With the advent of social media, handling a crisis is subject to changed expectations; citizens and consumers are more demanding of the truth, there is a wider range of influencers than ever before and there is more activism as a consequence of social media and its power to communicate issues very quickly, than there ever has been in the past.

Social media distributes, escalates and amplifies issues at a greater magnitude than we have ever witnessed. Authentic communication, including transparency, accountability and the speed at which you react to the situation is the key to managing and resolving a crisis situation.

Take for example, the live coverage of the hostage situation in the Philippines this week, involving a Hong Thai Travel tour group from Hong Kong. The Philippines government allowed their handling of the situation to be televised as it played out and are now subject to intense criticism in the media and online communities for their handling of the situation, which many deem to be inept, contributing to the loss of lives of seven tourists and the hostage taker.

Distribution: Twitter helped proliferate information about the crisis at lightning speed. One ‘tweeter' was literally ‘live-tweeting' updates, using the hash tag #manila, and was most probably at the scene.

Coverage by the mainstream media provides credibility, and is widely picked up online by netizens, bloggers etc. So Twitter users were cross-referencing traditional media, such as the wires (eg. Reuters, Associate Press), newspapers, and along with broadcasters who showed the situation live on cable television (eg. CNN, BBC). Video clippings of the crisis were posted on YouTube as well as the broadcasters websites, eg cnn.com.

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