911-Twitter

This week in my reading of Real-Time Marketing & PR, I read about crisis communication and the media. It is inevitable that a company will face a crisis sooner or later, so it is always important to have a crisis communication plan to easily communicate with the media and public.

According to the book, Twitter can be used as a crisis communications tool. It says when in a crisis situation, you have to act quickly and efficiently. Twitter is the perfect tool because of the ease of use, the availability to the masses, and the availability to directly connect the media.

I had read this chapter and thought it had good insights, though it was not until I commented on Alex Reese’s blog that got me thinking more in depth. Alex wrote about the same chapter and in my comment I noted how Twitter was used in correlation to the recent prison breaks.

In Lima, Ohio three prisoners escaped from jail and it become a very scary situation for the surrounding area. Not only did local media send out many tweets updating the public on the situation, event authorities took to Twitter to update the media and public.

Twitter became one of the fastest ways for the police to communicate with the media and the public. In addition, they also used Facebook and Nixle alerts. The book would describe Nixle alerts as real-time media alerts and they are text messages and emails with similar messages shown on Twitter. Twitter has shown to be a great tool for the Lima Police. In fact, they are now tweeting several times a day updating the public since the crisis.