What I really have enjoyed about the crisis communications and social media community is how everyone comes together to discuss and share ideas about new emerging social media platforms. The most recent platform currently being discussed in the field is of course Pinterest.
Jim Garrow recently wrote a very engaging post about how Pinterest can be useful for crisis communication professionals. I think that Jim made some good points about how this particular platform can be used possibly before a crisis emerges. We have to look at how this platform could be viewed as an educational forum for people to share photos and visuals showcasing how to prepare for a natural disaster, crisis, or guide people back to the ultimate digital hub for an organization or business (ex. website).
Here are some other ways that emergency managers and crisis communicators can use Pinterest:
- Showing how people can prepare for a crisis: Showing what to have in an emergency kit visually and allow people to share this with others. You never know what type of crisis you may face from a natural disaster to a zombie attack.
- Educate others with how to follow and use social media in an emergency: Giving people clear, concise, and visual steps on which platforms to use in an emergency would be very useful for others to have among their visual pins on Pinterest. Here is one example of an info graphic that I found useful that I shared on my Crisis Communications Pinterest board.
- Organize materials and visuals based on crisis situation: In traditional crisis communications practices and training discussions, we do know that there are various types of crises. Not only that, people have different perceptions of these crises – so organizing separate boards for each type of potential crisis an organization could face would make the information more organized and easily searchable.
- Contributing to Crisis Communication Group Pinterest Boards: Social media platforms like Pinterest serve as an inspiration but also a collaborative and crowd sourcing visual platform. Crisis communicators could come together to form boards where various experts, specialists, and professionals can contribute information in one centralized location. This will be helpful for the community to build the knowledge base and ideas on crisis communications. I am not sure if this has been done yet, but I would definitely think that it would be a great educational resource for not only professionals in crisis, but also for the community.
- Reaching new influencers and how they could be helpful in a crisis situation: Jim made a great point about using Pinterest to reach new audiences in a crisis. Are those who are influential on Pinterest the same as those who are influential on Twitter and Facebook? These are questions we have to explore and research to be able to answer.
- Incorporate Pinterest Etiquette into your Crisis Communications Plan: Understanding what you can post and what you can’t is key – especially for organizations, agencies, and businesses. Knowing what is the proper etiquette for the site and also having a discussion about possible scenarios that could create or even trigger a crisis event on the site need to also be discussed.
- Combining gamification principles with crisis communications on Pinterest: One way to incorporate gamification principles on Pinterest for a crisis situation is to encourage followers to upload their visuals about how they could prepare for a crisis and have rankings on the most shared or repined visuals on the site. It is also key to share these ranking across other social media platforms for the organization, agency, or business in question.
In summary, I think that the crisis community is really coming together and having a great discussion about the impact and application of an emerging social media platform like Pinterest in a crisis. We need to have these inspirational discussions so we can adapt and evolve our crisis communication practices and message strategies.
Let the creative discussion and inspirational ideas about how this particular social media platform could be used in crisis communications!
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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