Sharing the story of our lives through Facebook- but does this also include crisis and disaster situations?: Opportunities & Challenges with Facebook Timeline for Crisis Communications

Today was a big day in the social media world – many professionals, bloggers, and tech sites were reporting how Facebook was going to be launching some new innovative features towards their site at their annual F8 conference.

Well, the social media giant did not disappoint – but instead, it opened the door to a new perspective of thinking about digital story telling and created a paradigm shift in the new emerging media sphere.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Facebook Timeline, which is a new feature for profiles that allows the user to share their story and categorize major occasions into one centralized location.  In other words, the Facebook profile is going to be the personalized Flipboard for social networking, which is definitely a big yet exciting step to take.

So, what do some of these innovative changes have to do with crisis communications? Well, there are certainly many possibilities and considerations to be made here.  Here are just some of my initial thoughts on how these new profile developments with timeline from Facebook may play a part in how we handle crises and how we communicate to our audiences:

• Knowing more about our audience and their own history (aka timeline):  We will be able to determine what were some of the momentous occasions and places people have gone to beyond the basic demographic information and even psychographic.  We are able to get more towards the social and technological behavior people are willing to share online about themselves in a multimedia format.  Videos, timelines, geolocation, and specific references to activities on FB are just some of the new features.  However, this also can show crisis communication professionals also a window into individuals who have been part of crisis situations before (ex. natural disasters, etc) – will this be useful information to have for these organizations and professionals?  Maybe – it will be interesting to see how this may develop.
• Insight into how people and brands see themselves:  Understanding our audience and their motivations are one of the key principles in PR and Strategic Communications – but the same principles apply for crisis communications as well.  We are able to have a one-stop shop place to look at how people see themselves and how they present themselves to the world.  This would be insightful knowledge to look at especially when determining who will be an effective spokesperson and someone willing to share their story with the company  / client / organization in a time of crisis.
• Reputation management is not only focused on the now – but also looks towards the past and future:  If we are able to determine what people have done in the past from various pictures, locations, and other factors – these are all factors that can influence how they are perceived by the online community and audience.  Not only is your reputation going to be about what you have done since you have joined Facebook, but is also goes back to when you were born.  Thinking about this – the younger generation of users will have their lives displayed for the world to see at a younger age, and how this will play to their future endeavors in their lives.
• Sharing your story – but how do you REALLY know that it is someone’s story?:  One of the things that is key to be aware of whenever you look at new technology is the fact that you have to look at both the benefits and challenges for each feature.  With Facebook Timeline – you have to take into consideration the fact that not everyone is going to be sharing their story with the rest of the world, and there are others who will do so. The issue of privacy and security for information will most likely come up again with these new features for Facebook as well – and will continue in a crisis situation if it involves reputation management.
• Combination of news and video for press conferences, interviews, and real-time visuals from crisis situations.  With the connection to some major news sites shows the increase focus of social search and influence – by looking at what your social community is reading about will help you determine the places to make sure to get your information out to in a crisis situation.
• Sharing your information wherever you are and on the go with mobile. Apps are going to be more social and a bigger part of the new features from Facebook. It is allowing users to personalize more in real-time what they like in terms of applications and what they would like to see on their Facebook page.  What this means for crisis communicators is that we may have even a more difficult time reaching audiences if they are all using personalized features with their application.
• More focus on SEO and key term search for updates among users.  One of the new features that is being implemented in the new FB page is for whenever people are cooking, searching for information, or listening to a song – this is part of their update to capture what the person is doing at that moment on Facebook.  Imagine the amount of data and research metrics that would need to be considered and added to the mix in social media monitoring during a crisis – crisis communicators would be able to track more specifically on what people were actually doing on FB before, during, and after a crisis.  These emerging possibilities and challenges / issues (ex. privacy) definitely need to be discussed further in the crisis communication profession.