Earlier this month, VMA GROUP hosted a digital networking event for senior comms professionals from both private and public sectors, in-house and agency side, and covering a broad range of sectors including Energy, Financial and Transport.

The key topics of discussion were around the best use of digital and social media in the event of crisis and issues; how to effectively manage reputation via these channels and best practice and potential pitfalls.

Here are some of the key findings:

• Digital and social media is well and truly experiencing its day in the sun and as an ever evolving communications channel, teams are having to adapt and respond in record time in order to keep up. However, in many businesses there are still multiple obstacles to overcome, whether it’s push back from the top or lack of knowledge in the team. Businesses must learn to allow comms teams to be agile and responsive.

• Digital and social media must be integrated into the communications mix, it should no longer be in a silo and left to specialists.

• For many, it is still not a seamless process, as buy-in from senior stakeholders is limited and there is  a lot of caution around social media. This is not something that is likely to change in a hurry but until then it is crucial to establish what success looks like and ensure that clear measurement tools are in place.

• Our attendees discussed the ‘knee-jerk’ reaction to a cris