Airline use of social media during the Icelandic volcano eruption

It seems like every time I'm scheduled to discuss the role of social media in crisis communication some major crisis comes along -- usually just in time for class. This semester was no exception. The global disruption in air travel caused by the eruption of a volcano in Iceland created an interesting case for us to examine in class today. What I like about this case study is that it deals with a different type of crisis than the ones we normally look at in our PR classes: a crisis that wasn't directly or indirectly caused by an organization. The fact that it affected not just one airline but an entire industry also allowed for an interesting comparative analysis of the various airlines' crisis responses.

I split my class into teams and had each team examine a different airline's social media use. We then compared notes and gave each airline a grade on its crisis response. In case you're curious, the highest grades went to KLM and Lufthansa (both received As for their use of social media during this crisis). KLM is even rebooking passengers through Twitter!

Here are the notes from today's class:

View more presentations from Corinne Weisgerber.

Update: Also check out this excellent post by Thorsten Ulmer comparing several German airlines and their use of Twitter during this crisis (in German).

Twitter and its uses in PR, journalism, crisis communication...

Now that your blogs are all up and running, it's time to give microblogging a try! Since Twitter is the most popular microblogging tool, that's what we will focus on in class. I've created the slideshow below to introduce you to both the technology and its many uses. The slideshow contains a lot of embedded links to examples. Please note that sometimes you have to position your cursor just right to be able to click on the link.

Twitter for Public Relations

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: twitter pr)

Links to the videos contained in the slideshow:

• Twitter in plain English
  
• Comcast technician sleeping on couch
• Rick Sanchez using twitter while on the air

The history of public relations practice - A student project

My intro to PR class just finished its PR history project and since I've been trying out a brand-new assignment this semester, I thought I'd share the end product here. The assignment required each student to research a particular time period and to upload the findings into a digital timeline created on Dipity. Students had to write a short narrative to summarize each event and locate multimedia files (pictures, links, videos) that would illustrate those events. Each student was responsible for identifying at least 5 events within a given time period. 

The result is a pretty neat (okay, so I'm biased...) little timeline of the history of the PR profession which we will hopefully build on in future classes. We found out the hard way that Dipity doesn't allow for B.C. dates, so you'll need to excuse the ancient Greeks and Cicero showing up on the wrong date. Take a look, and if you like it, let them know - they've done a lot of work on this.