“You should practice once or twice a year at a minimum to make sure the team is comfortable and confident in their roles”
What is Crisis Management: A Complete Guide for Business Leaders, April 2025
1. Write what counts as a crisis
“I always advise organizations to have a working definition of what constitutes a crisis for them because when you have that working definition, then you know when you know you need to activate this process.”
Crisis Management and Crisis Communications, Knowing The Difference, October 2025
- Write the definition in one line, then write who hears about it first and how.
- For a brand with creators, name a creator's old post, a banned claim and a viral complaint.
2. Pick one scenario
Tori Schubert, a PR professional, says to find your vulnerabilities and predetermine where things might go wrong.
“identify where your potential vulnerabilities are and that way you can kind of predetermine where there might be negative sentiment or something might go wrong in the future”
What Is Crisis PR? Top Tips for Handling Any PR Crisis, June 2024
Three to rotate, one per drill:
- A paid creator's old post resurfaces. See how to pause or end the deal.
- A creator says something about your product you can't stand behind. See what to say to the creator.
- A customer's complaint video starts to spread under your creators' posts.
3. Ask these six questions on a timer
- Who says "pause" on every live post and code?
- Who calls the creator's manager, and is their number written down?
- Who is the spokesperson, and who approves the first line?
- Where is the first line posted?
- What do your other creators get told, and by whom?
- Where does your own staff go for questions?
Strawser's answer to the last one is a single source of truth inside the company, so there is no rumor mill.
“they have established a single source of truth for what is going on with the crisis inside of the company”
What is Crisis Management: A Complete Guide for Business Leaders, April 2025
- Keep the plan short. Strawser says smaller organizations should be nimble and stick to the basics.
- Every question your team can't answer in the room goes on the fix list.
4. Write the first lines before you need them
“So when you have these things in place, it's so much easier and you already have, for example, templates”
How Leaders Should Communicate During a Crisis, July 2026
- Draft one holding line for each scenario above, and the message to your other creators.
- Have legal read them now, because nobody reads calmly mid-crisis.
- Our social media crisis plan lists what else goes on that page.
5. Review it the same day
“Once it's resolved, I work backwards and see with my client what worked and what didn't.”
Life lessons from a crisis manager, TEDxSTU, July 2025
- List each question the team missed, and give each one an owner and a date.
- Fix the contact list. Strawser says to review checklists, documents and contact lists on an annual basis.
- Change the next scenario, so the team makes "new original mistakes instead of repeating the same mistakes".
Sola Abulu warns against the plan of calling one consultant when a crisis hits: it cannot work, because by the time they understand what is going on a lot will have spoiled.