What PR and crisis pros agree on
- We went through 21 videos where PR and crisis professionals explain how they work, and wrote down 86 points. 63 of those points were made by two or more of them on their own.
- These are the ones that matter most for a brand's reputation:
| What they agree on | Pros who said it on their own |
|---|---|
| Someone outside vouching for you builds trust your ads and posts can't | 5 |
| Have the crisis team, training and steps ready before anything happens | 4 |
| Build ties with reporters before you need them | 4 |
| Write your key messages ahead of time | 3 |
| Keep telling your story between announcements too | 3 |
| No PR firm can promise coverage | 3 |
Source: Our own count of the points in our transcript library, November 8, 2026
Reputation is what someone else says about you
- Five PR pros made this point in their own words. Juliet Fallowfield, who trains founders to run their own press, put it shortest:
“Advertising, you're saying you're great. PR, someone else is saying you're great.”
PR Masterclass for Startups, Founder Institute, February 2024
- A creator you pay is one of those voices. Same ad, different sender: from the creator's handle it reads as a real person, not a brand, so it gets more trust.
- Your buyers' reviews are another. Here's what a brand can and can't do about Google reviews.
It takes years, and it's built by repetition
“Building a reputation takes time, and it's not going to happen overnight. It's a combination of perseverance and then also just consistency and telling your story over and over again.”
EO, March 2024
- Creators work the same way. The loyal fans who buy the most watch a creator a lot. When they see you again and again, they believe the creator really likes your product.
- That's why we book the same creators for months, and why a rebuild after a crisis runs for months too.
Most crises could have been avoided
- Marina Ythier Jacobsz runs Maluti Communications and has worked in crisis communications for about 30 years. Ythier Jacobsz cites a survey by the firm FTI of about 100 crises: 92% of them could have been avoided.
“So it means that 92% of these companies their reputation could have been safeguarded if things had been done preemptively.”
How Leaders Should Communicate During a Crisis, The Case for Communication, July 2026
- With creators, acting early comes down to three things:
- Read a creator's old posts, and see who else has paid them, before you sign.
- Review every post before it goes live, with the disclosure done properly.
- Write the right to pause into the contract. Our social media crisis plan says who holds it.
AI tools read what's written about you
- A buyer can ask an AI assistant about your brand before they ever see your site. Matias Rodsevich, who founded the tech PR firm PRLab, says press coverage weighs heavily in what those tools answer:
“AI tools such as Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, they use the media as a key factor when determining which companies to feature in the results”
PR for Startups, PRLab on YouTube, October 2025
- So the coverage you earn now shapes what those tools say about you later.