DENVER—GroundFloor Media has launched Online War Room, a proprietary tool allowing clients to mimic a wide range of online crisis and issues situations in real time, and test potential outcomes of crisis management actions.

Using a secure, non-public interface, the Online War Room allows the GFM team to work closely with a client to create customized training sessions across multiple social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere.

“Today, a significant risk for companies is the potential impact to company and brand reputation when information from non-company sources is shared on social networks,” says Laura Love-Aden, founder and president of GroundFloor Media. “In the era of social media, not only do outside sources have public channels for sharing opinions or making claims about a company or brand, but they are able to do so without any obligation to ensure accuracy or balance in their comments. Factual or not, the information lives online in perpetuity and can have a material impact on a company’s business.”

Using the new system, GFM works with organizations to identify potential, or even inevitable, crisis and issues management situations. Once several scenarios are identified, the digital communications team works behind the scenes to develop a variety of posts, comments, replies and content that could potentially be generated during a real crisis. The scenarios vary widely, ranging from disparaging claims made by disgruntled customers or employees to labor negotiations.