In 2018, some Vietnamese public relations practitioners still viewed social media as something to avoid during a crisis. It was fast, unpredictable, difficult to control, and capable of spreading misinformation faster than an organization could respond.
Five years later, that attitude had changed.
By 2023, social media was increasingly seen as a necessary part of crisis communication. Organizations were using it to monitor public opinion, respond quickly, reach stakeholders directly, and track how a crisis was developing in real time.
The change was substantial, but it was not complete. Vietnamese organizations have become more willing to use social media during crises while remaining cautious about relying on it alone. That tension is one of the main findings of our study comparing interviews with senior communication practitioners in 2018 and 2023, published in the International Journal of Strategic Communication.
In 2018, Control Mattered More Than Speed
For many practitioners interviewed in 2018, traditional media still felt safer.
Press conferences, established news outlets, and direct meetings with stakeholders gave organizations greater control over what was said and how information was presented. Social media offered speed, but speed itself was considered dangerous.
Five of the 12 practitioners interviewed in 2018 identified rapid communication as one of social media’s biggest advantages. Five also identified the difficulty of controlling information as a major obstacle.
That contradiction mattered. The same technology that allowed an organization to respond immediately could also allow criticism, rumors, and inaccurate information to spread just as quickly.
Some practitioners therefore believed that using social media during a crisis might make the situation worse rather than solve it.
By 2023, Staying Off Social Media Was No Longer Realistic
The interviews conducted five years later showed a different attitude.
Practitioners increasingly regarded social media as part of the basic infrastructure of crisis communication. Its value was particularly clear in three areas: monitoring public sentiment, communicating immediately, and interacting directly with stakeholders.
COVID-19 accelerated that change. As organizations became more dependent on digital communication, management teams gained greater experience with online platforms. Social listening and analytics tools also made it easier to track conversations and identify emerging problems.
The change was visible in how practitioners talked about social media. Instead of asking whether organizations should use it during crises, many were asking how it should be integrated into crisis plans.
Yet acceptance remained uneven. Some large organizations still lacked the knowledge, confidence, or internal systems needed to use social media strategically.
The Fastest Channel Is Also the Hardest to Control
Social media’s greatest advantage remains closely connected to its greatest risk.
Information can spread immediately. Organizations can answer questions, correct misinformation, monitor reactions, and communicate directly with large audiences.
But negative information can travel just as quickly.
Once a crisis begins circulating online, organizations do not control who comments on it, how posts are shared, which interpretations become popular, or how algorithms increase the visibility of particular content.
This helps explain why Vietnamese practitioners have not simply abandoned traditional crisis communication methods.
Instead, many organizations have developed a mixed approach.
Social media is useful for speed, monitoring, and public engagement. Traditional media remains useful for official statements, authoritative information, and messages that organizations want to communicate through channels perceived as more credible and controlled.
The result is not a transition from old media to new media. It is a combination of both.
Solving the Problem Still Comes Before Winning the Online Argument
Another finding complicates the common assumption that organizations must respond publicly to every online controversy.
Some practitioners argued that social media communication cannot substitute for solving the underlying problem.
In sensitive situations, particularly those involving individual customers or patients, organizations may prefer direct communication with the people involved before making public statements.
This distinction is important.
A communication crisis may develop online, but its cause may exist somewhere else: a defective product, a service failure, an employee decision, a customer complaint, or an organizational mistake.
Posting faster does not necessarily fix that problem.
For crisis managers, the challenge is therefore to balance two pressures: responding quickly enough to prevent an information vacuum while avoiding communication that gets ahead of the facts or distracts from resolving the cause of the crisis.
Vietnam’s Media Environment Makes the Decision More Complicated
Social media adoption in Vietnam cannot be understood simply as a technological issue.
Organizations operate within a media system where traditional news outlets have historically carried substantial authority, while digital communication is shaped by regulation, organizational hierarchy, and cultural preferences for maintaining social harmony.
Those conditions can make businesses more cautious about highly visible confrontation online.
At the same time, audiences increasingly expect information to appear quickly on digital platforms. Organizations therefore face competing pressures: retain control, comply with regulations, avoid unnecessarily escalating a dispute, but also respond at the speed expected by online publics.
This helps explain why technological availability alone does not determine whether organizations embrace social media. Leadership attitudes, organizational culture, professional skills, and trust in digital communication matter as well.
A Crisis Plan Now Needs a Social Media Plan
The practical lesson from the five-year shift is relatively clear.
Organizations should not wait until a crisis begins to decide how they will use social media.
Teams need guidelines defining who monitors online conversations, who approves responses, which platforms should be used, when an issue requires escalation, and how social media communication should connect with traditional media and direct stakeholder engagement.
Staff also need training. Knowing how to post content during normal operations is different from communicating when information is incomplete, public criticism is increasing, and reputational damage may occur within hours.
Social media has moved from the margins of crisis communication in Vietnam toward its center. But the change is better described as cautious acceptance than complete conversion.
The question organizations faced in 2018 was whether social media was too risky to use during a crisis.
By 2023, the more pressing risk was being unprepared to use it when a crisis arrived.
Reference
Ly-Le, T. M., Le, V. T., Le, A. T., Vu, H., & Tran, T. (2026). Evolution of crisis communication: Exploring organizational perceptions and social media adoption in Vietnam’s dynamic digital landscape. International Journal of Strategic Communication. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2026.2733129