Crisis and Risk Management Playbook
Crisis readiness starts long before a headline breaks.
It begins with understanding where you’re vulnerable, setting up the right monitoring, and knowing how you’ll respond if risk turns into reality.
This playbook shows you how to use Meltwater to proactively monitor risk, detect emerging crises, and manage issues before, during, and after they unfold.
The Three Stages of Crisis & Risk Management
Every crisis follows the same arc:
- Before → Proactively monitor risk
- During → Detect, validate, and respond
- After → Review impact and improve readiness
Stage 1: Pre-Crisis Preparation
Proactively monitor risk before it escalates to a crisis.
Your goal in this stage is to identify where issues could emerge and set up monitoring before anything escalates.
Step 1: Identify and Map Your Risk Areas
Start by identifying the vulnerabilities where risk is most likely to emerge for your organization or industry.
Work across teams if possible (PR, Legal, HR, etc.) and consider:
- Reputational risks – Public backlash, boycotts, brand trust issues
- Executive and leadership risks – Misconduct, investigations, resignations
- Operational risks – Supply chain disruption, outages, safety incidents
- Legal and regulatory risks – Lawsuits, compliance issues, government scrutiny
- Industry-specific risks – Activism, regulation changes, emerging competitors
- Partner or influencer risks – Agencies, spokespeople, vendors, creators tied to your brand
For each risk area, identify the signals you’d expect to see if risk starts to escalate:
- Keywords or phrases
- Hashtags
- Executive or partner names
- Industry-specific terms
Stumped when coming up with the terms? Use the Crisis Monitoring Worksheet to spark your thinking or check out our customers’ most commonly used Boolean for risk and crisis management: Crisis & Risk Management Boolean.
(Optional) Use AI as an Accelerator
Use the AI Search Assistant to speed this up:
Prompt the AI Search Assistant: From a PR perspective, what are 10 potential risks to [insert COMPANY or INDUSTRY]?
After you review the initial output, prompt:
Create a Boolean query for all variations associated with [insert RISK TOPIC]?
Step 2: Create Your Risk Search in Explore
Create one broad risk monitoring search that includes your brand, executives, and related entities, coupled with risk-related keywords and phrases.
This search runs quietly in the background and acts as your early-warning system.
📺 Watch: How to Create a Risk Monitoring Search Using the AI Search Assistant
Check out our customers’ most commonly used Boolean strings:
Once saved, this search becomes the foundation for alerts, Monitor streams, and your Crisis Management dashboard.
📺 Watch: How to Save a Search in Explore
🔗 Step by Step: How to Save a Search
Step 3: Set Up Your Risk Command Center
This is where preparation turns into readiness.
- Set up Smart Alerts → spike detection, sentiment shift, top reach
- Create a Monitor Stream for real-time scanning
To set up alerts and streams, check out the Monitoring Daily Media Playbook:
- Create a Crisis Management Dashboard in Analyze
📺 Watch: How to Create a Risk Management Dashboard in Analyze
🔗 Step by Step: How to Create a Dashboard in Analyze
At this point, you’ve done everything you can to prepare.
Stage 2: During an Active Crisis
Validate what’s happening and focus your monitoring.
Step 4: Validate the Signal
Use your Monitor Stream and Crisis Dashboard to determine:
- Is this a real issue or noise?
- Is coverage accelerating?
- Who is driving the conversation?
- Which media channels are amplifying it?
Avoid reacting to volume alone. You need to get context first.
Step 5: Focus Your Monitoring on the Active Crisis
Once the crisis is confirmed, narrow your view.
You have two fast options. Both work and will just depend on your preferred workflow:
Option A: Apply a Custom Category to Your Risk Search
- Create a custom category for the crisis topic
- Apply and save it to your existing Risk Monitoring Search
- Use it to isolate crisis-specific coverage
📺 Watch: How to Focus Monitoring During a Crisis with Custom Categories
🔗 Step by Step: Custom Categories in Explore
Option B: Create an Active Crisis Search and Dashboard Tab
- Duplicate your Risk Monitoring Search
- Apply crisis keywords to create a focused crisis view
- Create an Active Crisis tab on your Risk dashboard
📺 Watch: How to Create an Active Crisis View for Focused Monitoring
Pro Tip: If volume is manageable, consider creating an Every Mention alert or an Hourly or Daily Digest Report so nothing slips through.
Step 6: Monitor Continuously
During the crisis:
- Track sentiment and volume trends in your dashboard
- Track which outlets, journalists, or influencers are driving reach
- Monitor how narratives evolve over time
Your dashboard should reflect what’s happening right now.
Stage 3: Post-Crisis Review
Once the situation stabilizes, assess impact and strengthen future readiness.
Step 7: Review and Report
Finalize the Dashboard
- Summarize coverage volume and sentiment over time
- Identify peak moments and turning points
- Prepare context and narrative notes
Share findings with stakeholders
📺 Watch: How to Share a Dashboard from Analyze
🔗 Step by Step: How to Share a Dashboard from Analyze
Step 8: Capture Learnings
Before closing the loop, document:
- What was the earliest signal that risk was escalating?
- Which channels and sources drove the most impact?
- Which alerts helped us act quickly, and which didn’t?
- What keyword changes should become part of our standard risk setup?
- What should we add or adjust for future risk monitoring?
Final Tip
Every crisis reveals opportunities to strengthen your risk monitoring. Build on your existing risk monitoring setup, incorporate lessons learned, and strengthen your early-warning signals for the future.