Valley PR Blog

Fires Demonstrate Practical PR Use for Twitter

By Dan Wool on October 26th, 2007 In Social Media

Twitter for me is the line in the social media sand that divides generations. It’s relatively easy to see how most social media apply — or will apply — to PR. But I’ve always struggled with Twitter in this regard.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s micro-broadcasting via text message and generally works around the premise of “What are you doing right now?” You sign up, add friends and you can broadcast mobile updates — to cell phones, desktops, your blog, etc.

Most of these musings however seem completely random and inane. These blurbs are foreign to me for two reasons:

(1) Random musings are almost always a non-starter in blogging, and;

(2) Do my friends really care what I’m doing/thinking right this minute and do I really care enough to let them know? No and no — too much information. (For those born with ubiquitous cell phones and internet access though, those answers are probably yes. And that’s the generational rub — I know my audience, they know theirs).

That said, John Edwards uses Twitter well, but it’s along the same lines. As a Presidential candidate with local campaign organizers and passionate voters interested in keeping up with him — it makes sense.

And I get that I can search Tottenham Hotspur and find other people worldwide enjoying the same Premier League soccer match on TV — that’s cool — but difficult to apply to PR.

But with the Southern California fires, I’ve seen the future of Twitter for PR, especially crisis communication. The Los Angeles Times is using it — along with interactive Google maps, “breaking news” blogging and message boards — to broadcast headlines and URLs to keep people up-to-the-minute on the fires. These range from shelter information to breaking news posts on affected areas.

Those affected may not have their homes or electricity but they would likely have their (web enabled) cell phones. If so, that Twitter feed could be a life saver - directing to food, shelter, information, reuniting family, etc.

And that was my “a-ha” moment on the technology: for urgent, information intensive crises, where people need info and need it fast, Twitter provides a practical broadcast outlet to the public.

I’ll definitely consider it for crisis planning going forward and will continue to try to find round holes for this square peg in other PR/social media planning. But don’t expect a “blogging in my underwear while son pulls me away to make breakfast” message from me any time soon.

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