This document provides an overview of crisis communication and the importance of social media. It discusses how social media is an important tool for crisis communication from an academic perspective, and analyzes how Asiana Airlines used social media after a plane crash. Key points include that social media allows for two-way communication during a crisis, narrative style posts on platforms like Facebook are more effective, and that Asiana Airlines' use of Twitter to engage with the public was observed. The document concludes with tips for crisis managers, such as monitoring social media, engaging rather than intimidating online, and maintaining transparency.

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Crisis Communication
and Social Media
Young Kim, Ph.D. Student,
Manship School of Mass Communication

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Contents
What is crisis and crisis communication?
Why social media is important in crisis
communication? (Academic perspective)
How do the organization use social media in
a crisis situation? (Asiana Airlines crash case)
Conclusion (Tips for crisis managers)

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Crisis & Crisis Communication

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“Social media is a broad term that
covers a variety of different online
communication tools”
(Coombs, 2012)
“Social media is information
created by stakeholders online
through blogs, microblogs (Twitter),
and social networks (Facebook)”
(Coombs, 2009)

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“Posting PR information on Facebook
during a time of crisis can improve the
overall image of the organization
experiencing the crisis”
(Hong & Kim, 2013)

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“Facebook posts written in a narrative style are
more effective than posts written in a non-
narrative format.” (Hong & Kim, 2013)

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“The medium is more important than the message”
(Schultz et al., 2011)
“people talk more about newspaper articles (crisis)
than about blogs or tweets.” (secondary crisis communication)
“crisis communication via twitter led to negative crisis
reactions than blogs and newspaper articles.” (reaction)
“Individuals in the ‘twitter + blogs’ condition gave the
highest score on post-crisis reputation.” (reputation)

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“More traditional forms (e.g., word of mouth and
traditional media) can significantly affect how
publics respond to crisis information and what kind of
emotions are likely to be felt.”
(Liu et al., 2011)
“Social media play a more important role at later
crisis states (after a crisis is already well-known and
widely spread), providing crisis emotional support.”
(Liu et al., 2011)

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http://geert-hofstede.com/ cultural-tools.html

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1: Replied tweets (@) by the publics
2: Retweets (RT)
3: Replied Tweets (@) by organizations
4: Original Tweets
Type of tweets
on Asiana Airlines Twitter accounts

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Communication tools
on Asiana Airlines Twitter accounts

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Observation
(Practice)
Theory
Development
Theory
Testing
Application
to Practice

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Scan for
negative
outcomes
Assess Impact:
Is the person
important
online?
Assess Impact:
Is there potential
for the message
to spread?
Unethical treatment
about employees
and animals
Complaints
about the product.
False information
about the organizationScan
Person
Spread
Rumors
Complaint
Challenges
Social
Media

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Advice to Crisis Managers:1) Be seen!
Place crisis information on your website2) Go where the action is.(who you work for / why you respond to the
message)
3) Engagement vs. Intimidation(Contact them about the problem /Scare stakeholders in to being silentonline)

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Please avoid these mistakes :
1) More talking, not listening(Social media is about the stakeholders.Please listen and respond when appropriate)2) Need of transparency(Must identify who you work for)

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Thank You!