14 March 2010
Japan in crisis: The role of communication and social media
Japanese citizens use social media sites to communicate during the country's fatal tsunami.
The role of social media during crises, natural or otherwise, is now widely acknowledged throughout the world, and placed high on crisis communication agendas. 
As demonstrated during the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan on Friday 11th March, social media sites like Twitter, Mixi and YouTube continue to increase awareness of the scale of natural disasters, aid the search for missing people and enable charities to amplify their global call out for donations and volunteers.
When the earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter Scale struck Japan on Friday, access to mobile phone networks was restricted and since then, citizens have been turning to Japan's biggest social networking site Mixi to send exchange vital information on what’s happening.
Search engine Google reacted quickly on Friday by offering a free tool to help people locate missing friends and family. The tool, called Person Finder, available in Japanese and English, acts as a lost and found database in which people can add the names and other details about their missing loved ones or information about people they have found.
Google also made this tool available during recent earthquakes in Chile, Haiti, and New Zealand, as well as the floods in Brazil and Pakistan last year.
Five million people logged on to YouTube on the day after the tsunami.
Twitter guide
Reacting to the disaster quickly, Twitter has published a guide on how impacted citizens can use the network to communicate and receive vital information. It listed key hashtags (terms that are included in each that message, or tweet, in order to group messages around a specific topic) for people to use, including:
- #Jishin: focuses around general earthquake information
- #Anpi: a hashtag for the confirmation of the safety of individuals or places
- #Hinan: Evacuation information
- #311care: a hashtag regarding medical information for the victims
- #PrayforJapan: A general hashtag for support and best wishes for victims of the crisis
Twitter is now not only used in reaction to a crisis, but it is increasingly being used proactively to garner support for social causes and large-scale demonstrations. It played such a pivotal role in spreading the word during the uprising in Egypt, that authorities made several attempts to block access to the site.
Millions of hits on YouTube
User-generated video site YouTube has once again been a source for people around the world to see raw footage of the disaster. Videos of the tsunami waves crashing against buildings and wiping entire villages out within seconds made real what was once impossible to comprehend for the rest of the world.
According to news agency AFP, nearly five million people logged on to YouTube on the day after the tsunami occurred to watch one particular raw, unedited video of the wave chewing away at Japan's coastline. Several other videos received between three and four million hits.
Include social media in your crisis plan
With all this proof that social media is invaluable in times of crisis, it would be foolish to devise a crisis communication plan without factoring it in. But it’s important to remember that while social media can have a positive impact during natural disasters, it can have a less favorable effect during business crises, in which case, corporate communication teams need to understand how they can use social media to their advantage.
The Internal Comms Hub has a number of resources for best practice on communicating during crises, including natural disasters, terrorist attacks and those triggered by recession, both using traditional methods, as well as social media.
Below are five of the best. In the next few weeks, look out for case studies as we follow up with organizations who have been affected by the Japan tsunami, to find out how they managed the crisis and communicated through it.
Five resources on crisis communication:
Have your say
Do you work in an organization with an office in Japan, how has the crisis been dealt with? Does your organization have offices in any of the regions within the Pacific Ocean danger zone? How did the communcation team react to the warnings?
Recommended resources:
TOP TIPS: The 10-point guide to effective employee communication during a company crisis
The crisis that changed the world: Communicating through the collapse of Lehman Brothers
How Everest improved engagement in tough trading conditions
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