Crisis Communication in the Digital Age

 In an era of always on communication,  a company’s crisis communication strategy has to be a real-time one. It cannot be otherwise in the digital age, where any single person has the ability and wherewithal to damage a business's hard-earned reputation with a single social media post. The scourge of unverified claims can wreak havoc with a company’s public image in the time it takes to come up with an official statement. That can have global ramifications in an interconnected world.

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In fact, an inability to respond within 24 hours is very likely to create distrust in the people about the brand and business in question, according to some. You could even say that social media is the pillar of crisis communication in the digital age. There are several reasons why it may be so-

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1. Crisis communication has to be in 24x7 mode to be successful.

2. In times of a crisis, people tend to connect and vent online.

3. Every man and woman becomes a publisher, critic and commentator with the potential to impact the fortunes of a brand for better or worse.

4. Bad news gets forwarded very quickly, indeed often faster than information that may help mitigate a situation.

5. The internet is the most important medium of transmission of information in the digital age, and a strong online reputation is, therefore,  of paramount importance to a brand.

6. Social media provides the best chance to reclaim ground quickly.

The role of AI in crisis communication

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The advent of AI has had a considerable impact on shaping crisis communication in today’s times. Speed is of the essence in crisis management, and this is particularly true in the digital age. AI can help companies zero in on potential problem areas in real time, preventing them from assuming dangerous proportions. Brands can use AI tools to discern patterns, trends and sentiments. It helps them get a sense of how people are disposed towards their products. This allows them to take preventive measures that can help avert crises before they occur.

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As a matter of fact it can help companies and brands simulate scenarios and the manner in which situations could unfold in multiple ways, allowing them to put mitigating measures in place well in advance.

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AI can become the first line of defense in crisis management for a business. Not only can it help foresee a crisis, but it can also help forestall it. Generative AI can, for example, help companies communicate expeditiously with their target audiences by generating customised statements and press releases that address potential or evolving crises in real time, preventing them from turning into full-blown problems. It cannot, however, be reiterated enough that these have to be vetted and verified by humans, as AI can make errors of judgement, which have to be guarded against.

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Crisis communication in the age of the citizen journalist has to be in an ever on, interactive and real-time mode. The same digital means of communication which are a source of ever-present danger of reputational damage in the hands of savvy marketers, PR people and communication professionals become an instrument of both preventive and quick response strategies that ensure a brand’s reputation is well protected.

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What impact does Google watermarking AI content have on SEO

 Perhaps unknown to many, Google has been watermarking AI content across audio, video, and images since August 2023 and text since 14th May, 2024 using its Synth ID technology. This is used on all its AI models and AI programs.

​While this technology was previously available only to select journalists and media professionals, it has been available to anyone worldwide since October 6th, allowing them to determine whether any images, video, or audio are AI-generated. This will come as a major relief to hapless original content creators, besides helping consumers of content make meaningful and better-informed decisions across the board with regard to its trustworthiness.

​In fact, the impact of  Google Synth  has been humongous already, which can be gauged by the fact that as many as 180 billion images and videos, as well as 240,000 years of audio content, have been watermarked. For those in the content creation, digital marketing and PR universe, the wide availability of this technology marks a watershed moment in that it will help usher in transparency and authenticity by way of enabling content verification. This was something that was desperately required at a time when AI slop threatened to make content largely untrustworthy and unreliable.

​Besides, the EU passed its watermarking law this August, resulting in Generative AI platform Claude starting to  embed hidden signatures into AI text. This has made people using AI content quite concerned about its SEO implications. With fake images, deepfakes and other kinds of dangers lurking out there for society as a whole because of advances in technology, being able to flag something which is not human-generated is something which was definitely required.

​That being stated, it is pertinent to note that content being marked as AI-generated will not have any direct bearing on its ability to rank on Google. The idea behind introducing the tool is not to mete out punishment to content creators for using AI, but to let the consumers of such content be made aware of its source so that they can make informed choices about the information being provided to them.

​Its primary usefulness lies in its ability to flag misinformation and misattribution, which are clearly malpractices. Besides, it puts reality back into content in a world where it is increasingly difficult to differentiate between brilliant content created by AI and original content created by human beings themselves. When you can no longer be sure that what you see, hear and read has indeed been created by a human or has been brilliantly simulated by AI, the Synth ID technology comes as a huge relief to consumers of content perplexed about its provenance.

​With major AI platforms like Anthropic, Nvidia, ElevenLabs, and OpenAI using this technology to identify AI-generated content, it is only natural for content creators and marketers to worry about how the algorithms react to it. According to a test carried out by renowned SEO authority Neil Patel, which involved studying  744 AI-generated articles across 68 websites spanning different industries, articles that comprised human-edited AI text performed  a whopping 444 % better than purely AI-generated text, with the results getting even better with time.

​This points to an unmistakable truth. While AI-generated content has swamped the market, it offers diminishing yields. Human-generated content may be scarce in comparison, but garners an outstanding 87% of organic traffic when compared with the piddling 4.9 per cent of organic traffic. The writing is on the wall, and it is time to smell the coffee.

GPT 6 Astra- Will it shake up the world of marketing?

 

The launch of GPT 6 Astra by open AI promises to forever alter the way marketing has been approached and carried out hitherto. Far from being a mere content creation tool, it is an autonomous marketing entity capable of performing like a human digital assistant that can glide between desktop apps, fill out forms and take charge of workflows. This path breaking  ability dubbed “computer use” empowers marketers across the board in a seminal manner. Some are claiming that GPT6 Astra rivals the AI holy grail AGI or Artificial General  Intelligence.

It transforms content creation by going beyond creating drafts and outlines. Astra goes several steps ahead taking care of research, creating customised versions of content  and disseminating it across formats and channels entirely autonomously.

It gives a leg up to the search strategy moving it from keyword use to achieve SEO and aligning it with GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) thereby making it possible for brand content to be cited as part of AI summarised search results.

Marketers are rid of the necessity of having to manually navigate between CRM data, creating ad content and buying media space and time. Astra enabled computer use makes all that a thing of the past by enabling multi app complex workflows.

What does it change?

With Astra being able to operate a computer the way a human does with its ability to click, type, navigate between desktop apps and essentially take the task in question to conclusion, it is a must have for savvy marketers as it helps them respond to comprehensive customer queries that ask for a simple and straightforward answer that best speaks to their needs. In the past all their search queries resulted in a long list of links that they were expected to open and do their own detailed research. In the case of AI powered research, customers are much more likely to click on the two or three well recommended links as they know that these have been thoroughly well researched and speak optimally to their needs.

Increasingly people base their buying behaviour on the basis of their AI chats. Astra helps marketers by turbocharging this process in terms of its speed allowing for a level playing field to businesses across scale and size. That being stated, marketers will no longer be able to leverage high quality generic content to engage with their prospects, as everyone will be on to it. What they will now have to do would be to prove the genuineness of their claims by furnishing tangible and credible evidence. Real people talking about real achievement will cut ice, grandiose announcements by way of highly well crafted content will no longer be accepted at face value. AI citing too happens not on the basis of content volume or how professionally it is created but by a real example of a claim being validated by a person of stature vouching for it, or by way of demonstrating it via a case study or a well regarded research paper.

Ironically, what Astra does is not make human intervention irrelevant, but in fact makes them the final arbiter about the type of content that finally goes out. It is the human touch and its authentic stamp of approval that makes content resonate with the intended target audience. Your voice has to be heard.

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How to Earn Media Coverage Without Paying for It

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

There are a plethora of ways in which you can obtain media coverage for your product and services by paying for it. This is possible across print, electronic and digital media. You can pay for straightforward ads or go for native advertising. But that begs the question: if everybody can do that, what differentiates your product or service from the others?

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The answer lies in obtaining genuine news coverage that requires no payment to be made in lieu of that. What's more, it is more credible and believable, as that coverage is based on real merit, not bought. This is where Public Relations firms and consultants can come to your help by pitching stories about your products, services and offerings in a manner that piques the media’s interest.

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How to do that?

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The most significant challenge faced by the marketing and PR teams of a company is to come up with newsworthy stories pertaining to their products or services which they can pitch successfully to the media. This is where out-of-the-box thinking and creativity can help.

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A company taking up an important social initiatives totally unrelated to its core activity, like restoring a much loved local heritage building, for example, would possibly garner news coverage, even if they have no fresh news to share on the product front.

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Creativity is of the essence here. From using high-quality research reports and infographics to sending creative press kits containing inexpensive objects that promote the brand and product in question(a pen drive with information for an app launch, for example), you can make the media take an interest in your message.

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You also need to target the right kind of media. If your intent is to raise the corporate profile of your business, you need to pitch to the serious business and financial news media, and obviously not the entertainment or sports news media. The more you drill down and reach out to the people who really matter, like the finance beat journalists of pink papers like the Economic Times of Financial Express, the better are your chances of finding success with regard to obtaining news coverage.

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You can align with influencers in the digital age. Influencers carry a lot of clout in the age of social media. If a popular industry analyst or research analyst can quote the name of your business, product or service, this fact can act as a testimonial, attracting the attention of your target news media.

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Working on your media lists and relationships is critically important. Ask any dyed-in-the-wool PR person, and they will tell you that your media lists and media relationships are worth their weight in gold. Every time you need to pitch a new news angle about your company, product and service, you should instinctively know as to which journalist would be most receptive to it. It is always a bonus if you have an existing professional relationship with that person.

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Making your content digital media compatible is crucial as well. Digital media rules the roost these days, and if you want your content to rank high in Google searches, you have to learn to incorporate keywords to make it SEO friendly. That will greatly enhance the likelihood of your content finding its way to the right target audience. Take care to follow this content strategy across social media, press releases and web copy too. If you can also manage backlinks to your website from highly credible media sites, your company will get the right kind of attention that will stand it in very good stead in the times ahead.

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You have to work towards user-generated content and social media shares in the digital age. This can only happen through regular posting across social media channels. Care must be taken to ensure it provides genuine value to the people you're engaging with, while remaining creative and original enough to catch your audience's attention.  This kind of coverage is real time and always on, allowing you to keep your prospects fully in the loop about everything to do with your products and services.

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Earned media is quite the right way of obtaining high-quality coverage in the digital age, where two-way communication between a brand and its audience is the norm thanks to social media. In any case in an age of information overload exacerbated by AI, it is the genuineness and relatability of news that resonates with the target audience. That is something that earned media delivers much better than pesky ads and paid-for content that are rejected by ad blockers. Developing a well-thought-out and fine-tuned earned media strategy is a must for all companies across size, scale, product and service.

Why Journalists Ignore Most Press Releases

 Why do journalists ignore most press releases? The simple answer is that there have always been way too many, and AI slop has only compounded the problem recently. According to a 2025 survey, 90 per cent of the press releases disseminated to journalists are not found to be newsworthy, so is it any surprise that journalists reject them?

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That being stated, press releases remain a tried and tested method of informing journalists of developments in any realm of the world, ranging from business and brands to entertainment, healthcare, politics and society. It is the thoughtless and reckless mass dissemination based on the spray and pray principle that puts journalists off this sometime important instrument of media engagement.

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Thoughtless distribution of press releases is akin to a candidate guessing their way through a multiple-choice, high-stakes entrance examination with negative marking. It never ends well.

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In fact, there are a whole set of factors that are responsible for journalists ignoring a press release. Let us look at what these might be-

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1. Not targeting the right beat

Targeting the right beat should be basic knowledge for any PR professional, but you would be surprised how many of them send out press releases across beats, without realising how counterproductive that is. Imagine a healthcare journalist receiving a press release about the launch of a new sports car! Wouldn't that put them off press releases altogether?

2. Focusing on your product and not the journalist’s audience

Getting your client’s product or service coverage may be your priority as a PR person, but the journalist’s priority is to provide their reader, listener or viewer with information that is useful to the latter. If you want your press release to be part of the less than 50 per cent of the traditional press releases that are used by media houses, you better get this right.

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So you have to be subtle in the way that you convey that information to the journalists. If your press release is about a restaurant launch, instead of going ga ga over its name and impending date of opening, it might interest the journalist to learn about the target market of the outlet, its cuisine, the number of people it can seat, the size of its staff and other such information which the journalist might use to develop a story.

3. Not customising your press release

When you buy a car, you carry out research about which car caters to your specific requirements. Likewise, if you buy a house, you take your time in evaluating your options before zeroing in on the right one.

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Similarly, when you start creating a press release to pitch to journalists across media outlets, you have to be aware of not only their beat, but also the kind of subjects that interest them. It makes eminent sense for you to prepare a bespoke pitch that speaks to their requirement.

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If you, for instance, know a journalist who specialises in analysing the financial results of a company, you should send them something appropriate and not something to do with an unrelated topic like the CSR milestones achieved by the former.

​4. The losing relevance of the press release

The traditional press release is increasingly losing relevance in the digital era, which is more and more about real-time news. Unlike in the past, before social media upended everything, press releases were a vital source of information and news. Not so any longer. Today there are a myriad of news and information sources ranging from social media feeds to websites. Probably very few media people view press releases as a primary conduit of news and information in these times. So, there is less and less incentive to consult a press release for news these days.

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Press releases are always going to be around as a formal document for notifying the media about something pertaining to the company in question. For instance, you may want to inform them about a company’s financial results or announcement or a product launch. But their days as a dynamic medium of information and news are largely over. A tweet can express the meat of a press release to a journalist in an instant. The latter’s usefulness is limited to providing the details pertaining to product specifications, facts, figures and other such details.

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Why would they wade through an almost archaic document that provides them with dated insights to stay on top of information and news that their audience wants in real time? Clearly, the best days of press releases are behind them.

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Media Relations Isn't Dead—It's Evolving

 

Media relations, till not very long ago, was what defined the PR process. Clients thought, with much justification, that the success of a PR agency or consultant was in direct proportion to how well acquainted they were with members of the press across the various beats of journalism. After all, that is what determined the success of their ability to obtain the all important coverage they wanted for their products and services. That is why media relations lay at the centre of a PR organisation’s universe.

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I remember during my time with a leading Indian PR agency, we were given a weekly budget to take out leading journalists for lunch. The idea was to get to know them in a manner that made it possible to pitch stories to them in an optimal manner.

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The rapid growth of the Internet, online and social media has upended the world of PR. The tried and tested media relations approach of the past no longer works. While media relations stays central to the PR process, it needs to keep pace with the dynamic, ever evolving, multi-channel, and forever churning nature of news media in the age of AI.

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Besides, journalists these days don't just work for reputed media houses; they often have their own social media and online presence of considerable significance. When a PR person pitches to them, he or she has to think not just about the news organisation the journalist represents, but also their own audiences that they may be reaching through their blogs, social media posts, podcasts and newsletters.

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Press Release Centric Approach No Longer Works

The ubiquitous press release is no longer the principal driver of media relations like it was in the past. Journalists in the digital age receive an exceedingly large number of press releases every day and simply do not possess the bandwidth to go through them all. Instead, they would rather respond to communication that is personalised and addresses them directly. In an era of real-time news, a press release is often too slow and cumbersome to gain meaningful traction.

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Look Way Beyond Traditional Media

While traditional print and electronic media still retain considerable credibility and heft, you have to cast your net much wider to encompass new-age distribution channels like blogs, vlogs, newsletters, podcasts and other content creators. Every story that you pitch has to be tailored to synchronise with the channel in question. What this in effect means is that your media relations efforts need to go beyond cultivating legacy media journalists and look at building bridges with the people responsible for generating content for a host of new-age media channels.

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AI is All Important; But Media Relations Are Still Very Relevant

Leading media intelligence platform Cision who carried out a PR survey in the UK and the US recently regarding the challenges, tools, skills, and opportunities that PR professionals would have to contend in 2026. It found that 48% of the respondents named AI and automation as the source of the greatest opportunity for a PR team, followed by strengthening relationships with journalists and creators at 39%. 

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This points to the fact that media relations is far from dead and has only evolved with the times by broadening its scope of outreach, instead of jettisoning it completely.

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Media Relations Now Includes a Creator Outreach Strategy

Given the increasing importance of creators in the new age PR approach, PR professionals need to have a creator outreach strategy along the lines of a traditional media relations plan. Like you create media lists of journalists across the beats relevant to your brand, you need to cull out a similar list of creators whose messaging and audience have synergy with the brand that you are trying to promote.

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You can proceed to build trust-based and value-based relationships with them by earnestly engaging with their content and looking at them as people you could collaborate with in the future. You can help them with their stories by sharing useful data pertaining to the product and service in question. This goes beyond the old way of sending journalists a generic press release, hoping that they would make something of it.

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Media relations is not only not dead; it is also probably in no danger of doing so ever. It has evolved over time to factor in the new realities of the ever-evolving and dynamic universe of digital and AI-age PR. Media relations, in fact, is much more expansive than it was in the past and remains a significant part of the PR process.

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5 PR Mistakes Startups Make—and Why They Keep Getting Ignored by the Media

 PR often is the very lifeblood of startups as it gets their marketing effort going without them having to break the bank. Unlike advertising, it is economical and a great vehicle for building credibility.

​That being said, carrying out effective PR is not something that many startups get right. They might obsess over product features instead of defining a clear strategic road map for their business. A lot of thinking and planning should ideally go into understanding the target audience and building up one’s brand.

​Let us look at where a startup might go wrong in its PR effort-

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1. Not Getting the Communication Dissemination Process Right

PR in 2026 is not the PR of ten to fifteen years back. Storied publications like the New York Times, The Times of India, The Washington Post and the Hindustan Times are not what people automatically turn to these days for their news. The disseminators of news and information are a diffused lot these days, with social media platforms, blogs, vlogs, YouTube videos and podcasts catering to their own specific audiences, largely replacing traditional media outlets.

​Startups can no longer rely on old style press releases and media interactions, with an Op-Ed thrown in for good measure targeting traditional media outlets to promote the offerings of their business. They need an evolved and dynamic PR strategy that speaks to the new-age media platforms of news dissemination.

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2. Not Getting the Message Right

This is the trickiest part and could make or break a startup’s PR initiative. Founders can talk passionately about their grand vision, but when it comes to explaining in simple terms what they exactly do and help accomplish, they flounder and are unable to come up with an unmistakable crystal clear message for their target audience. A startup founder should know exactly what it is that they offer to their prospects in terms of solving their problems in a manner that they sit up and take notice. You get that right, and that is an important step in the direction of making them care about engaging with you. The key here is to differentiate your product or service from the others.

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3. Conflating Founder News with Real News

Startups more often than not are the passion projects of extremely committed founders. It is, therefore, easy to conflate founder news with the real news. Just because a startup company is all pumped up about an important announcement relating to the founder, it does not naturally follow that journalists and their readers or viewers will share the same sense of excitement. He or she may have launched a new product, managed to raise capital or hired someone with a sterling reputation; it won’t cut much ice with journalists and media outlets unless they find something newsworthy in the proposed story.

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This could be something that ties in with a trend that the latter (journalist) might already be following, or it is something that sparks a debate or even a controversy. It could also be something that has a human interest angle to it. It is always about newsworthy debate and discussion and rarely about founder news.

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4. Looking at PR with a Marketing Lens

Founders are, at the end of the day, business people with a product to sell. Unfortunately, that is not the way one can look at PR. Coverage obtained via PR is earned coverage and not bought coverage. Journalists are not obligated to provide coverage to a company, but to inform, educate and sometimes caution people about things and matters that concern them. It may, for instance, apprise them of any future trends that might impact their lives or educate them about the importance of a new concept or phenomenon making an appearance, often by weaving evocative stories. It is in learning to seamlessly integrate one’s narrative into what the journalist’s story or report is trying to accomplish that one finds success.

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5. The Need to Understand PR

Founders need to understand the PR process and not get disheartened if their initial efforts don’t quickly get them the expected results. PR takes time to deliver as it is a relatively slow and organic process, as compared to advertising, but it is ultimately believed to deliver better results and more bang for the buck, given that the media coverage is earned and not bought.  Founders, as it is are under a lot of pressure from multiple sources and seeing one’s intense PR efforts not seeming to deliver any results for quite some time, can be disconcerting. Getting disheartened and losing faith in PR is something that startup founders need to guard against.

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They need to understand the PR process and devise a strategy that helps them obtain an understanding of how to get a journalist, publication or media platform interested in their pitches. That is where a dedicated PR specialist or an agency can help them find their groove faster.

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PR is something that every startup needs. It is, therefore, imperative for founders to accord it the importance it deserves and see PR help them engage with the target audience in the most impactful way possible. In fact, if done right, PR has the potential to transform the fortunes of any business, especially a startup.

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