Whether through addressing a flu pandemic or the cataclysm that we know all too well in Australia, bushfires, the same principles of crisis management apply. Some of them include building trust in an organisation, using your employees as ‘advocating communicators’ and putting human safety at the top of the priority pyramid.

And whilst using social media is an excellent way to communicate and engage with stakeholders, “trust is harder to maintain in a social media environment,” said public relations leader, Rupert Hugh-Jones from Scaffidi Hugh-Jones at Frocomm’s Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009.

One way of building trust, said Hugh, is having real people represent the organisation in a crisis through social media, both in reality and in ‘attitude’. Organisational representatives should be allowed to express their personality and their empathy, as long as key organisational messages and culture are transmitted, which obviously means training and counsel as appropriate.

Subtext: ditch the cold corporate edifice approach.

An interesting post on The Guardian goes further into this aspect, discussing how organisations need to trust their employees, sound human and be transparent: don’t lie, don’t pretend and don’t be rude being the mantra.

Discipline is another key factor to bear in mind when using social media in a crisis, said Rupert. Messages are spread over a plethora of communication devices. In this case they are all dialogue- characterised rather than solely broadcast- characterised, so the potential for message ‘erosion’ is amplified.

For consistency and discipline to be maintained, organisations need to be” water tight” in knowing who is undertaking what precise role, as per standard crisis communication planning

“Be intelligent in managing conversations,” said Rupert. Which partially means that whilst there is a corporate approach to take, customise the response to the individual. Empathise. Acknowledge. Respond.

As Graham White said at the summit, the tone and style of communication with stakeholders is critically important in social media. “Don’t preach,” he said. It is not about broadcast, it is about participation. Engage, don’t announce. “Be informal and conversational,” Graham continued. “Your goal is to build a community (of fans), a community that can, and will, support you in trying times.”

This amplifies what I have said elsewhere that, perversely, a crisis is actually an opportunity for public relations professionals to engage and to convert, to build advocacy for your organisation or brand. The sin is not in falling victim to a crisis communication situation, the sin is in not responding professionally, not learning and evolving from the situation and not taking the opportunity to build bridges with your stakeholders.

On the topic of Twitter specifically, Rupert put these notions forward:

• Evidence suggests that platforms such as Twitter have the potential to rapidly induce a ‘networked panic’ of pandemic proportions.
• The impact of Twitter in the context of a global health issue has been demonstrated with the H1H1 outbreak. Tens of thousands of concerned and connected citizens and organisations were tweeting daily earlier this year
• Tweeting is not confined to individual citizens. In the USA, one million-plus subscribed to the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Not only does the web allow a two-exchange of information about a pandemic,” said Rupert. “It uses that conversation to map the progression of the pandemic, bypassing traditional tracking methods.”

Rupert summarised what he thinks are the key utilitarian uses of three key social media tools:

Twitter:

• Use as early warning system
• Talk to your staff and customers on a daily basis / talk to them instantly
• Calm your staff / customers
• Reassure your staff / customers
• Excite your staff / customers
• Dispel rumours / correct misinformation
• Share ideas and news.

Facebook:

• Dispel rumours
• Post videos
• Speak to your staff / customers.

Blogs:

• Share ideas / send messages
• Share your news with public and the media (people are getting their news online these days)
• Dispel rumours / correct misinformation.

This post is part of an extended series covering the summit. All the coverage is also available in a free PDF report that you are welcome to share with your colleagues and peers. As a return favour for providing this resource, and only – of course – if you think the content is worthwhile, perhaps you could tweet about it or flag it on one of your social media networking sites, such as LinkedIn.

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