The Use Of Social Media In A Crisis Situation

Definition of Social Media

Discuss about the Use of Social Media in a Crisis Situation.

Social Media is nothing but the technologies mediated by computer, which permit the sharing and creation of details, career interests, ideas and other forms of expression over the networks as well as virtual communities (Freberg, Palenchar and Veil 2013). Apart from that, it mainly utilize the mobile technologies, desktop computers and web-based technologies for creating highly communicative platforms with the help of which organizations, communities and individuals can easily modify, discuss, co-create and share the pre-made content or user-generated content posted online (Middleton, Middleton and Modafferi 2014). In this regard, this study mainly aims to shed light of the use or the implication of the social media in the crisis situation occurred in the organizations. In this paper, the utilization of the social media tolls for communication and crisis management will be analyzed. On the other hand, this study also provides the analysis why the social media websites should be incorporated in the successful implementation of the business communication plan. Moreover, this study also evaluates and illustrates the utilization of Social Media in a negative and positive way in a crisis situation occurred in the business organizations.

Social media can be defined as the collective channels of online communication where the users can perform content-sharing, interaction, input as well as collaboration based on community. Social Media has become the integral part of life online as applications proliferate and social websites (Castillo, Mendoza and Poblete 2013). According to Freberg et al.( 2013), the social media is mainly utilized to the market products, connect to the current customers, promote brands as well as foster new business. Social Media is playing crucial roles in all the aspects and situations of business. It can also play a huge role in order to manage crisis obtained within a business organization (Oh, Agrawal and Rao 2013). Crisis management can simply be demonstrated as the process with the help of which a company deals with an unexpected and a disruptive event that threatens for harming the company, the general public or its stakeholders (Denef, Bayerl and Kaptein 2013). According to the given scenario, the assistant manager faced a critical situation while he came to know that a man has entered his premises with a weapon. In this situation, social media activity has helped the assistant manager to create awareness among the interns, employees as well as the higher authorities.

Utilization of Social Media in Crisis Management

Use of social media as a communication medium in a crisis situation – While many people think about the benefits of utilizing the social media for businesses, they think of the benefits of marketing on an immediate basis. The potential of the social media can be a wonderful and an effective tool for the businesses while an emergency or crisis erupts (Stefanidis, Crooks and Radzikowski 2013). The crisis can incorporate anything starting from the outage of a simple website to the negative publicity. At present, the internet technology is utilizing for the real time communication and it is providing lots of facilities in the area of the speed and risk management through the effective way of communication. Thus, the emergence of the social media can become the communication medium in such a crisis situation (Brown and Billings 2013). On the other hand, the social media permits an individual to be the key influence in the community (Oh, Agrawal and Rao 2013). Social media is important for the reputation the organizations as the small as well as large businesses have utilized several social networks for responding to their customers. If the twitter is considered as an example, then it can be stated that the communication over Twitter happen in 140 character updates (Freberg et al. 2013). However, these tweets are searchable very easily by Twitter itself, Google and many other available applications of twitter. Twitter permits to have information sharing on an immediate basis with a broad reach and feedback possibilities. The business operations or the businesses can be followed on Twitter by anyone such as the competitors, potential customers as well as the regular customers (Denef, Bayerl and Kaptein 2013). Thus, it is very crucial for the organizations that they monitor the mentions over twitter regarding their services, products and brands in terms of responding swiftly to any negative circumstances (Subba and Bui 2017). In addition, if the example of Facebook or YouTube is considered then it can be seen that it would be another outlet for social media for aiming on supply of outstanding customer response. Apart from that, YouTube is the most renowned search engine for video and undoubtedly it is the fastest and the best way for sending out a public announcement while an organization requires for making a statement regarding an ongoing situation (Wendling, Radisch and Jacobzone 2013). With respect to these facts, social me can be considered as an effective way of communicate in the online business operations.  Communicating with all the stakeholders in a real time manner can be done with the help of the social media platform. This platform is easily available and every can use it for communication. The information sending or sending any warning over a very short time period can be efficiently done with the help of the social media platform.

Benefits of Social Media in Business Communication Plan

Inclusion of social media in Business Communication Plan – Social media generally plays a crucial role in the business communication plan. In addition, the role or the effectiveness of the social media in the business communication is actually regarding the establishment of the conversation with the consumers as well as clients of a particular business enterprise (Reuter, Heger and Pipek 2013). Therefore, organizations are utilizing social media successfully for building traffic, finding employees, creating a well-known and positive brand as well as driving sales. On the other hand, the social media can be leveraged for creating the wonderful and amazing masterpieces of marketing (Wendling, Radisch and Jacobzone 2013). The reputed as well as the renowned organizations such as Dell, Skittles and other enterprises have utilized and incorporated successfully the social media in their business communication plan for enhancing their brand, sales and the community around their products (Neubaum et al. 2014). The social media websites such as LinkedIn, Twitters, Facebook, YouTube and other websites are considered by the organizations for implementing an effective business communication (Stefanidis, Crooks and Radzikowski 2013). LinkedIn plays a vital role in implementing business communication plan in terms of joining the groups where the prospects and the custor of the individuals are resided as well as recruiting the new hires (Reuter, Heger and Pipek 2013). LinkedIn also conducts the market research and ask for the reviews or the testimonials in terms of implementing business communication plan. On the other hand, as a social media website, Facebook provides a great exposure, potential marketing platform for free, facilitates online discussions for gaining valuable inputs (Maresh-Fuehrer and Smith 2016). Moreover, Facebook helps in being connected with consumers in regards to the proper implementation of the business communication plan. In addition, in case of Twitter, it is utilized as the medium of the internal communication in a business organization. Twitter is also significant for customer feedback or customer outreach (Brengarth and Mujkic 2016). It also plays a significant role in order to enhance the visibility and branding. Moreover, Twitter is also advantageous to support other online presence in regards to the establishment of significant business communication plan (Middleton, Middleton and Modafferi 2014). Furthermore, as a social media websites, Google+ helps the businesses in understanding the own statistics of those businesses over the web (Oh, Agrawal and Rao 2013). It also helps in controlling messaging process within a business communication and it also helps to integrate very easily with the other platform. Pinterest is another social media website that can help the organizations in terms of building proper and effective business communication plan (Hagar 2013). This is because; it is utilized for finding the ideas for the interests or projects of the businesses and acts as the personalized media platform. Moreover users can also browse the contents of others on the main page with the help of this social media website (Thompson and Ahmed 2016). Furthermore, the video search engine or YouTube and social media site for video calling service that is Skype are also capable of implementing effective business communication plan by cutting the cost of the business calls, minimizing the travel costs of business and providing potential branding tool (Castillo, Mendoza and Poblete 2013). 

Role of Social Media Websites in Business Communication

The use of the social media platform in the business communication has both the positive and negative impact over the whole business operations. Social media has impacted the way dramatically for worse or for better through which the business people generally make their business conversation and keep in touch with each other and the world at large (Freberg, Palenchar and Veil 2013). It has also provided the businesses the means for communicating more for worse or better and in often more effectively crisis situation. As per the positive effects of social media, the business people can utilize the social media websites in the crisis situations in numerous ways. Social media has been also utilized for spreading effectively the significant safety information at the time of crisis (Middleton, Middleton and Modafferi 2014). It has driven the conventional business by surprise. 

The cost of utilizing the social media is less than the other conventional media (Thompson and Ahmed 2016). The young generation is the highest population who uses the social media platform for communication and other activities available in the platform. Therefore, communicating with the young generation target market can be done. Beside this, the same fact is negative for communication with older people as iit has been found that the older people are less interested in the social media. They prefer the conventional media for gathering knowledge or business communication (Wendling, Radisch and Jacobzone 2013).  The social media platform is also very effective for developing chain market. It is a common trend of pople to choose a organization depending on the suggestion given by a friend or relative. The presence of the organizations in the social media, helps to grow the market by using the WOM (word of mouth) in the social media platform (Castillo, Mendoza and Poblete 2013 )

Social media also has had few negative influences at the time of the crisis occurrence. As per the negative impacts of social media utilization in crisis situation, many business organizations do not see the need for a continuous update in the real time (Oh, Agrawal and Rao 2013).  The organization that is using the social media platform should be very active in the social media. This platform is utilized for communicating with the common people or the target market. Answering the queries in the social media from the management end is very important in this strategy (Denef, Bayerl and Kaptein 2013). The social business posts generally intend to be useful and helpful or for announcing the safety of the clients or customers of the businesses. Instead of that, the businesses sometimes also can reveal information unintentionally, which can endanger the benefit or the success factors of the businesses (Thompson and Ahmed 2016). Social media can also be the reason of the sensation of the communication crisis in businesses.

Examples of Social Media Websites Used in Business Communication

After conducting the entire study, it can easily be stated based on the analysis of the given scenario that the social media can effectively be utilized as the communication medium in the crisis situation. The overall study has successfully established a significant fact that the emergence of the social media can become the appropriate and essential communication medium in any sort of crisis situation. On the other hand, while implementing an exclusive and a helpful business communication system, the social media should be effectively and positively incorporated in the planning for business communication. It can also be stated from the entire analysis made in this study that the social media can be beneficial for creating the wonderful and amazing masterpieces of marketing. Apart from that, this study has also successfully portrayed the fact that Social Media can be utilized in both the negative and positive way in a crisis situation.

References

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