate matter, especially in a society like the one we live in today. It is very important that we keep in mind the different sensitivities that exist, both within our target audience and in general. The first thing that is targeted for scrutiny is communications. 

O’Rourke (1997)* states that all crises are different, but have common characteristics:

  • They arise unexpectedly.
  • Lack of initial information: at the beginning of the crisis, the organization does not have enough information and has to communicate to the public without being completely sure of what is happening.
  • Lack of crisis anticipation In the
  • face of rapid events, quick decisions are made.

*O’Rourke, R. Part VI: How Should Reputations be Managed in Good Times and Bad Times?: Managing in times of crisis. Corp Reputation Rev 1, 120–125 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.crr.1540030

The development of a response protocol is important. A crisis plan will serve as an instruction manual in unexpected or chaotic situations. To prepare your crisis plan you have to:

  1. Analyze all the potential problems: all the possible causes of a crisis in your project.
  2. Anticipate possible scenarios in the face of potential problems
  3. Assign roles in the team in the event of a crisis: train the team to control unexpected situations, determine who will play what role in the event of a possible crisis, and what steps each one will have to take.
  4. Generate a reputation guide on social networks: a manual to know 
  • How to manage negative comments on social networks
  • To whom to address complaints 
  • How to communicate messages: speed, truthfulness, transparency, humility, empathy.
  1. Design models to make a public statement that answers: (1) the origin of the problem, (2) how the company identified it, (3) the resolution, and (4) how to prevent it from happening in the future.

Within this protocol we can identify the following points: 

  • The crisis
  • How does it affect us? 
  • What will we do to solve the crisis?
  • Who will be responsible for each action we will take?

After crisis management it is recommended:

  • Review the crisis communication plan and update it with the experience lived.
  • Communicate changes 
  • Design prevention systems for possible new crises

Some keys to managing crises successfully are:

  • A common strategy: it is important that all team members share the same information to avoid contradictions.
  • Election of a spokesperson
  • Transparency: report on the process that the organization takes to manage the causes of the crisis
  • Regular communication with all audiences

Now you…

Activity: Now that you know the elements to take into account in a crisis plan, we leave you with a table for you to design yours:

QUESTIONSYOUR ANSWER
What potential problems may arise in my organization/my project?
What steps will we take as an organization to respond to these conflicts?
What role will each team member have?
What kind of communication do we want to have with our audience in the face of a crisis?
What mechanisms can we put in place to prevent these problems?
  • Template for developing a communication plan 
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