This is a survival guide for a digital communications response from a web outage to stolen client data. This post’s tone is light-hearted, but the reality is quite serious. No failure, no matter how improbable, is impossible. Proactive planning of your communications in the cases of specific problems before they happen can be the difference between an understandable downtime and utter disaster.

A glance at communications disasters and debacles from a major apparel brand’s scramble for recovery after a  week-long web outage to the Twitter lampooning of stumbling oil giant BP, highlights how unforgiving our ‘always connected’ consumers are of any lax, or lag in communication, and how potent the improbable can be.

Five years ago your team could take a day to evaluate, prepare and disseminate the official response for almost anything. Today’s digital powered public demands instant response (or they’ll start making one for you.) They want a response now, and they want it across the plethora of channels they use. The only way to respond on your public’s instantaneous deadline is to have planned your response before the panic.

Zombies at your door: A Proactive Digital PR Party game

The goal of this PR party game is to form effective communications procedures for the situation presented, no matter how ridiculous. Zombies are a fun starting point because the situation is a) ridiculous and b) pushes the limits of communication.

As a game, it’s a great way for your team to have some fun without trust falls, not that there’s anything wrong with trust falls. (There is.) As a practice, this skill and forethought puts your organization in a state of readiness so that you can respond clearly, quickly and effectively to any situation.

The Case of Zombies:

Zombies have descended on your facility, making you, your products and services unavailable until the hordes recede. You may be back up and running at daybreak, or the curse of Romero could take your business down permanently. You’re not sure.

Aside from a cricket bat or S Mart chainsaw, your plan should include these 5 key elements, and be built with my number survival-school secret for preplanning success.

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