Social Media In Crisis

Yes­ter­day I was asked by my friend and for­mer col­league Natasha Baker to help with a video project for Sin­clair Com­mu­nity Col­lege.  I was inter­viewed and the video will be used with videos of other respon­dents in an upcom­ing pre­sen­ta­tion to aca­d­e­mic lead­ers from around the coun­try.   I was asked to answer a ques­tion about the role of social media in aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tions, par­tic­u­larly in cri­sis sit­u­a­tions.   While this is not pre­cisely what I said (I was speak­ing extem­po­ra­ne­ously yes­ter­day, and did not take notes) it is very close.

Social media can be extremely impor­tant in man­ag­ing cri­sis sit­u­a­tions.  There are sev­eral ways in which it can improve an aca­d­e­mic institution’s abil­ity to bet­ter under­stand sit­u­a­tions, com­mu­ni­cate infor­ma­tion, and man­age unplanned chal­lenges asso­ci­ated with cri­sis sit­u­a­tions.  Here are some of the ways that social media can be useful.

Aware­ness
Part of man­ag­ing a cri­sis well involves hav­ing knowl­edge that some­thing is hap­pen­ing early on.  With news increas­ingly break­ing through social media chan­nels like Face­book and Twit­ter, (Jet Air­plane land­ing in Hud­son River, Earth­quake in China, etc…) mon­i­tor­ing social media chan­nels for rel­e­vant con­ver­sa­tions is crit­i­cal.  Col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties should con­sider mon­i­tor­ing the social web as a full time job, so that when a prob­lem arises, the insti­tu­tion is able to iden­tify a prob­lem quickly and respond to it prop­erly.  Using sim­ple tools like google alerts, twit­ter search, google blog search, google news, igoogle, and google reader can help these insti­tu­tions to stay informed about break­ing news and emerg­ing cri­sis situations.

Dis­tri­b­u­tion
Once aware that some­thing is hap­pen­ing, it is impor­tant for insti­tu­tions to assess the sit­u­a­tion and then to dis­trib­ute impor­tant infor­ma­tion.  Social media makes it pos­si­ble for insti­tu­tions to dis­trib­ute this infor­ma­tion imme­di­ately, with­out hav­ing to rely com­pletely on tra­di­tional broad­cast sources to dis­sem­i­nate the details.  Cer­tainly broad­cast media is still help­ful in get­ting the word out, but no more do insti­tu­tions have to rely on news cycles and broad­cast sched­ules to notify the pub­lic of a cri­sis.  Another key is in the fact that in social media plat­forms mem­bers can play the role of both receiver and trans­mit­ter.  Because of this, mes­sages can spread more quickly, and can be tracked as they move across the social web.  It is pos­si­ble to fol­low the con­ver­sa­tion as it evolves, dis­cover who is receiv­ing infor­ma­tion, and who is shar­ing that infor­ma­tion with oth­ers.  Addi­tion­ally, it is extremely sim­ple to set up web pages to answer com­mon ques­tions, post links to impor­tant infor­ma­tion, and notify peo­ple as the cri­sis sit­u­a­tion changes.

Feed­back

Because social media enables much of the con­ver­sa­tion on any topic to be tracked, it is pos­si­ble to see who is get­ting the mes­sage.  It is also pos­si­ble to see who is only get­ting parts of the mes­sage or mis­in­ter­pret­ing the sit­u­a­tion entirely.  In these cases, insti­tu­tions can use social chan­nels to address mis­in­for­ma­tion both directly and indi­rectly.  Pred­i­cated on trust, this abil­ity to engage in the con­ver­sa­tion and under­stand pub­lic per­cep­tion is a vital part in keep­ing a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion under control.

Con­tin­ued com­mu­ni­ca­tion
As a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion changes, the plans for response change.  The abil­ity to con­tin­u­ally com­mu­ni­cate a clear plan of action is vital to man­ag­ing a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion prop­erly.   Social media enables this, not just dur­ing the cri­sis itself, but also in the time fol­low­ing the cri­sis.  Once the tele­vi­sion cam­eras and reporters have left, there are still peo­ple who want answers.  Social media can bet­ter equip an insti­tu­tion to con­tinue the con­ver­sa­tion if nec­es­sary, address pub­lic con­cerns, and restore a sense of trust and order.

Con­clu­sion
Cri­sis sit­u­a­tions can never be com­pletely avoided, but social media can help insti­tu­tions to man­age them much more effec­tively.  Social media should play a cen­tral role in how col­leges, busi­nesses, and even indi­vid­u­als man­age these sit­u­a­tions.  This tech­nol­ogy offers an unfil­tered, acces­si­ble, direct and fluid chan­nel for com­mu­ni­cat­ing impor­tant facts and gath­er­ing rel­e­vant feed­back.  Increas­ingly peo­ple are turn­ing to social media as a means of enter­tain­ment, infor­ma­tion, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.  As this becomes the norm, it is impor­tant to get a grasp on how social media works, build a trusted net­work of friends and fol­low­ers, and know how to use these tools before a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion takes place.