Everbridge, the leading provider of interactive communication and mass notification solutions, conducted a survey of over 400 organizations spanning a variety of public and private sectors to see how emergency and crisis communications planners incorporate social media as part of their communications strategy. The survey included key stakeholders such as employees, customers and the general public among 125 corporate, 115 government and 84 healthcare entities.

The results of the survey provided valuable insights into the current social media strategies of organizations and the reasoning behind them. Judging from both their strategies and their social media experience, it was clear that communications planners recognize social media’s value even if they don’t actually utilize it during emergencies. The survey found that, despite planners acknowledging the value of incorporating social media, 58% of respondents had no plan, with lack of authorization being the biggest factor of this response. Additionally, the importance of mobile devices is increasing, while many deem landline phones as increasingly unreliable for emergency communications.

Respondents were asked questions such as, whether they include social media such as Facebook and Twitter within their emergency communications strategy, whether they plan to do so (also why or why not), and how social media fits in with their other tools such as landline phone, mobile phone and email. Respondents were also asked about the growing role of mobile versus landline channels and how social media fits into that trend.

“It’s increasingly important that organizations recognize that lacking a social media strategy during a crisis is a strategy in and of itself, albeit not a good one. The public increasingly expects organizations to use social media both as an inbound and outbound form of communication. If your organization isn’t using social media both to communicate and monitor information during incidents, you risk missing out on important situational intelligence that could be critical to your operations and the safety of your employees and key constituents,” said Imad Mouline, chief strategy officer at Everbridge.

Related Resources

• The Social Media Gap in Crisis Communications – Download the eBook.

About Everbridge

Everbridge provides industry-leading interactive communication and mass notification solutions to organizations in all major industries and government sectors. Everbridge solutions increase connectivity to key audiences, automate communication processes, and integrate social media, data feeds, and recipient feedback into a single communications console. Ultimately, these solutions provide the insight and infrastructure that help clients save lives, manage critical activities and improve the efficiency of daily operations. For more information about Everbridge, please see www.everbridge.com.