Risk Communication and Social Media: Tips and best practices for using new tools to communicate effectively
Risk and crisis communicators face pressure to adapt to the changing 21st-century landscape. With new threats like terrorist attacks, biological warfare, and cyber security breaches, critical information and messages must reach broader populations faster and with higher impact than ever before.
With these and other new threats constantly emerging, it is essential to understand how changing trends and innovations such as social media (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and more) are shaping the what, why, how and timing of public – and private – informational and call to action messages during times of crisis.
The use of social media tools in risk and crisis communications will continue to evolve and change and so will these initial best practices. As Grant McLaughlin, Booz Allen Hamilton principal and an expert in strategic communications, marketing and stakeholder outreach, said, “The tools and tactics are still emerging, and as they mature, we’ll be able to better define measures of effectiveness and next steps.”
See Risk Communication and Social Media: Tips and best practices for using new tools to communicate effectively, by Dr Tim L Tinker, Grant McLaughlin, and Michael Dumlao, for Disaster Resource.
Tags: crisis communication, Facebook, risk communication, social media, Twitter, YouTube
