#online@crisis: How to handle social media mishaps

Today, many Singapore businesses are starting to acknowledge the growing impact Social Media has on its bottom line especially in a Crisis. Information has become as valuable as prime real estate where top search engine rankings and positive (or negative) reviews on influential blogs can have tremendous impact on a business' fortune. Unfortunately, many Singapore businesses today continue to use Social Media as an ancillary communication channel.

In the Era of Social Media, anybody can create and disseminate “news” contents. These “Citizen Journalists” can galvanise populace support as widely and as effectively as big budget news organisations. Couple this with the Internet's ability to provide instantaneous news on a 24/7 basis, consolidated and indexed, Social Media has fundamentally altered the way individuals receive news and gather information. In this new information environment, information is now near instantaneous, 'perfect' and communicated via multiple platforms.

As such, Crisis Communication is beyond the control of any individual or business and businesses must accept that nothing can be hidden forever. To effectively manage a crisis, a business' crisis communication plan must therefore be open, timely, 100% truthful, broadly communicated through multiple platforms and comprising a cyberspace component.

The 5 Essential Elements of an Effective Crisis Communication Plan

- Open. As nothing in the new information environment can be hidden indefinitely, businesses can no longer manage an incident by preventing it from being made public. They must assume that all news worthy incidences will be reported and that the role of crisis communication is to "frame" the incident in favour of the business.

- Timely. Given the speed with which Social Media operates, businesses can no longer "beat" the media cycle. The timely acknowledgement of the incident will not only enable the business to “frame” the crisis, but also enable the business to clarify conflicting information (usually present in the early stages of a crisis) and reduce distortion of facts.

- 100% Truthful. In the perfect information environment, false or deliberately misleading statements will be discovered. It is not uncommon for stakeholders to search for past incidences to discredit the business' claims or for other similarly affected parties to come forward. Once a pattern of deceit is established, this will imply a cover-up on the part of the business giving further traction to the crisis. Businesses must must therefore only allow complete truths to be disclosed.

- Broadly Communicated. The presence of numerous information platforms, and the merging of Social and Main Stream Media has complicated crisis communications. A negative blog posting or online mention can go viral and be reported in the main stream media. Businesses can thus no longer rely on the traditional press conference and crisis communications must be now embrace online videos, blogs, online social networks, RSS, web portals and search engines.

- Internet Presence. In the perfect information environment, the Internet never forgets. Practically everything is archived indefinitely in cyberspace and the business must post its side of the story online to ensure that it continues to be told indefinitely.

Social Media has fundamentally changed the nature of crisis communication. Traditional crisis communication approaches are at best ineffective and at worse damaging to the business. To effectively manage a crisis, businesses must understand the new information environment adjust their approach accordingly.