How long has it been since you updated your crisis communication plan?

As PR professionals today, we have a few areas we MUST pay attention to on a daily basis: monitoring what is being said about your company, handling media relations, engaging in online conversations about your brand, executing marketing plans and keeping your head above water in the new PR 2.0 world. Often times, we allow responsibilities with less immediacy to fall to the wayside when putting out day-to-day fires, like long-term planning of events, internal communications and crisis communication.

Yesterday I attended a local PRSA event that focused on crisis communication and it got me thinking about what our clients' crisis plans look like right now. Since handling crises is not something we deal with everyday, it’s also not something we think about everyday until it happens. However, even if you don’t have to execute it, continuously updating a crisis plan is most likely one of the most important things you’ll do as a PR professional.

So, once I got back to the office I began thinking about different scenarios our clients might face and how I can reach out as their PR advisor to help create updated crisis plans. During the process, I uncovered great online resources about crisis communication planning.

Here are some of the best:
Bulletproof blog - The blog on crisis communications
7 must-have elements in every crisis communications kit
Crisis Communication Planning: Organizing and Completing A Plan That Works
Will your crisis communication plan make you or break you? (okay, this is mine...)

To answer the title of my own blog post - TOO LONG! I'm contacting our clients this week to discuss updating their crisis communication plans. Any suggestions on how to make this a smooth and effective process?