Should you rely on instinct or data in crisis comms?
In the middle of a crisis, how many of your decisions are based on previous experience and feelings, and how much is based on clear data informing decision?
Crisis communications isn’t an exact science. There are helpful processes to follow and things to consider including honesty, transparency and authenticity. Avoiding and tackling misinformation, disinformation and malinformation are others. Having compassion and courage are vital.
Reaching who you need to reach, on the channels you know they use with language that resonates with them.
Not doing what you instinctively want to do which may be to hide or look inward or be defensive. But to be open and honest about what you can say, and what you can’t and why.
A lot of this is based on knowledge, skills, experience and judgement. Some horizon scanning and stakeholder management and having a seat at the top leadership table with executives that will listen to you and your strategic advice.
Get all that right and you are halfway there. But what about using data in communications. Organisations do this, but does everyone? And how?
How to be credible, strategic and effective in comms
Instinct is of course important as is the public interest, arguably the most significant factor. But I spoke with data insight expert Alex Waddington recently and he made some valuable points about the risks of making decisions without data to back it up.
Alex was last year named one of the UK’s most innovative independent comms practitioners in the Independent Impact 50 Awards.
His thinking is that if you want to be credible, strategic and effective in comms in 2026, data must play a role in planning, thinking and approach.
In the thick of a major incident, with leaders having clear ideas about what they want, and lots of moving parts, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. This is why having a clear crisis communication plan and processes to follow in the first hours and days is vital.
Resonating with the public and key stakeholders, having clear key messages, and a connection with your audiences is essential.
Crisis communication as the news unfolds
But how much of that is based on previous experience and knowledge of how your organisation operates and is positioned? And how much of that is based on clear data informing decision making as news unfolds, rather than feelings?
Alex explained to me how “AI can be a powerful tool for qualitative data analysis (for example, it could be used to quickly draw out thematic trends in social media comments, Inbox messages or emails), while tools like Perplexity allow you to search academic papers to better understand audiences and base your tactics on robust research.
“But as we have seen with the West Midlands Police / Maccabi Tel Aviv affair, large language models [LLMs] continue to hallucinate in ways that seem highly plausible and can be difficult to spot without human oversight and fact checking.
“On the plus side, monitoring services like Signal AI, which is underpinned by AI as the name suggests, allows you to listen in real-time on very specific topics, drawing on millions of sources. So the technology allows you to get specific, actionable insights you’d never have been able to before.”
He said that if you are dealing with a reputational crisis, “it’s important to have some baseline in place so you can understand what impact things like media coverage and social media chatter is actually having – as opposed to what people think from quick snapshots.
“Also, relationships are key with the people who govern or own important data in an organisation.
“In crisis comms terms you can learn a lot from an organisation’s website; for example, what pages have suddenly become popular (can you utilise these for messaging?), where is traffic coming from, and what questions are people asking in the search box? But if these analytics sit with IT, and to get them you need to submit a ticket that takes five days to get a response, that’s not much use.
“If you have lots of data, but are making decisions based on intuition, you’re missing opportunities to be more effective and efficient. There’s obviously a role for comms leaders here to create the conditions in which a data-informed approach thrives. That can be everything from modelling data-informed decision making, to including data literacy in job descriptions, to making the case for new data insight tools, to providing opportunities for personal development.”
As Alex states: “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”
Instinct and knowledge are one thing, but in a world of instability and moving parts, arguably using data to back up or make informed decisions is absolutely vital to navigate the road back to recovery and make it easier than relying on instinct alone.
And using experts to help you with that, if you do not have that expertise in your organisation, can make all the difference to what your stakeholders take from what you communicate with them.
Dee Cowburn is director of Dee Cowburn Communications, a communications consultancy specialising in crisis communications and media relations for private, public sector and charities. With two decades of experience in high-risk political environments, she was previously head of communications in policing and crime for the Mayor for West Yorkshire and a former investigative journalist and is also a specialist partner with crisis communications agency Alder. Responsible for all the communications from a political perspective around international stories including the murder of an MP in West Yorkshire, a teacher killed in her classroom, a police officer shot as they carried out inquiries, and many other high profile stories affecting communities. Dee has also worked with Together for Short Lives around the Assisted Dying Bill and is a trustee of Rett UK.