Europe's most popular communications, PR
and media conversation

February 10, 2012 CommsChat with John Evans on social media crisis simulations

For #CommsChat on Monday 13 February, we’re going to be joined by John Evans from Weber Shandwick to look at the use of mock crises in social media crisis training.

John is the head of digital corporate, PA and financial EMEA at Weber Shandwick which has recently launched its crisis management tool, Firebell, in Europe.

With frequent cases of companies failing to react effectively to a crisis on social media platforms, should more organisations be drilled in crisis communications? #CommsChat will discuss social media crises and whether companies benefit from the practice run that crisis simulations can provide. Get your thinking caps on because we are also going to be asking you what mock social media crisis scenarios you can come up with!

Topics up for debate are:

1) How crucial are the first 12 hours of social media activity in a crisis?

2) What can employees learn from a mock crisis that they can’t learn from training without simulation?

3) Which departments should take part in the simulation?

4) Do companies which outsource their PR need to prepare for crises?

5) What sorts of mock scenarios would you come up with to put an organisation through its paces?

#CommsChat will last an hour, from 8-9pm Monday (UK time). Take part right here on the CommsChat site, or by tagging your tweets with the #CommsChat hashtag. A transcript will go up on Tuesday morning.

See what others are talking about "Jan Leeks"

: #CommsChat, crisis communications, February, mock crises, Social Media, training