Coverage of the ongoing pandemic has taken over the media both traditional and social. For businesses with some good news to share with the world, it can be tough to decide just when and how to tell their story. Traditional tactics such as press releases announcing funding, product upgrades and partnerships can still work, if handled appropriately. There are media outlets, including trades and larger publications that are still interested in “other news,” although only in moderation.

Unfortunately, you only get once true chance to make a big announcement, so doing it right is key. We’ve compiled some things to consider as you prepare.

One of the fundamentals of public relations is tracking and monitoring the opinion of the public. Additionally, in the past few years, thanks to social media, it has become easier than ever for PR pros to keep track of what the public is thinking or talking about when it comes to particular brands.

When it comes to social media, aside from the fact that it’s an excellent tool for publicity, and free publicity at that, it allows brands to directly communicate with a target audience without going through intermediaries, such as the media. It’s also important to keep track of what that audience is saying when a brand isn’t directly promoting a product or a service.

What’s a reputation worth?  Companies that aren’t prepared for a crisis can watch their sales go off the cliff, their stock price take a plunge, and even permanently shut some, if not all their doors.

Ask yourself: “What could happen tomorrow that could shut down my business?”

In business, you may be down, but that doesn’t mean you’re out. Plenty of brands have been in trouble, then fought their way back to prominence with a combination of ingenuity and clever, well-planned messaging. Here are some standout examples of businesses who “made it back” and the lessons their journeys can teach us.

It really wasn’t that long ago that one of the Big 3 automakers in the United States was looking liked a stalled-out shell on the side of the highway. A bankruptcy filing in the late 2000s and a massive layoff has even die-hard GM customers looking for other options. Then, insult to injury. A huge government bailout to keep GM in business earned the company the derisive moniker Government Motors… Quite a fall from the union darling and first choice of millions of “buy American” focused consumers. Then, a combination of smart business moves and some prominent PR campaigns, including a star turn in the blockbuster Transformer movies, put GM back in the fast lane. When faced with customer apathy, look for ways to generate excitement and restore faith in your brand.

The world of communication is constantly evolving, thanks to ever-more innovative technology.

Today, people have more than one way to communicate with their friends, family, and even colleagues. Whether it’s through social media, instant messaging, video chat, or phone, the key to better corporate communication in the workplace is knowing how to set a standard for consistent and clear conversations.

More and more job listings for both technology PR and marketing are asking for experience with data science, especially Big Data. Big Data PR and digital understanding provides better analysis of the results (or lack of them), and such skills also help to pin down and target those who are likely to be most interested in the client’s products and services. Wired referred to data science as being better paying than medicine as a career path, and the Harvard Business Review said it’s the “sexiest job of the 21st century.” Gartner and McKinsey, industry analysts, each reported they expect a shortfall of experts for the jobs coming up of between 100K and 190K by 2022. The majority of those jobs will be in app creation to look for pattern seeking and crunching knowledge.

It’s sometimes hard to remember, but Big Data has moved to its current position of prominence over just five years. Burtch Works, an employment agency, currently say they have 120 positions in the field to fill and the starting salaries range between $97K-$152K – but managers in these fields got up to $240K and in most cases, they are newly created jobs. This trend for data scientists mimics the trend for digital specialists that happened earlier at the turn of the millennium.

Just taking a look at where we are today when a PR Agency arranges to have his client do an interview for publication. The interesting thing is that how it was, was not really that long ago. We’ve seen massive changes in all areas of media, content, and how PR is done effectively even in the last 5-10 years. So, how it used to be and how it is now…

When an interview was arranged between a client and a journalist, the PR specialist had to wait to learn the result, did they love the client, or did they skewer him to the proverbial wall? It took at least until the next day, maybe even a month, depending on how often the publication was published. Now, often almost immediately after the conclusion of the interview … yep, tweet tweet – the writer will post a preview to cause enough buzz to build the number of readers who make it to the posting. And those tweets offer indications on the slant of the article to come.

There are many ways to prepare for when your business faces a nightmare about company products, services, or maybe somebody in the organization just happened to say the wrong thing when people were listening. Here are some ways to prepare before the crisis hits.

If by any chance you imagine social media is not all that important, then wake up and join the real world. It’s here, billions of people worldwide use it frequently, and if you are not using it effectively, you’re losing business.