The central topic of the paper is to determine the factors and problem in managing crisis communication on social media by analysing the example of four organisations from two different industries and illustrating effective versus ineffective crisis communication management. By having analysed the social media profiles of selected organizations, which were McDonald’s, KFC, Southwest Airlines and Germanwings, and the manner in which the mentioned organizations undertook crisis management has been determined as well as whether these organizations acted in line with the theoretically established crisis communication rules.. In analysing the comments and posts on social media, it becomes evident as to which crisis had long-term and which had short-term consequences for the reputation of the analysed organisations. Research and analysis of social media profiles belonging to the organisations and which were managed prior to the onset of the crisis situations, during and after the crisis situations provides an answer to the research question. In regard to the selected organisations, the KFC and Southwest Airlines organisations had an effective crisis communication, without long-term consequences for their reputation and their actions indicated direct benefits from proper and proactive crisis communication planning. On the contrary, the case of McDonald’s and Germanwings indicates ineffective crisis communication management, where McDonald’s experienced short-term consequences relating to its reputation on social media, and long-term consequences for Germanwings which suffered major damage to its reputation. Insights gained in this research relate to the importance of proper and proactive crisis communication management on social media as an important tool for building or preserving an organisation’s reputation based on identifying issues from analyses of crisis communication undertaken by the selected organisations.