Recent crisis response efforts demonstrate value of social media as real-time communications tools

For more than a year BMF has been preaching to our clients that social media has a meaningful place in their crisis communications tool chests. While some clients have taken the hint and allowed us to insert a social media component into their crisis comms plans and protocols (Twitter and Facebook), others have proven resistant to the idea or slower off the mark.

Three recent but very different crisis response efforts have served to prove our point and demonstrate the potential value of these social media tools as a forum for quick, real-time communication of key facts in the aftermath of an incident.

During July, ExxonMobil effectively used Twitter to reach reporters, environmentalists, property owners, regulators and others with the latest facts regarding their Yellowstone, Montana pipeline oil spill. While social media isn't enough by itself to soothe the savage beast that is an angry public, it can go a long way toward mitigating what is always the biggest complaint among stakeholders: "They won't tell me anything!"

ExxonMobil issued frequent fact-based Tweets to announce press conferences, deployment of resources and spill clean-up milestones and more. Hats off to them for stepping out and using social media to do more than peddle a product or post job openings.

Likewise, Shell gets credit for using Twitter to provide basic information and milestones in their response to a recent small spill in the North Sea.

The early August Indiana State Fair tragedy that killed 7 fair-goers and injured dozens more also served to demonstrate how social media can be effectively used and help skirt the traditional gridlock caused by endless rounds of rangling with attorneys over how to word even the most simple of media statements.

Two local hospitals quickly activated Facebook and Twitter communications plans to provide family members, well-wishers and the media with details regarding the incident and to help refute rumors that were spiraling out of control. Sample posts and Tweets included instructions on how to check in at the Red Cross Safe and Well website, how to donate blood or find missing loved ones, how to show support and appreciation for the medical teams that were quickly overwhelmed with injured parties and their worried family members, and how grieving persons could access free counseling services.

Fair organizers even went one better, setting up a YouTube channel to post all press conferences and media interviews to provide the most comprehensive of communications platforms.

Ginning up this kind of social media program doesn't just happen in the blink of an eye. To be launched and used effectively it has to be part of an organization's crisis communications plan and protocol and must be more than just an afterthought.

The way we get our news is changing (just ask the Pakistani neighbor who Tweeted the world about the raid on bin Laden's compound hours before the media knew it). The future of timely and effective crisis communications is here now as the demand for real time information in our era of 24-hour news cycles and TV talking heads raises the stakes. Ready or not, it's time to get in the game.