Social Media and Business Continuity

More organizations today have instituted social media usage policies and many have Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and blogs. Their business continuity plans, however, don't usually contain social media strategies. It seems that the time is ripe to update those plans to reflect the usage of these social media tools in your plans. This week's articles can help point out how to use social media as disaster response and recovery tools.

If you're one of the many who have questions about social media, here are some answers for you. (Item #1)   Read how Facebook, text messages, and telehealth technologies play a role in emergency response. (Item #2)   Today's technologically savvy employees are connected through social media... you can take advantage of this in your BC plans. (Item #3)  

Is social media the new crisis response tool? (Item #4)   Don't be caught on the sidelines of the social media movement; put these tools to work for you. (Item #5)   What's the point of Twitter in a business context? (Item #6)  

As always, we look forward to hearing your comments & insights regarding business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp

1. Social Media and Emergency Management: Top 10 Questions

After speaking to various groups I am reminded that there is a large contingent of people in response organizations that have heard of social media, but might not understand some of the basics. If you fall into that camp, this post is for you. I have outlined the top ten questions that I often hear, both through speaking and even through our Social Media and Emergency Management chats.
http://idisaster.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/social-media-and-emergency-management-top-10-questions/

2. New Toolkit for Disaster Response: Social Media, Mobile Tools & Telehealth

When you think of large-scale disasters, such as the recent earthquake in Haiti or 2008's Hurricane Ike, Facebook, text messages and telehealth technologies might not be the first things that come to mind, but these tools are playing an increasingly important role in emergency response efforts.
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/features/2010/new-toolkit-for-disaster-response-social-media-mobile-tools--telehealth.aspx#ixzz1RRzlLZPL

3. Does Social Media play a part during a Business Continuity Crisis?

With an ever growing new generation of population eg Gen Y, Gen Z and the Noughties, who are technically savvy with iPods and iPhones, some business continuity specialists have begun to think of new ways of communication channels and reaching employees and public during a crisis. Most commonly, phone calls, emails, internal paging systems, loudspeakers, and the news media were the primary forms of information dissemination. But today we are finding more and more, new generations are more connected through social media.
http://www.businesscontinuityblog.com/business-continuity/does-social-media-play-a-part-during-a-business-continuity-crisis

4. Social Media - The New 'Crisis and Emergency Response' Management Tool

The devastating earthquake in Haiti and the recent BP oil spill have something in common. While one was a natural disaster and the other a human error - both these grueling incidents showed us the importance of social media as the modern-age tool for managing crisis and emergency response.
http://smedio.com/2010/08/13/social-media-the-new-%e2%80%98crisis-and-emergency-response%e2%80%99-management-tool/

5. Harnessing the Power of Social Media in Disaster

Social media is transforming the Internet. Previously dominated by a handful of professional programmers pushing information, today's Internet is ruled by social networks pulling contributions from millions of users. And while the emergency management community is utilizing this new medium to harness the collective knowledge of the public to direct response and save lives, the business continuity community remains largely on the sidelines of this movement.
http://www.continuityinsights.com/articles/harnessing-the-power-of-social-media-in-disaster-response

6. Is Twitter a new tool for Business Continuity?

When I saw an example of Twitter being used for customer communication in a business recovery context I decided to dig a little deeper. Most people know what Twitter is and the basics of how it works: Twitter restricts you to publishing quick, frequent, 140 character messages. Your "followers" then pick up alerts via their Twitter home page, their elected email account or their mobile telephone, if the phone and their network provider support it. That's all well and good, but what's the point of it in a business context? This week I got my answer.
http://www.riskcentric.co.uk/blog/?p=21