The Story:
Weber Shandwick, a digital marketing agency in the US has won multiple awards this year, but most recently, it took home the prize from PRWeek for PR Innovation of the Year for its proprietary online social crisis simulator, FireBell. This simulator illustrates the fallout of a public relations crisis across multiple social media platforms (including YoutTube, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, and various blogs). They use real images of the companies actual social media profiles and show exactly what it would look like in a crisis and how it would unfold, and the unexpected spin that may be put on various situations. This allows companies to evaluate the potential fall-out and understand how to best handle these situations before they may occur.
Reflection and Analysis:
While this article is not necessarily related to one particular brand, the development of this simulator may have positive repercussions for numerous brands today. I think this is a great new way to help prepare companies for potentially harmful public relations issues. Too often, a situation arises and companies are vastly unprepared to manage the consequences and their action or lack thereof is what inevitably comes under question. Since social media has increased in popularity, it is becoming an area of business that cannot be ignored and must be managed effectively.
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