Social media can be a quick, easy way to distribute news that impacts your school’s families, adding a resource to your school’s communication tools. However, in the event of a crisis, social media can work against your school’s efforts to secure your campus and reduce panic.
Social Media: Crisis Mode
Imagine logging on to your personal Facebook page and seeing a message from your neighbor that there’s a shooter walking through your neighborhood. Most of us would stop what we’re doing—leave work, drop the shopping bags, cancel lunch—to make sure our property and loved ones are safe.
Now, imagine how a post from your school—written by a student or an employee—could cause a similar panic through your community.
Social channels have become one of the most challenging aspects of developing and orchestrating crisis plans because of the speed in which messages can be delivered. Incorporating social media into your Crisis Plan as a way to quickly inform parents of serious situations on campus would be playing with the proverbial fire: Powerful if used correctly, but also liable to burn out of control.
Furthermore, there is no way to stop social media messages from being spread, aside from deleting or editing the original post (if possible). Even deleting them can’t stop community members who may have seen the message from posting their own alarming interpretations, resulting in unnecessary alarm and misinterpretations.
Misleading information shared during a crisis can impact how the situation is handled as well as your school’s reputation.
To throw more fuel on the fire, fact checking is not typically done on social platforms. Posting, sharing, liking, and re-posting can be done in a blink of an eye.
For most of social media’s content, the ease of distribution is an advantage for your school’s marketing and communication plan. However, in the event of a crisis, your school should never surrender complete control of the information disseminated. The public can erroneously alter the situation with their interpretations, which will require constant policing and oversight—something you’re not likely going to have time to manage while also managing the situation on campus.
Social media can also impact the communications with your first responders by adding noise and confusion to delicate situations.
In the event of a lockdown, for example, your staff might be communicating with first responders by walkie-talkies and smart devices. If a student tweets misleading information about the whereabouts of the unauthorized person on campus, those trying to secure your campus could be misled—resulting in increased danger for all involved.
Even beyond the immediate danger of misinformation spreading during the event, opinions expressed on social platforms regarding how first responders managed the event could also create a post-event PR crisis. Public critique of your school’s response to crises could be enhanced from the social media record of those (misinformed) posts.
Finally, many schools use multi-platform content management systems (CMS) such as Hootsuite or Pardot to automate posts on social media. Such automated messages interrupting information dissemination during a serious crisis can be viewed as insensitive and inappropriate by your school community. (They would simply see the post, and not understand that it was done automatically.)
Social media CMS all have a “kill switch” function built into them, designed to hold scheduled messages until turned back on. Your school’s Crisis Plan should include flipping the kill switch as one of the security measurements.
Effective Social Media During a Crisis
We talked about how difficult overseeing (and quickly squashing) panic and misinformation on social media can be. However, in schools that have given an employee the dedicated role of managing communications during a crisis, the speed in which your messages through social media can be relayed is a huge plus.
This person should be well trained in producing, responding to, and managing the appropriate dissemination of content during a crisis. Posts should be fact only—not speculative—and be limited to information that directly impacts the community and your school’s families. This person should also have access to pertinent information as quickly as possible, and be involved in communications between first responders and overseeing administrators.
While we mentioned that multiple opinions surrounding a crisis at school can be a problem, it can also work in your school’s favor during crisis situations. Social media opens doors for new information and perspective. There is some truth in the old saying, “There’s no such thing as too much information.” A constant stream of messages based on facts can provide responders and your school’s social media followers a view of what the situation is like on the ground level.
Critique will almost certainly come in the wake of a large crisis. However, your school can plan ahead for how to deal with such negativity well in advance.
Comprehensive crisis plans should include policies for how employees and students should respond to social media inquires, posts, and comments. These policies can help your school’s post-crisis PR management by rebuilding and reestablishing your mission.
Your school’s culture and values should be at the heart of its social shares following a crisis. In the end, culture and values—your school’s mission and reason for being—should be at the heart of its shares, whether it’s covering a crisis or a carnival.
Additional ISM resources:
The Source for School Heads Vol. 10 No. 6 When (Not If) a Crisis Happens, Will You Be Ready?
The Source for Risk Managers Vol. 5 No.1 Managing Risk Beyond Gun Threats
The Source for Risk Managers Vol. 3 No.3 Four-Team Approach for Creating and Maintaining a Crisis Plan
The Source of Private School News Vol. 10 No. 7 School Shooting Lawsuit Raises Risk Management Concerns
The Source for Risk Managers Vol. 1 No. 3 Managing Risk With Basic Drills
The Source for Business Managers Vol.10 No. 2 Reducing Student Risk With Up-To-Date Medical Records
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 35 No. 12 Does Your Crisis Plan Really Protect Your Students (and School)?
I&P Vol. 35 No. 14 Developing Your Business Continuation Plan
