We have an emergency! Somebody Tweet!

by on May 4, 2010 in Social Media

Despite my light-hearted headline this is serious business.

What role should social media play in your emergency communications plan?socialmedia_emergency

To be clear this isn’t about Crisis Communications from a PR perspective but rather real world emergencies like wild fires, severe weather, school shootings, or even unexpected closings. When the unthinkable and unexpected happens you’d better have a plan for how to inform the public, and fast.

Your ability to communicate with your community, clients, patrons, & students is of the utmost importance. Updated information will not only inform and reassure but it will set the tone for the public’s perception of how you handled the situation.

So call it what you will, Disaster planning, Emergency Preparedness, or Crisis Communication, social media should be part of your plan.

What problem does it solve?

Let’s take stock of your current options based on 3 criteria:

  • Broadcast – The ability update a large number of people.
  • Speed – The time it takes for someone to receive the message.
  • Validity – Delivering high quality, verifiable, and trusted information.

Now in the light of these factors consider the platforms at your disposal.

Email – Email is excellent. You can deliver a clear message to thousands in a single click. The downside is that you must have an updated email list and not everyone is going to open the email in a timely manner.

Phone Trees – Public Schools have used this method for years. While it is low tech and a ringing phone helps deliver the message it is very slow and important facts might get lost in translation.

Mass Media – If your situation warrants news coverage there is no better way to create mass awareness but you have little control over the message and timeframe so you can do little more than make them aware.

Website – The faster you can put updates on your website or blog the better but many organizations aren’t prepared for this scenario and in the midst of the crisis isn’t the time to discuss placement while you track down the webmaster.

While all of these methods have their place consider the features that social media offers.

  • One tweet or Facebook status can be seen and shared instantly.
  • You can easily send follow ups as the situation changes.
  • You can update from anywhere you have a cell signal.
  • People can receive your update anywhere they have a cell signal.

Social Media offers a free method to deliver a message to the world, instantly, directly from you.

Prior Planning Still required

Using Social Media as part of your emergency communication strategy is only as effective as your plan. Here’s 3 steps crucial to its success

Create the Expectation

Social media communication is only successful if people expect it to be the first place to find the news. You must create this expectation.

Tell your people often: In case of emergency or unexpected situations we will update our Facebook/Twitter immediately.

Put it in writing, in the announcements, and drill into their heads. Even if they aren’t active on the social networks teach them to click the Facebook/Twitter links on your homepage (they are there right?) to see the latest updates.

In addition consider teaching people how to subscribe to tweets via text message and create a tab or sidebar widget on your website that displays your latest tweets.

However you choose, it is critical to let them know where to go for the latest information before the crisis arrives.

Chain of Command

Who is responsible for the updates? What is your primary goal? What should or should not be said?

The people responsible and the content is specific to your organization so establish these ground rules in advance.

Take time to Tech

When you have an emergency you don’t have to time to introduce new tools, install mobile apps, or teach someone how these things work.

Teach the critical people how to use the technology.

This may include showing them how to use iPhone apps, Facebook pages, tweeting via txt messages etc. Hold a class, write manuals, do demo videos. Your critical players need to be comfortable with the technology so it is a natural response in an emergency.

Know the content distribution network, chart it, teach it.

Takeaway

Regardless of the size of your organization or the level of disaster, social media should play a crucial role in any emergency communications plan.

Tagged as: Crisis Communication, Emergency Communication, Twitter

  • arkstfan

    Waze is the best smartphone app if you witness an emergency. It has Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare integration and automatically geo-tags reports. The app has a built-in hazard reporting system that is designed for very fast use. The reporting from waze will also report the street name.

  • http://twitter.com/rpreslar Renee Preslar

    I completely agree that social media must be a part of your emergency communications plans. And you couldn't be more right, like all emergency communications you must prepare before the emergency to use it.

    I think it goes without saying that you also MUST pre-establish yourself. If an incident occurs that involves your organization, people must know where you are socially in order to get that information from you. This is the main reason #ARwx was created. there needed to be a common tag that people would know and use during severe weather in Arkansas.

    In order to monitor what was being said about the first round winter storms I was following an insane number of tags. If someone was getting their information by just following the tags they were using they might not be getting all the info available because there was no pre-established tag. So we put the call out and invited participation: What did people want to use? After several suggestions came in it was decided that #ARwx would be used because it was generic enough to be used in various weather situations; this meant that people would not have to follow a tag for winter and then look for one during tornadoes and another during floods. It provides stability throughout weather events. After a recent meeting with the Arkansas Geographic Information Office it was decided that we are going to pre-establish tags for other potential incidents in Arkansas also, such as earthquakes (personally I am leaning towards #AReq, just because I like the simplicity of 4 letters).

    I know this has been long, I only want to say one more thing. While those who understand why social media is important see (or will after reading your post) the need for it to be included in emergency plans, we can all agree that those aren't always the ones responsible for establishing it and often have to seek approve from those who don't see the value in it. In these circumstances I refrain, as much as possible, from using the term 'social media' and use 'interactive media' instead. When speaking to those who don't see the value social media I have found it is often a simple language barrier. The term 'social' (to several I have talked to) implies that it is for fun and will be fleeting. What I stress to them is that it isn't about the application. It's not about using the specific sites, that's not what is important. What is important is that in a large part because of these sites, the speed at which people want/expect information has changed. We want information sooner than ever before expected and I think that we as a society expect organizations to tell us information DIRECTLY. Will these specific social sites be around forever, I doubt it. Something else always shows up that it bigger and better. What I don't think will change is the public's expectations for information. And for that we must use 'interactive media' to give them what they want/deserve.

    Ok I'm done. Thanks for bringing this up. :)

  • arkstfan

    Waze is the best smartphone app if you witness an emergency. It has Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare integration and automatically geo-tags reports. The app has a built-in hazard reporting system that is designed for very fast use. The reporting from waze will also report the street name.

  • http://twitter.com/rpreslar Renee Preslar

    I completely agree that social media must be a part of your emergency communications plans. And you couldn't be more right, like all emergency communications you must prepare before the emergency to use it.

    I think it goes without saying that you also MUST pre-establish yourself. If an incident occurs that involves your organization, people must know where you are socially in order to get that information from you. This is the main reason #ARwx was created. there needed to be a common tag that people would know and use during severe weather in Arkansas.

    In order to monitor what was being said about the first round winter storms I was following an insane number of tags. If someone was getting their information by just following the tags they were using they might not be getting all the info available because there was no pre-established tag. So we put the call out and invited participation: What did people want to use? After several suggestions came in it was decided that #ARwx would be used because it was generic enough to be used in various weather situations; this meant that people would not have to follow a tag for winter and then look for one during tornadoes and another during floods. It provides stability throughout weather events. After a recent meeting with the Arkansas Geographic Information Office it was decided that we are going to pre-establish tags for other potential incidents in Arkansas also, such as earthquakes (personally I am leaning towards #AReq, just because I like the simplicity of 4 letters).

    I know this has been long, I only want to say one more thing. While those who understand why social media is important see (or will after reading your post) the need for it to be included in emergency plans, we can all agree that those aren't always the ones responsible for establishing it and often have to seek approve from those who don't see the value in it. In these circumstances I refrain, as much as possible, from using the term 'social media' and use 'interactive media' instead. When speaking to those who don't see the value social media I have found it is often a simple language barrier. The term 'social' (to several I have talked to) implies that it is for fun and will be fleeting. What I stress to them is that it isn't about the application. It's not about using the specific sites, that's not what is important. What is important is that in a large part because of these sites, the speed at which people want/expect information has changed. We want information sooner than ever before expected and I think that we as a society expect organizations to tell us information DIRECTLY. Will these specific social sites be around forever, I doubt it. Something else always shows up that it bigger and better. What I don't think will change is the public's expectations for information. And for that we must use 'interactive media' to give them what they want/deserve.

    Ok I'm done. Thanks for bringing this up. :)

Previous post:

Next post: