MAYBE - NICK MERCER, COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR, EUROSTAR
The past two years have brought a seismic change in consumer expectations during periods of crisis. Customers rightly expect that they can have a two-way dialogue with companies and that this should be in real time.
When a major crisis unfolds, it is inevitably featured on 24-hour news channels, and with TV now streamed to mobile devices, leading businesses have to, in real-time, provide accurate information and advice on their websites and proactively push this out via SMS and email.
It is natural that customers will blog about their experiences - good or bad. Their issues should be immediately responded to in a non-defensive manner.
The real win-win is to integrate social media feeds on websites, so customers make a balanced judgement based on what the brand is advising, at the same time as reading what their fellow consumers are saying.
So, Twitter and Facebook are a key component of engaging with customers, but only if they supplement other forms of communication.
YES - DANNY MEADOWS-KLUE, CHAIRMAN, DIGITAL TRAINING ACADEMY
Twitter is a game-changer for real-time communication: simple, clean, fast and mobile-friendly. This is especially the case for crisis management.
To use it effectively, however, demands good social media skills: knowing what to publish, when and why, as well as 'how'. Its effectiveness relies on having the right stream of content, the audience being briefed to expect it, and the right support in place for response-handling.
Let people know which communications channels you are focused on, using websites and other media to direct them to you. Use social media monitoring to track salience, trends and hashtags.
Like most digital media tools, Twitter is deceptively easy to start using, but hard to do well. Employing a good agency with strong social credentials is vital. Train your brand team and then dry-run possible scenarios. Have clear and tested escalation plans in place before you launch. Do that in advance, and your crisis management tools won't create a crisis themselves.
MAYBE - NICK FOX, CHIEF CLIENT OFFICER, DDB
In the instance of the Metropolitan Police communicating with those at, or caught up in, last week's TUC demonstration, it was the right channel to use. It allowed the Met to quickly react to the situation as it developed and provide useful advice.
You cannot control messaging on social media platforms. Rather, it's about participating in the conversations that will happen regardless.
The Met could have used Twitter to be more transparent and explain to the public why they use certain tactics.
In this case, the medium matters more than the message. The activists use Twitter as a tool of protest and organisation. The police have been clever harnessing it, talking to them on their level, subverting a tool of demonstration to connect with and pacify them.
Twitter is also a good way to communicate with the media without constantly having to give official statements. However, it shouldn't replace more fruitful face-to-face negotiation.
MAYBE - ALISON WRIGHT, STRATEGY DIRECTOR, ENGINE
It is a necessary and good way to communicate in a time of crisis, but it isn't a sufficient way on its own.
The Metropolitan Police's tweets about last week's demonstration read as the communication of an organisation treating citizens with respect. While some of the police's tactics provoked negative comment, their use of Twitter seems to have gone down well.
It's a quick, cheap way of getting real-time information to people and responding to queries and negative comment. Other people will be using Twitter and talking about you, so you can't afford to be silent in that medium.
However, it has limitations, which is why it shouldn't be your only way of communicating in time of crisis. Less than 10% of the UK's adult population use Twitter. To reach even that many, you either need your message to trend or for them to follow you or your hash-tag. In addition, the life span of a tweet is only an hour.
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