Just yesterday Burson-Masteller presented a comprehensive study on Fortune 500 companies and how they are participating in the world of social media. http://www.digitalperspectiveblog.com/2010/02/23/79-of-fortune-100-companies-using-social-media The study looks into the practices of these companies and how they are using the Internet to propagate messages with the public. It presented several markets across the world and also the percentages of users from within these companies.
As we discussed in class the way a company carefully builds a strategic plan and assesses crisis vulnerability will ultimately impact the way in which they will react once a crisis happens. The careful planning and creation of a crisis management plan goes hand in hand with how this company will be viewed by the stakeholders, employees and outside public. Social Media, in this time and age, has become an intrinsic part of these crisis management plan and all those companies that are using it in a proper way should be commended for using it in a pre-emptive way.
Why do I say “pre-emptive”? Because companies that are careful with disseminating a message through the internet and have an in-house group or a PR agency to run a well though-out comprehensive approach to social media are already preparing the way for when a crisis happens. Not only are these companies disseminating a positive message but they are aware of what is being written about them by outside sources, sometimes negative and other times positive- and they can react accordingly.
B-M as one of the PR powerhouses has had in place a whole arm for Social Media - Proof Digital Media - not only for themselves, but for their clients. http://www.burson-marsteller.com/Practices_And_Specialties/Digital_Media/Pages/Default.aspx . In their site they warn their potential and current clients that “digital conversations are happening right now … about your business, about your brand, about your leadership roles.” What a better way to prepare for a crisis than to be in-tuned and in control with what is being exposed about your company in the world of social media?
Kudos to B-M and their team at Proof Media Digital for having the foresight about the impact of social media and providing their clients with their expertise on this new way of communication!
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