How social media is influencing the practice of crisis communications

Yesterday during a D&E staff meeting, our digicom team led an exercise to help our firm think about the intersection of b2b with social media and crisis communications. We discussed as a group how BP might use social media channels to help it restore trust with its suppliers. Many of the ideas shared revolved around an issues management response crafted using a hybrid of traditional and digital channels. And, of course, we all agreed that priority #1 needs to be to stop the flow of oil. Before that happens, it will be impossible to restore trust.

Then this morning, I came across this article about how social media is shaping crisis PR. The article argues that crisis PR will be dead without the adoption of social media communications. While I agree that real-time news requires a strategic response in real-time, which often means that social media channels are the best fit, they can’t be the only communication channels used. For example, if no one knows your Facebook page/Twitter feed/fill-in-the-blank-here exists, it’s not going to get much traction, so social media communications still need to be aligned with traditional PR.

In the grander scheme of things, let’s hope the spill is contained for good.

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