How do you run a digital reputation fire drill?
Run a realistic, end-to-end scenario across five phases: Detection, Decision, Communications, Monitoring, and Follow-up, with the full named team using live tools. The post-drill review finds three to seven concrete gaps in roles, content readiness, and escalation paths that get fixed before the next exercise.
A digital reputation fire drill tests the digital response, not just the press response. The scenario is a credible event the company would actually face, scripted with enough detail that the team has to make decisions on partial information. Teams that drill regularly respond faster when a real situation arrives.
The five phases of a digital fire drill
- Detection. The drill runs through the actual monitoring tools: IMPACT alerts, AIQ topic shifts, and social monitoring. The test is whether the right signals surface fast enough for the team to act.
- Decision. Tests whether the right people are reached quickly and whether decision authorities are clear. Gaps here are almost always in the handoffs between functions, not within any single function.
- Communications. Tests whether statement templates produce shippable language under time pressure. Counsel-approved drafts that cannot be adapted in minutes are a common finding.
- Monitoring. Tests whether the team reads the AI and search picture accurately during the simulation: which sources the engines are weighting and how the narrative is moving in real time.
- Follow-up. Tests handoffs to longer-term workstreams: who owns the post-event narrative, the Wikipedia update request, and the AIQ narrative tracking.
What the post-drill review finds
The post-drill review identifies specific gaps, usually three to seven concrete items, that get fixed before the next drill. Common findings are unclear escalation paths, statement templates that need too many approval cycles under time pressure, and monitoring queries that are not pre-loaded. Running drills twice a year builds on each round.
Last reviewed: 19/05/2026
