eHealth Articles & White Papers

Online Crisis Communications Goes Beyond the Website

Ben Dillon - Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

The healthcare industry has been on quite a rollercoaster ride these past few months. Now is a great time to ensure your crisis communications plan contains a strategy for communicating difficult messages and includes the new media channels your stakeholders are using.

You most likely use your website as part of your crisis communications, but eCommunication has evolved to encompass more than just the website.  Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media outlets are the new prime real estate online.

Social media provides a host of new tools that offer excellent solutions to specific communications challenges.  Not every tool fits every situation. And some tools are more useful at the crisis point only if you've taken the time to cultivate the community ahead of time.

Before a crisis occurs

Preparation is key to successful communications in the midst of a crisis.  The fewer decisions that require debate in the middle of an event, the better off you'll be. Here are some steps you can take now to ensure you're prepared if a crisis arises.

Plan, plan, plan

How do you intend to use various social media tools within your crisis communications plan?  Individual tools work more appropriately for different types of situations and communications. For example, a video on YouTube may be a good approach for addressing employee distress resulting from layoffs, but it's ineffective if you have a bomb threat. Bomb threats require instant notification of staff no matter where they are, so broadcast text messaging is a far better communications platform.

Become familiar with the tools

Be comfortable with the tools that you're using before the crisis occurs.  Do you have an approval process for providing information to the public?  Can you send information using mobile devices?  Do you understand who gets the information when you click submit?  In the middle of a crisis is never a good time to learn a new tool.

Build the community

You will have more success if you are a participant in an online community, or in the process of building that community long before the crisis occurs. Waiting until you are in the midst of a challenging situation leaves you playing catch up.

Create a dark site

Your primary website, social networking presence or blog are designed to meet the needs of day-to-day communications.  They may not meet your communications needs during the crisis.  Many tools allow you to set up a special "dark site" page, with minimal design, that can be quickly swapped in when needed. 

For example, after the Virginia Tech shootings, they replaced their normal home page with a minimalist design focused entirely on the tragedy. This helped them deal with the bandwidth requirements of the traffic increase they were experiencing, as well as send a clear message that the incident was their top priority as an organization.

During a crisis

If a crisis hits, it's time to use social media to send your approved messages to the public. Here are some important points to remember:

Know how to use the various media

Each class of social media tools is used and accessed differently.  And individual users engage with these tools at different levels based on their role and interest in the topic. All of this is important to choosing the correct media to use based on your communications challenges:

• Are your communications challenges short term or will they continue for a long period of time?
• Are you interested in generating an active discussion, or do you simply want to communicate your message in a timely and effective manner?
• Will the people you are attempting to reach be at a computer as the communications occur?

Long-term challenges or fast changing situations lend themselves to tools where the history of your messages is easy to access.  A blog is well suited to situations where thoughtful discussion is encouraged. Twitter or social networks are good tools for collecting information from a variety of participants as events unfold. For example, Twitter has been a staple of communications during fire events in Southern California as cell networks become overwhelmed by voice calls.

Know what to communicate

The principles of good crisis communications still apply here, but social media certainly allows for some different approaches. Be accessible, begin with what you know (and are approved to communicate) and maintain consistency.

Even the frequency of your updates should be strategic as the timing of your communications provides important insight into the significance of the crisis and the importance management places upon it.

Know how to communicate

Social media provides new methods for communicating, such as through video on YouTube. For example, when JetBlue left its customers stranded on planes for hours, they responded with an individual apology and pledge to consumers going forward.

In other cases, social media allows us to move from a communication to a conversation through blogs, forums, and social networks. Another example: throughout the merger between Medical Associates, a Wisconsin-based clinic group and healthcare system ProHealth Care, Dr. Clyde "Bud" Chumbley, Medical Associates CEO, ran BUDblog, a blog through which he communicated with physicians and staff about the merger and responded to questions and concerns. The blog helped staff deal with the merger and provided a channel through which they could share their feelings with senior management.

After the crisis

The economy will rebound and your organization will eventually begin hiring again. After the urgency of the moment, it's important to incorporate some type of ongoing communications post-crisis.

For the short-term, a positive ongoing conversation after the resolution can be a productive way for those engaging in the discussion to find closure.  There may also a long-term opportunity in continuing to nurture the discussion or community that has developed during a time of challenge. 

Keeping a community that was created around a crisis intact after the fact can be tough, but doing so successfully gives you a more robust communications channel next time it is needed.

Social media offers an effective communications channel during a crisis

With the flow of industry challenges showing no signs of slowing, now is a good time to update your crisis communications plan in light of a changing communications landscape. Social media provides a tremendous toolbox that can be applied to communications in times of crisis.

Getting familiar with the tools and planning for how and when you want to use them is critical to their successful application.  Used well, these tools can improve the timeliness and effectiveness of your crisis communications, and that's the ultimate goal.