JUNE 11, 2009

Twitter For Crisis Communications

Today, Gayle spoke at the Washington DC Cool Twitter Conferences event about using Twitter for crisis communications. She joined a variety of presenters- from journalists to non profit organizations. Among them were @cnnbrk (CNN), @thefix (The Washington Post), @organicmania, and @caregvr (Foundation For Caregivers). Here are a few notable points that made me think:

• Chris Cillizza noted that his followers want to see his personality and his take on things- not just headlines. As a representative of a major publication, he was surprised to find that his Twitter followers actually cared about the minutiae of his life, because they created a personality behind the brand.
• Mark Stelzner said that social media can promote the “pay-it-forward” ethos… @jobangels has inspired thousands of people to connect and match people up with jobs through the sheer power of community connectivity.
• Our venue for the conference, Busboys and Poets, has also made good use of Twitter for publicity. They spend no money on advertising, and yet have managed to generate a great deal of buzz through smart and extensive social media outreach. They emphasize that customers, especially the younger demographic, have become particularly responsive to the personal attention they get by interacting with the restaurant through Twitter.

It’s been a great day filled with a lot of interesting perspectives- Twitter is really a versatile tool that can be adopted for a multitude of purposes.

For those who missed it and would like to see the presentation, we’ve included Gayle’s presentation below: