A crisis communication plan that does not include social media is incomplete and seriously flawed. This was the overarching key message to come from Frocomm’s 2nd Annual Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009.

I wrote the content for a free report summarising summit presenters’ key points , whilst also adding value through the identification of additional resources and perspectives, including a few of my own. The report  is available here: Crisis communication & social media summit 2009: a report.

Please share the report with your colleagues and peers. Then if you like it, feel free to raise awareness of this free report through your own social networks.

The summit featured an array of heavyweight Australian public relations industry thought leaders from leading consultancies and public and private sector organisations, providing participants with an abundance of crisis communication “brain nutrition”.

In fact, as the communication programs of many organisations, especially government ones, still do not reflect the impact social media is having, it may well be that crisis communication becomes (or is) the first toe in the social media waters for them.

Key themes of the summit included:

• The need for social media guidelines for employees
• Understanding what is going on in the social media space before entering it
• The speed of social media and this being a double‐edged sword
• The power of pictures and video, especially on free websites like YouTube
• The challenges and opportunities to protect and build trust towards an organisation
• The opportunities social media provide for direct communication with stakeholders
• The influence social media‐driven information is having on traditional media coverage
• Social media should not be used at the expense of other, existing methodologies.

A brief overview of the summit report was previously posted on this blog. Also, a slightly revised selection of many aspects of the report will be posted on this blog in coming weeks.

Any comment on the report is most welcome – what did you think of the propositions and rationales speakers put forward?

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