Quinn & Co. public relations

This post comes from Allison Greenberg, Q&C’s social media monthly blogger.

What would you do if your business suddenly lost power and 30-foot high flames were shooting up from the street? This is exactly the situation two Washington D.C. hotels, the W and the Willard Intercontinental, were recently faced with when an underground transformer caught fire beneath the sidewalk.

So how did these hotels handle communicating with guests and the media during the crisis?

The W relied on traditional communications methods such as keeping phone lines staffed to answer questions.

Meanwhile, the Willard InterContinental utilized both Twitter and Facebook to provide important updates to its guests. The hotel used relevant hashtags such as #dcfire to communicate with others tracking the story. Additionally, the property reached out via Twitter to news sources talking about the fire to share updated details. 

In emergency situations, it’s important for any company to be prepared with a crisis communications plan complete with items such as full contact details for a dedicated communications team, a designated spokesperson and a policy for responding to media inquiries.

If your business is active on social media, you may want to consider adding social media to your communications strategy. This will allow you to quickly share updates with both consumers and media.  

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Be timely:  Your social media manager should be an integral part of the crisis communications team. As soon as information is available, it should be shared via social media networks.
• Be clear:  With only 140 characters, it can be tough to clearly convey a message in times of crisis. Choose your words wisely and try to only use widely known abbreviations.
• Be honest:  During a crisis, rumors and assumptions can spread quickly. Make sure you are not adding to the rumors by only providing factual posts.

Don’t forget, Foursquare can also be useful for sharing news during a crisis. The Wall Street Journal set the precedent for this by reporting on the evacuation of Times Square in May.

Have you had success communicating through social networks during a crisis?