Part 2 – Yes

After reading Sarah’s response to this question earlier this week, I have to disagree with her conclusions. I think that social media has changed many aspects of a strategic-level response. However, there are many layers of complexity to this and it is never as straightforward as it seems.

Firstly, it depends on your brand and business. If you are in retail and fashion then there is a huge shift in the way the strategic team now responds when driven by a social media storm. Firstly they feel they now need to get decisions out there quickly and show action taking place, they are now listening to what they hear (or they should be) from their detractors and their supporters and using that information to drive and inform their decisions in many cases. For them, crisis response has undergone a significant change as a direct consequence of social media.

Posted in Crisis Communications, Crisis Leadership, Crisis Management, Social Media
Tagged board, business, CMT, communications, crisis, crisis comms, crisis management, crisis response, gold team, internet, issues, leadership, media storm, plan, PR, reputation, response, social media, social-media, strategic, strategy, technology, Twitter
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September 4, 2012

Has social media changed strategic-level crisis response? Part One

By Sarah Nicholas

Part 1 – No

Social media may have changed the nature of crises, and the speed required for a successful crisis response – but has the advent of Twitter and co. really changed the key tenets of crisis management and core roles and requirements of a top-level, strategic crisis response ‘gold’ team.

I don’t think it has. Controversial, perhaps, but let me explain:

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