The devastating earthquake in Haiti and Japan, and the BP oil spill had something in common. While the first two were natural disasters, the latter a human error – these grueling incidents showed us the importance of social media as the modern-age tool for managing crisis and emergency response.

While a lot has been said about how social media is useful to businesses as a marketing, advertising and customer service tool, not many businesses are aware that it works equally effectively for emergency response management. It is hardly surprising that social media is termed as the ‘911 of the Internet’.

Red Cross Research

I’m not the only one who believes that social media has tremendous potential as a crisis management tool. A recent survey done by the American Red Cross confirms that nearly one in every five web users turn to social media in case of emergency situations and when they need urgent help.

The Haiti and Japan earthquakes are classic examples where social media played a major role in boosting the humanitarian efforts and accumulating relief funds for the devastated nations.

Not just individuals, businesses too

I’ve always believed that the beauty of social media lies in its usage for “one and all”. While I’m a strong believer that the “one size fits all” approach doesn’t work everywhere – I believe that social media has so many variants that it can cater to a large audience.

I believe that social media is an effective emergency response and crisis management option for individuals as well. For example, if a business website or server is shutdown due to power outage or any other accidental failure, social media is an instantaneous medium to let your customers know about it.

There are several companies which already use Twitter and Facebook to inform customers about scheduled maintenance and periodic upgrades, so there’s no reason why it can’t be used for accidental shutdowns.

Instantaneous Communication

Response time is the single most important factor when it comes to handling emergency situations and no other medium can beat social media when it comes to response time. It’s instant, it’s simple and it’s effective – that’s as powerful and effective a combination as you’ll ever get.

Apart from providing customers with instant updates about emergency situations, social media also lets businesses be socially responsible and join the collective cause to help others in emergency situations.

Email isn’t good enough

When it comes to situations which demand an emergency response, email simply isn’t good enough due to the delays associated with it. In contrast, social media is faster and lot more effective in getting the message across in virtually no time.

Social media leverages the transformative power of the web in a smart way in order to help deal with crisis situations.

The bottom line is that social media empowers individuals and businesses to be a part of the emergency response, not as the victims of such emergency situations.

If you’ve any guidelines or suggestions on what marketing and crisis management tactics should be strictly avoided on Twitter and Facebook, please share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.