The Earthquake in Chile and Social Media: How B-M Made Sure Their Employees Were Safe

Last Friday, February 26^th, we woke up to the horrible news that another earthquake had hit, this time in Chile with a magnitude of 8.8 in the Richter scale. The news media was flooded with news of the destruction in Chile and of the possible tsunamis threatening Hawaii, California and Mexico. In this time and age where more and more people are turning to Social Media for their news, Twitter, Google and Mashable became the unsung heroes by creating a network of information where people could find each other during the crisis.

I follow most of the Twitter accounts set-up for Burson-Marsteller and was able to track throughout the next few days how B-M’s employees in the United States looked for information about their comrades in Latin America trying desperately to find any news about their peers through the social media channels. Not only did one see the honest worry in their tweets but one could sense that even if these BMers from New York, Boston and San Francisco had not personally met their peers in Chile the fact they communicated through social media channels and the fact they all worked for B-M was enough to create an empathy among them.

On March 1^st, @BMGlobalNews tweeted “Burson-Marsteller is glad to say our colleagues in B-M Chile have been accounted for and are safe. Our thoughts go out to the people Chile.”

On March 2^nd, Santiago Hinojosa, President and Chief Executive of B-M Latin America (Twitter @BmLatAm) had written a blog (http://br.bmlatamblog.com/) expressing his sadness regarding the earthquake and letting the readers know how they could help in the relief efforts. He continued to state that he was in contact with Emilio Sanfuentes, Director of B-M Chile and making sure the Chilean B-M employees and their families were safe.

It made me think of how well B-M has strategized through their employees a communication system that can help them in the case of a crisis – in this case a natural disaster.