How to adapt your tone during COVID-19

How are you changing your tone during the COVID-19 pandemic?

One member, who works for a hospital system, emphasized how important it has been to make sure messages, including photos and video, exhibit proper safety precautions. Practically every message or photo goes through a lens of making sure that people were masked/distanced, that the message includes something about staying safe.

Some organizations have been considering a rebrand heading into 2021, and PR pros are seeing an increased emphasis on community and group effort, or as one member puts it “team orientation.” Even organizations that are family-owned businesses that have been guided by multiple generations are now looking to emphasize the whole group’s effort, not just the leaders at the top with the same last name.

Jim Ylisela, Ragan Consulting Group, argues that organizations that can give voice to an optimism for the future have a real opportunity. He gives the example of Pittsburgh Airport, which has been offering messages of how air travel will return, through video, op-eds and other channels, which gives hope to others even as their sector has been hammered by the crisis.