Social Media in Crisis Communication

Social Media in Crisis Communication

By: Amy Crosby

Twitter is one of the latest social media phenomena to attract the interest of communicators and public affairs professionals. This microblogging tool follows blog, social networking sites, photo and video sharing, and topic discussion sites.

In October when the wildfires raged through Southern California, thousands heard the latest news on evacuations and conditions via Twitter. 

When Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston, Texas, people received a continuous stream of headlines from an on-the-scene reporter via Twitter. When US Airways Flight 1549 splashed into the Hudson River, the first photo the world saw of it came through Twitter. As we can see and have experienced, after a major event, the first news will often come through social media. 

There is no question that social media will continue to alter the landscape of public information. Following the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, universities struggled to determine the best ways to notify students about emergencies. They realized that students often check their Facebook accounts more often than e-mail, and changed their communication plans accordingly to keep up with the latest social media developments.

When I first heard about Twitter, I thought it was kind of creepy that people can always see what your doing and what not. But after I registered and started following people, I soon found out that it is very valuable source in the PR profession and also in general. I have always been a Facebook follower, but now I find myself logging onto to Twitter more than Facebook. And this phenomenon is not just for young people. I saw an interview with Senator John McCain and he said he loves using Twitter and posts his updates himself. After hearing this interview, I quickly found him on Twitter and am now following him. It is a great way to stay connected to anything, anywhere, no matter what your interests are.

Crisis communicators and public affairs professionals, like their PR counterparts, are struggling to incorporate social media into their plans. I read in a PRSA article that perhaps the best was to do this is to incorporate social media into their next crisis drill or major communication exercise. When you plan for things that might go wrong, you also need to plan for the role that social media will play and how its involvement will impact your reputation.

The PRSA article pointed out three key elements that are essential parts of any response: policies, plans, and people. With policy, organizations such as Target formerly had policies that refused to engage bloggers or other social media outlets, however, when a controversy erupted with online complaints, they realized the policy had a serious problem. Crisis communication planning today must incorporate monitoring and active engagement with relevant sites and the use of emerging forms of social media. A drill is an excellent opportunity to evaluate the performance of your responders; but only if those doing the evaluating understand the role and culture of the medium. And in todays current craze with social media, they most likely will.