Always-excellent SocialMediaToday reports about using Social media in crisis, tragic events and news – before things get worst.
Crisis management has been widely used in almost every occasion dealing with dramatic events, bad reputation and media assault.
Meet Social Media crisis management: new tricks for old problems.
Titled Using Social Media In Crisis: A Study from Penn State, the post by Chris Syme, is a thorough exam of a recent news event in Penn State.
Today, 92 percent of Americans use multiple platforms to get their news on a given day, and only seven percent get their news from a single media platform (Pew Internet Research). The same study showed that almost 60 percent of people get their news both online and offline. There are over 800 million active users on Facebook, and over 200 million on Twitter. The Twitter number is just about the same as the daily circulation of the Wall Street Journal, the most widely circulated newspaper in the United States. In light of the reach and 24/7 access of social media, what is its role in a crisis?
An in-depth analysis leads to each day of the event (a 10-days crisis) and each step taken by conventional media – as well as the Penn State Twitter and Facebook pages.
Here comes some pretty interesting aftermath we all should be thinking of:
Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief reputation strategist for Weber-Shandwick, says social media should be viewed as an asset more than a risk in crisis.
“ It gets the message out quickly, points people in the right direction for more information or aid, lessens the impact of ardent criticism and reaches many stakeholders, at once, including the traditional media,” Gaines-Ross said.
She also warns: “The downside is that social media usage allows detractors to jump in with negative commentary, spread misinformation and turn a local incident into a global one, perhaps leading to future litigation. On balance, however, the rewards outweigh the risks. “
[Via SocialMediaToday]
