Pepco PR Turns to Social Networking for Calm

Nowadays when disasters strike social networks are used as a way of getting help as well as complaining. When the storm hit Washington on Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people were left without power. During this time of crisis, many people went to the power company’s twitter page and asked for help there.

Monica Hesse on The Washington Post has more of a story than an article about Andre Francis, the man whose job it is to interact with customers over Twitter and try to answer their concerns. Andre, who works at Pepco, finds that his job provides a release for the pressure of public anger over the situation.

Situations like these show the uses that a social network has for people. In this situation the power was down, so it seems that people must have been accessing Twitter via their mobile phone. Twitter may have been their only source for information and it shows the value that social networks have in today’s society.

Give the story a read, it’s a great insight into what it’s like to be running the social networking side of a company during crisis. Do you rely on Twitter in times of trouble for help? Let us know in the comments.

Editor’s note: I must point out that after refreshing the article more than a few times or after trying to go back after reading the first page, the Washington Post site requires you to sign up for their site, and they request you to give them an e-mail address, name, Zip code, year of birth and details about your job. This is totally unlike Online Social Media, we’ll never ask you for contact details to read our content. Though if you’d like to share this article with your friends or follow us on Facebook, that would be much appreciated.