Social Media

1. What impact does social media have on public relations practices, particularly crisis communications and reputation management? How significant is it for organizations today to monitor content on social media sites, including hash tags and other signs of internal and external dialogue?

2. How should crisis communications preparedness plans address the proliferation of social media outlets?

3. From the perspective of crisis communicators concerned with social media, what else could Domino’s have done or said to prove with action that its key messages are sincere? What other messages could Domino’s have delivered?

4. What other types of traditional media and social media could Domino’s have used to reach its stakeholders?

5. What other challenges do you think that PR practitioners, marketers, or corporate communicators could have in telling the truth in the digital age?

6. How important is speed of response rate in a digital world, particularly when an organization is facing a crisis situation?

7. understanding the impact of social media on public relation practices

8. understanding the concept of crisis communications

9. understanding the challenges faced by PR practitioners, marketers or corporate communicators

Introduction

Crisis communication is a sub-claim to fame of the advertising calling that is intended to ensure and safeguard an individual, organization, or association confronting an open test to its reputation. In this report, it was explained how Domino’s Pizza has seen communication crisis when two employees posted some adulterated food on Youtube. Using the case study approached it was explained how dominos manage the situation (Bruns et al.,2012).

Social Media is a platform that provides a pathway for interaction among the people in sharing their views and opinions. A term called “Social Media Crisis” has been used for description of crisis that was augmented by social media. Social media have a direct impact on public relation practices mostly in crisis communications and reputation management.  In the time of crisis, most organizations won’t be assembling crisis management teams or officials for addressing to a customer service problem which is trending on YouTube, face book or twitter. A more precise term is used for the way in which social media influences upon the emergence of crisis called as Para crisis (Bruns et al.,2012). It is a situation in which the manager addresses a crisis risk by taking the full view of the stakeholders. Due to the social media the pre crisis situation moves from private view to public. If there is ineffective crisis communication, then these paracrisis are mishandled and it escalates significantly. It is highly important to take a crisis communication call in order to handle such sensitive situations as it adversely affects on the perception of people (Austin et al., 2012). The effect on people’s perception leads to downfall of any organization thus it loses its trust from people and they will definitely look for other alternatives available in the market. Crisis communication is highly essential for communication manager of an organization to look into the situation and react accordingly by analyzing the issue triggered, the reasons behind it and how to abolish such misconception existing in the minds of people. It is significant for the organizations to monitor the content of social media sites as these social media help in promotion as well as a risk. Extension of Seeger’s best practices by incorporating social media tools, elements such as hash tags and engaging these social media as a part of risk management and crisis management. By taking these parameters into account organizations can monitor the content and avoid crisis effectively (Coombs, 2014).

Crisis communication preparedness plan includes the selection of suitable crisis response strategy. The selection of appropriate strategy can help to give an instant reaction to the emerging issue of crisis. Organizations must follow the situational crisis communication theory as proposed by Coombs. In order to address to the proliferation of social media outlets, organizations must be prepared for the crisis and react immediately from having a negative image, as social media pushes the stories around the world in seconds (Crijns et al., 2015). So a good planning and preparation is the best key to frame a successful crisis communications plan. Sticking with the facts and being transparent is another simple and best way to address to the proliferation as in a crisis people always seek for information. The release of facts and details helps to gain the trust of the people and will curb up the misconception and proliferation of the outlets (Ha & Boynton,2014).