Crisis Communication and Social Media
Natural and man-made disasters move so quickly that developments leave traditional media in the dust.
A press release that gets sent out at 10 am won’t appear in the newspaper until 6:00 the next morning. A 3:00 pm TV interview doesn’t make the news until 5:00, when everyone is in the car going home, and isn’t played again until 11:00 that night.
And while the crisis communicators are waiting for their items to hit the news, the public is already talking about the latest developments on Twitter and Facebook. When news of the events hit the media, the public has already been talking about it since it started.
The public isn’t waiting for the media. They’re using social media and creating and consuming their own news. Anyone in crisis communication who wants to reach their audience, or even the public at large, needs to include social media in their communication plan.
Erik was the Risk Communication Director for the Indiana State Department of Health, and has spent the last three years writing and speaking about how to combine social media and crisis communication. He recently wrote a whitepaper that provides you ideas on how to use Blogging and Social Media for Crisis Communications both for business and state and local government.
Erik gives you a lesson on how Social Media impacted a national toy recall. How social media can break stories. What you can do to make it work for you. You can download a copy of the whitepaper just by filling out the form below.
(Don’t worry, we won’t pester you.)
