Social Media & Crisis Management
Of all of the developments that have had an impact on crisis management over the last ten years, one of the most significant has undoubtedly been the rise of the use and availability of social media.
If we think of the events of September 1st 2001, with the attack by the two planes on the World Trade Centre in New York that marked the start of the modern security management era, then the vision that you have of that event will undoubtedly have come from iconic images that you saw on the television.
And then if you think to the Boston marathon bombing that took place in June 2013, then the likelihood is that the images that you have in your mind from that event are not from some centrally controlled television broadcaster, as sent to them by a professional news crew, but rather pictures taken on people’s mobile phones and uploaded almost instantly onto the internet.
The ability that modern social media has to connect people instantly across the globe is something that we are still coming to terms with, but from a security manager’s perspective it is undoubtedly one of the most powerful tools that they have for accessing, managing and controlling information on a whole range of levels.
The use of social media, that is, shared open access media such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, as well as SMS texting systems, is something that is still developing as it concerns crisis and emergency management, but it is generally accepted that the first ‘social media disaster’ was the Haiti earthquake in January 2010.
Haiti was an example of a ‘true crisis’ in that there was an almost total destruction of local infrastructure, and complete lack of reliable information sources.
For many companies with employees in the area, social media was the only way that they could communicate with them, assess their needs and maintain an on-going dialogue throughout the early days of the disaster. Even for international news agencies, such as the BBC, social media was one of their main sources of information.
Uses of Social Media
In general terms, social media can be used in one of three ways. It can be used to ‘push out’ information, that is it can be used by the central command or headquarters to send out information to everyone it is connected to.
As an example, it could be used to inform the public of an emergency telephone number, or where the meeting point for an evacuation might be.
Secondly, it can be used to ‘pull in’ information, using its network of connected people out in the world to supply information. In the event that there is a flood, for example, social media is an excellent way of understanding what is going on with outlying facilities, what the damage has been, what the impact has been and what steps need to be taken.
Another example is if an incident has occurred in a foreign country, and you need to have local information translated into English. It is possible that you do not have a native-speaker within your own organisation, but that is something that is easily accessible on social media.
The third use of social media is to monitor general situations through ‘crowd sourcing’, that is, by plugging into the world-wide online community and seeing what other people are talking about.
As one journalism blog reported, the power of crowd-sourcing can be seen by the fact that within 48 hours of the Haiti earthquake, the ‘Earthquake Haiti’ Facebook group had 170,000 members, and the Red Cross, whose previous largest fundraising campaign had raised $190,000 had raised $8 million, within the first three days through social media.
In another example, the first twitter message put out by the Boston Police Department immediately following the Boston Marathon bombing on 15th April 2013 was re-tweeted 516 times. Five days later the message that the fugitive bomber had been captured was re-tweed 143,000 times.
However, as with any aspect of crisis management, however powerful social media might be, it doesn’t just happen. It is the ability of an organisation to understand how it works, how it can be used, and what effect it might have that allows it to become the powerful tool that it has the potential to be.
The design and use of social media is one area of security management that requires expert knowledge, and any system that is designed by non-experts is likely to be less than optimally effective (and actually, may well fail completely) under the pressure of a crisis situation.
In order for it to be effective, the use of social media needs to be woven into the fabric of a company’s daily routines, so that if a crisis does occur, everyone is already familiar with social media and comfortable with how they can use it.
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