Social media change the way crisis communication works, but some fundamentals remain the same, says Ulrich Gartner.
Social media are fundamentally changing the way people inform themselves, interact, and engage in issues they deem relevant. At virtually no cost, consumers can gather likeminded people around the world to rally for (or against) a case. NGOs collect thousands of views of a campaign video, sometimes without the targeted organization even knowing about it. While in the past, a couple of calls from journalists would have rang an alarm bell, today a storm may build up in the depths of the internet without the victim really noticing it.
No wonder that corporate communicators do regard social media as a major threat in crisis situations. Yet few companies have procedures in place to properly handle them, as a survey carried out in August 2010 by Gartner Communications demonstrated. So it might be time to put some basics in place.
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