In the past six months social media has played a role in corporate reputation issues for companies including Eurostar, Paperchase and Nestle.

But how should a company integrate social media into its communication planning and response to a crisis event? That’s the question that I posed as chair of a panel at Communicate Magazine’s Social Media in a Corporate Context conference last week.

The scenario pitched for discussion was how a mobile phone should respond to a video from a supplier’s factory in Asia that is uploaded to YouTube allegedly showing 7-year old child manufacturing handset parts.

Billed as an intellectual mix-up of The Jerry Springer show meeting the Moral Maze, the panel of corporate advisors including social media, crisis communications and legal experts pitted their wits against the media and pressure groups to debate their response to a breaking crisis.

You can read how participants from Communicate Magazine, Greenpeace, Regester Larkin, Schillings, Reputation Matters and Wolfstar, responded to the issue on the lively blog from the conference.

Social media doesn’t change the rules of corporate reputation. But it does mean that crises break online faster than ever before and that organisations must be nimble and transparent in their response.