A crisis can initiate on social media or off-line, but once it reaches Twitter it accelerates in 15 minutes and Facebook in 30. Although there can be risks to posting, many see it as an effective and transparent way to address issues large and small. Stakeholders view social media and other technology platforms as tools for creating community, committing to a cause and contributing to change. These platforms are also particularly active communication tools during a crisis. Twitter, in particular, has become the go-to place to interact with stakeholders. Effective crisis leaders must meet the expectations that stakeholders have to quickly engage in meaningful, authentic and positive ways. Technology has evolved to allow people to share images, videos, data, information graphics, links, instantaneous reactions, and compelling words right from their hand-held smart phone. Social media has its own rhythm and impact that can amplify, and in some cases supplant, traditional media. Social media influences reputation and can change the conversation in a heartbeat. It allows people to talk with each other and realize they may have a common agenda – if not in all things, at least in some. During a crisis, the volume of information released through social media and traditional information outlets creates an overwhelming flow of data. Analytic tools are needed to rapidly process all these inputs. Sometimes a crisis also provides an opening for new technological advances and platforms. These three drivers: social media, data analytics and new technology platforms contribute to a crisis ecosystem of high ambiguity and uncertainty:
- The power to communicate is distributed and democratized via social media. Multiple stakeholders on a variety of platforms can openly communicate and connect.
- Social media can be a fast and comprehensive means of gathering crisis data from diverse stakeholders, including multiple first-hand but unofficial sources.
- There is a desire for information from a trusted source during crisis. If your organization can be that trusted source, it is an opportunity to emerge post-crisis with an enhanced reputation.
- Monitoring social media and how people are communicating about you provides advanced warning of a crisis. Tracking social sentiment – how people feel about your organization is critical.
- Leaders can use big data solutions to understand what is happening and make better decisions
- During a crisis individual digital Samaritans take it upon themselves to build out data sets and verify content
(For example, Avi Schiffman, a Mercer Island, Washington teenager created a massive information hub pulling together widely scattered publicly available COVID data (ncov2019.live) as early as December 2019 before official US agencies were organizing and publicizing information about the pandemic.)
- There has been an explosion of communication platforms making it easier to reach out broadly to stakeholders and for them to connect with each other.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic virtual teaching and learning tools, webinars, conferencing software, facilitation tools, telehealth apps, and a host of other platforms saw significant increases in usage practically overnight.
- Overwhelming volume
- Immediacy, speedy response & rapid escalation
- Boundary spanning with multiple nodes
- Unclear who is responsible for disseminating crisis-related information
- Unfamiliar and unvetted information sources
- Intentional disinformation, hacking & manipulation; proliferation of bots
- Information errors, opinion & rumor
- Private vs public publishing & fact checking standards differ
- System inequities
- Privacy and reputational risks to individuals and organizations that engage publicly
Social media has begun to play such a significant role in the crisis ecosystem, that we need to think about how it plays out across the 9 Supporting Competencies that make up the James+Wooten Effective Leadership Framework. We can use the lens of social media to outline some opportunities to build effective crisis leadership skills before, during and after crisis.