The Use of Social Media in Risk and Crisis Communication - Case Study Example

Part A: Company Summary, Facebook, Inc Facebook, Inc. is an internet based company that runs Facebook,the social media website. Started by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, the company has over a billion users. It is headquartered in Menlo Park, CA, United States. Facebook, Inc. builds products that enhance user, advertiser and developers’ utilities. As a social media tool, people use the website to stay connected with friends and family, and also keep an up to date account of the happenings. For developers, Facebook, Inc. assists in the building of websites and applications that integrate with the site in reaching its users through personalization of products. To the advertisers, Facebook is a perfect tool owing to the vast number of users it commands (Charlene n.p). 1.1. Products The products offered by the company are free and readily available on the web and mobile platforms such as iOS and Android. Timeline is a feature in Facebook that allows users to choose the important issues to display and the people who can access such information. News Feed is a feature on the homepage that dynamically updates stories from friends and other Facebook connections. Facebook allows users to upload as many photos and videos as possible. These can be shared to unlimited entities. Tagging is a feature in the photo that allows identification of people in photos as friends. User messaging products include text messaging, chat and email capabilities. There is an events page that allows user create upcoming events, invite others to them or even check out what events are there. A page in Facebook is public profile used to create presence by people, brands, and organizations. A like on a page allows the page to communicate to the user’s news feed and thus be able to deliver content to the user. There are no charges to the discussed user products (Behrens 15-16) Facebook also provides development abilities with developers able to integrate various applications with Facebook. The strength in advertising results from the things one can be able to do with the website including selection of the target group for advertising, mode of payment, ability to change the payments and budget for their actions. The website has metrics that enable users to carefully review progress (Behrens 16). 2. Part B: Crisis Sensing Mechanism There are several information sources that would be regularly monitored in order to detect potential crisis signals for Facebook. These include general wikis, specialized wikis, blogs, microblogs, general social networks, specialized social networks, social bookmarking and social sharing or content provider. According to Reuter, Marx & Volkmar (3) the above mentioned sources are the potential social software that would be regularly monitored in order to detect potential crisis signals in crisis management. Reuter et al (2) further notes that whenever a crisis impend, quick actions are necessary. Therefore, information concerning the event is required. For social software like Facebook, this implies that the user needs to provide information in real time on the web. However, not every kind of social software is adequate for this purpose. Wikis are very useful to gather knowledge regarding a certain topic on the basis of one’s own research. In any crisis, this activity may be performed by individuals who are not immediately affected by the crisis. Blogs can also be used to collect information in order to detect potential crisis signals. However, they are not useful when a fast response is required since they often contain longer personal entries. Due to this reason, micro-blogging offers an alternative solution. Micro-blogging applications use SMS like text containing approximately 140 characters. The most common micro-blogging application is twitter. Twitter users are able to publish tweets or messages on the site using tag word within a message. Through the help of tags, some messages can be found. It is also possible to address other users using the ‘@user’ notion. Additionally, it is also possible to publish tweets through SMS using mobile phones. The SMS like structure of tweets further boosts its appropriateness as a source of information on potential crisis signals for Facebook. Properties such as tagging, the ability to easily locate tweets about certain topics , its possibility of use on mobile devices, and its wide dissemination with more than 100 billion users across the world, offer valuable insight into potential crisis. According to Reuter et al (2) an application such as “Twitter is a significant social software for crises.” Social networking services such as Facebook offer good opportunities for communication during crises. Additionally, social networking services can network with individuals, link to companies, organizations, websites and celebrities. People can post entries that include text, video, photos, and comments from users of the social networking service. Facebook itself has approximately 600 users as at January 2011, making it the largest community. This, according to Reuters et al (2) is a reason why it would be recommended for use in crisis management. The other category of social software that can be used to detect potential crisis signals includes collaborative key wording systems and social sharing. The aim of such social software is to generalize and categorize digital content by users. Video and photo communities have more relevance to crisis communication. The most popular are YouTube for sharing video clips and Flickr for photos. Users can use both services to describe content and enable a targeted search (Reuters et al 2). 2.1. Types of Information or Potential Crisis Signals Potential crisis signals can be customer or user complaints and feelings. According to Rajasekera (11), a major advantage of tapping into social networking sites is that an organization can collect nearly real-time information regarding customer’s feelings or complaints. For example, Rajasekera (11) points out that the recent recall crisis of Toyota’s automobiles in the US market sparked a series of attacks on the company by several social networking sites’ groups. A company may want to occasionally tap into such communities follow up on their messages (Rajasekera 11). Laad & Lewis (13) and Facebook (n.p) also acknowledge the importance of tapping into social networking sites in collecting real-time information among the public. The other potential crisis signal is public confusion on the crisis issue. According to Rajasekera (10), giant organizations should carefully coordinate media releases for all forms of media in order to prevent confusion among the public. Therefore, the emergence of conflicting messages about a crisis issue on television, radio, newspapers, the internet, or social networking sites such as YouTube or Twitter is a valuable source of information about a crisis as well as a potential crisis signal (Fritzsche 8). Additionally, risk and crisis communication need to address perceptions of the stakeholders toward the organization (Wendling, Radisch & Jacobzone 8). Polarization of the perceptions of the public and the perception of the authorities, regulators or experts is a credible source of information as well as a crisis signal. 3. Part C: Crisis Vulnerability Assessment 3.1. Potential Crisis Situations According to Coombs (269), there are several crisis types that fall under three clusters that include victim crisis cluster, accidental crisis cluster, and intentional crisis cluster. Under the victim crisis cluster, the most applicable types of crises to Facebook are rumors and product tampering or malevolence. Rumors refer to the circulation of false and potentially damaging information concerning an organization. There has to be evidence to prove that the information is false. On the other hand, product tampering or malevolence refers to damages caused by external agents to an organization. In such crises, some actor from outside the organization alters the organizations product to make it dangerous (Coombs 270; Pernille 10). Under the accidental crisis cluster, the most applicable crisis to Facebook includes challenges, technical error accidents, and technical error recalls. In challenge crisis, stakeholders may claim that the organization is not operating in an appropriate manner. A public challenge crisis is founded on ethical or moral grounds rather than legal grounds. A crisis concerning technical error accidents arises when an equipment or technology failure occasions an accident. In this type of crisis, the accident’s cause is technology/equipment related. Technical error recalls are caused by equipment or technology failure that leads to an accident and the product is deemed harmful to stakeholders (Coombs 270; Pernille 11). Under the intentional crisis cluster, the most relevant to Facebook include human error accidents, human error recalls, and organizational misdeeds. Human error due to poor performance of one’s job is the cause of the accident or crisis. Human error may also cause a product to be recalled as the product is deemed harmful to stakeholders. Management may also knowingly violate regulations or laws, thus placing stakeholders at risk by offering a product or service that is known to be harmful to stakeholders (Coombs 270; Pernille 12). 3.2. Crisis Vulnerability Score Crisis Vulnerability Score Rumors 10 Product tampering and malevolence 9 Challenges 5 Technical error accidents 4 Technical error recalls 4 Human error accidents 8 Human error recalls 6 Organizational misdeeds 2 3.3. Justification for Vulnerability Scores Crises that fall under the victim crises cluster have been generally awarded high scores since according to Coombs (269); organizations are viewed as the victims of the crisis. The threats posed by such crises originate from outside the organization and the organization may have limited control over such threats. On the other hand, accidental crisis and intentional crisis clusters have been awarded low scores because these are generally within the control of the organization. The threats posed by these crises emanate from within the organization and management has control over the quality of products or services that the organization produces. However, human error accidents have been awarded a high score because it may take time to detect that human error has occurred when developing a service. Finally, organizational misdeeds have been awarded a particularly low score because a company like Facebook will be very concerned about the quality and conduct of its employees. This gives little room for organizational misdeeds, considering the fact that the company is very concerned about its public image. Works Cited Behrens L. Jenifer. “About Facebook- Change at the Social-networking Juggernaut Creates new Opportunities for Law Library Outreach.” AALL Spectrum. 14-17. (2008) Web 26 October 2014. Coombs W. Timothy. “Impact of Past Crises on Current Crisis Communication: Insights from Situational Crisis Communication Theory.” Journal of Business Communication. 41: 265. (2004) Web. 26 October 2014. Croft, Charlene. “ A Brief History of the Facebook.” N.p. (2007) Web. 26 October 2014. Facebook. “Social Media Crisis Response Guidelines.” N.p. (2011) Web. 26 October 2014. Fritzsche, Simone. “When being Present is not enough-A Study on the Influence of Companies’ Facebook Activities on Negative User-generated Inputs and Response Strategies.” University of Twente, the Netherlands. (2012) Web. 26 October 2014. Laad Gitanjali & Lewis Gerald. “Role of Social Media in Communication.” (2012) Web. 26 October 2014. Pedersen, Pernille. “BlackBerry & Kodak Crisis Communication on Facebook.” Arhus University, Business & Social Sciences. (2013) Web. 26 October 2014. Reuter Christian, Marx Alexandra & Pipek Volkmar. “Social Software as an Infrastructure for Crisis Management-a Case Study about Current Practice and Potential Usage.” (2011) Web. 26 October 2014. Rajasekera Jay. “Challenges to Toyota Caused by Recall Problems, Social Networks and Digitization.” Asian Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1. (2013) Web 26 October 2014. Wendling Cecile, Radisch Jack, & Jacobzone Stephane. “The Use of Social Media in Risk and Crisis Communication.” OECD Working Papers on Public Governance, No. 25. (2013) Web 26 October 2014. Read More