Don't ask me to explain Twitter. I'm really bad at it. But what I hope this example will demonstrate is the power of this medium and why everyone needs to be part of the global conversation that Twitter facilitates.
At 1:25am yesterday Mike Wilson, aka @2drinksbehind, live-Twittered that he had just been in a plane crash in Denver. At 1:58am @breakingnewson picked up the story and issued the first news bulletin about Continental Airline's 737 that had slid off the runway and crashed in Denver. By the time that any UK media had even been alerted to the story, I knew the first hand details of the crash via @2drinksbehind as well as the details of the 'how' and 'why' as the news spread on Twitter and the facts were verified by those that I 'follow'.
In terms of the PR professional the learnings of this is that news travels much quicker than you think, it really is a 24 hour news cycle. And in dealing with any crisis, it is important that you do so with transparency and integrity. 'The truth will out' has never been more apparent as illustrated by this breaking news story. And this is a good thing, because as much as this story has any number of sources it also has the equivilant number of advocates. In dealing with this devastating event, Continental has had the opportunity to demonstrate that it is a caring and public-facing company that really puts its customers first. I wonder if it has?
Comments