Talk Internal Communication

For PR practitioners who are sometimes told our stories aren't newsworthy enough its amazing that Barack Obama's tweeting makes news across the world ! Just in case you haven't heard the story is that President Barack Obama recently referred to himself as “the first president to live tweet.”  His tweet read : “in order to reduce the deficit, what costs would you cut and what investments would you keep?”. Obama's live tweeting is only the latest example of the President’s interest in social media. In May, the president named Twitter CEO Dick Costolo to his National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff gave twitter a real morbid twist when he tweeted about Utah inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner’s execution by firing squad. Shurtleff actually posted not one, not two, but three tweets. Do you want to read them? Click on the link below. Number One A solemn day. Barring a stay by Sup Ct, & with my final nod, Utah will use most extreme power & execute a killer. Mourn his victims. Justice Number Two: I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner’s execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims. And finally, number three: We will be streaming live my press conference as soon as I’m told Gardner is dead. Watch it at www.attorneygeneral.Utah.gov/live.html I think we can conclude that Shurtleff is certainly a master of self-promotion (his tweets got coverage around the globe) but is this right?

Last week on 2nd June 2010 a series of shootings took place in Cumbria. Lucky for many the police used their twitter account to alert people to the danger. Their first message was "Urgent public message - Shots fired in Whitehaven". Traditional methods of communication would have been more time consuming and would have been slower to reach a large audience. The police therefore decided to use twitter, a channel that can be used by anyone at anytime. Their Twitter account is available on http://twitter.com/cumbriapolice . This crisis demonstrates the importance and benefits of being social media savvy in a crisis. Organisations would be well advised to develop their social media accounts and to incorporate their use in their crisis plans and crisis management planning.