Crisis Communication 2.0: Social Media in Emergency Preparedness and Response
1. CRISIS COMMUNICATION 2.0
Social Media In Emergency Preparedness &
Response
NH Emergency Preparedness Conference
June 16, 2011
Alyson Cobb & Arielle Slam
JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc.
2. OBJECTIVES
Learn about social media and current trends.
Learn about prominent tools through case studies
of social media being used to engage the public
during a disaster.
Understand the benefits and barriers of social
media.
3. CRISIS & EMERGENCY RISK
COMMUNICATION
The strategy used to provide information to
individuals, stakeholders, or an entire community
that will help them make the best possible
decisions during a crisis
Includes all forms of communication, including
social media
4. SOCIAL MEDIA
“Social media are the electronic tools,
technologies, and applications that
facilitate interactive communication and
content exchange.”
6. POPULAR SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS
Social networking sites
Blogs
Microblogs
Gadgets
Buttons & Badges
Widgets
Apps
Multimedia sharing sites
Geotagging
Virtual worlds
Wikis
Text messaging
RSS Feeds
Social bookmarking
7. SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Online communities where you can find
people, connect, and share information.
100 Million profiles
80% active users
1 million new users a week
595,580 NH residents (44.5% of NH)
43% of people in the US
17. CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Benefits Drawback
s
Rapid message Could spread
dissemination misinformation
Accessible when Collective error
traditional media and correction & verification
resources were not Casualties made public
before families knew
Provided reassurance
to friends and family
crowdsourcing
18. LIABILITY CONCERNS
GSA Office of Citizen Services
Developed amended Terms of Service
agreements to reflect needs of federal users.
National Association of State Chief
Information Officers (NASCIO)
Establishing terms of service for state and local
agencies
19. LIABILITY CONCERNS
Include disclaimers
Comments policy
“CDC does not agree with or
endorse every comment that
individuals post on our
pages…Therefore, a comment will
be deleted if it contains..”
Note if you are not monitoring 24/7
20. BLOGS 156 M blogs
Updated frequently
Genre, professional, personal
Most recent entry first
Two way conversation
Easier to update than a website
Address special audiences
Functional needs
Special languages
22. CHARACTERISTICS OF BLOGS
Benefits Drawback
Address special s
Many competing blogs
audiences Not always credible source
Functional needs
Special languages
Localized information
No web development
skills needed
Fast
23. MICROBLOGS: TWITTER
Similar to traditional blogs, except that
content length is limited
Username Info
Hashtag location
Tweet/Retweet
Followers/Following
30. BUTTONS AND BADGES
Graphically links that
share information about
campaigns and causes
online
<!-- BUTTON EMBED CODE STARTS HERE --><a
href="http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.a
sp?s_cid=emergency_002" title="Get A Kit, Make A Plan,
Be Prepared. emergency.cdc.gov"><img
src="http://www.cdc.gov/images/campaigns/emergency/zom
bies1_300x250.jpg" style="width:300px; height:250px;
border:0px;" alt="Get A Kit, Make A Plan, Be Prepared.
emergency.cdc.gov" /></a><!-- BUTTON EMBED CODE
ENDS HERE -->
33. CHARACTERISTICS OF GADGETS
Benefits Drawback
Easier functionality than s
Apps limited to those with
internet on phones smart phones
Apps can reach traditional Apps require a developer to
non-internet users build
Facilitates unified Apps & badges short life
message sharing span
Can encourage viral
message dissemination
Can be used to gather
information from the
ground
Added value to audience
Entertaining
Visually appealing
34. MEDIA SHARING SITES
Websites for users to view, share, and
comment on multimedia
• 3 billion views per day
• = every US resident watching at
least 9 videos each day
• 48 hrs of video uploaded every
minute
An average flickr user has:
253 contacts
1620 photos
529 views a day
7 uploads a day
36. CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIA SHARING
Benefits Drawbacks
Public prefers visual Time to produce videos
information
Can use and share
existing media
Can easily make
existing media
available to your
audience
37. GEOTAGGING
Location-based platforms
Typically on mobile phones & smart phones
Organizes and presents information specific
to your geographic location
Nearby places & resources
People nearby
41. SUMMARY
Many benefits to social media
Fast, wide, decentralized
It may feel overwhelming, but its doable
If not on social media, start exploring as
personal user.
42. THANK YOU!
Arielle Slam Alyson Cobb
JSI Research & Training JSI Research & Training
Institute Institute
aslam@jsi.com acobb@jsi.com
603.573.3341 603.573.3319
43. References
Terdiman, Daniel. Study: Wikipedia as Accurate as Brittanica
(2005) http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as-
accurate-as-Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
Tinker, Timothy, et al. Expert Round Table on Social Media and Risk Communication During Times of
Crisis: Strategic Challenges and Opportunities. (2009) http://www.socialmediaandtechnology.com/
Krimsky, Sheldon. Risk communication in the internet age: The rise of disorganized skepticism. (2007)
Environmental Hazards. http://www.elsevier.com/locate/hazards
Sutton, Jeannette, et al. Backchannels on the Front Lines: Emergent Uses of Social Media in the 2007
Southern California Wildfires. (2008) Proceedings of the 5th International ISCRAM Conference
Guion, Deirdre, et al. Weathering the Storm: A Social Marketing Perspective on Disaster Preparedness
and Response with Lessons from Hurricane Katrina. (2007) American Marketing Association, Vol.26 (1).
Palmer, Jason. Emergency 2.0 is coming to a website near you: the web spells a sea of change for crisis
management. How should emergency services respond? (2008) New Scientist 198.2654
http://www.newscientist.com.ezpr.oxy.lib.umb.edu
New tools a boon: Public health leaders using social media to convey emergencies. (2009) The Nation’s
Health, American Public Health Association www.thenationshealth.org
Underwood, Sarah. Improving Disaster Management. (2010) communications of the Acm. Vol.53. no.2
DOI: 10.1145/1646353.1646362
Palen, Leysia. The Emergence of Online Widescale Interaction in Unexpected Events: Assistance,
Alliance & Retreat (2008) CSCW, University of Colorado, Boulder
A National Survey of Social Media Use in State Government: Friends, Followers, and Feeds.NASCIO
(2010): http://www.nascio.org/publications/documents/NASCIO-SocialMedia.pdf
Hinweis der Redaktion
Welcome everyone to this morning’s presentation on Social Media in Emergency Preparedness & Response entitled: Crisis Communication 2.0.Why the 2.0? Web 2.0 refers to web applications that facilitate interactivity. It is the current world of the internet meaning a move from one way absorption of information to a more dynamic and user-generated approach.We are staff at the Community Health Institute, a regional office of John Snow, a public health consulting firm that provides technical assistance to the 12 essential services in public health. Our NH office in particular, provides extensive TA & training to the state in Emergency preparedness & responseArielle- degree in mass communications, do project work in health communications, including social marketing, marketing analysis, ??Alyson- PH Prep, CERT/MRC Conferences, ___________.On a clarical note: we’ve noticed 10 of you here today also attended this same CrisiComm 2.0 session last year. So we gather that:Either you liked it so much, you just had to see it again, orIt was so bad you blocked it out of your memory and are therefore repeating the same mistake again.
Next let’s talk about social networking sites.Social networking sites may be one of the most familiar social media tools we’ll discuss today. These sites are a way to connect with friends, people of similar interests, information sources. Often social networking sites are organized around user profiles, a personalize page for you or your organization where you share relevant information. Almost all social networking sites are open to the public to join. To join you go to the website register a username and start searching for friends, constituents, collaborators, or community members to connect withThe top two most popular social networking sites in the US are: facebookand Linkedin. Facebook has recently even outnumbered Google in the amount of daily traffic the site gets.http://blog.linkedin.com/2011/03/22/linkedin-100-million/
We envision LinkedIn more of a tool for you as a person in emergency management to connect with other professionals.
For the purpose of risk communications, I’d say facebook would be the most logical choice of social networking site due to the fact that it has the largest user base (400 million users) and user activity. Why not put your message directly where the most people are interacting every day.Many federal and state agencies have already created profiles on facebook and are sharing lots of information. Here is an example of one of the many CDC pages- this being CDC Crisis and Risk Communication.There are some slight distinctions between a personal profile and a group or organzation profile, in the way you set it up and providing administrative rights. I won’t go into those subtlies today but a young person at your office, your children, or later on we can go through that with any of you.The main purpose of facebook really is to find and make friends. You search for people or organizations you know, or want to be associated and “friend” them. Similarly, once you create a profile people and organizations will seek you out as a friend.There are several components of a facebook profile. Here is the information page. You also have a page where any pictures associated with you or your organization (if it’s an organization page) display.
For example, I was visiting the website for PBS.org and I clicked on the like button saying that I like the page. A popup asks if it’s ok to share my facebook profile, I say yes and(advance to next image) now I’m connected to PBS on facebook.
Short life span: most apps only opened once; badge related to a specific campaigns
https://forum.webcontent.gov/?page=TOS_FAQshttp://www.nascio.org/newsroom/pressrelease.cfm?id=93Strike the indemnity clause…Strike language requiring that legal disputes be venued in California courts and adjudicated under California law;Require that a public agency include language directing consumers to its official Web site…
Short life span: most apps only opened once; badge related to a specific campaigns
This is a twitter profile page.Notice the verified official seal
HANDLE: In twitter, your username is called a “handle”.In twitter you may have both a username and a full name. This is because usernames can not have spaces in them and are limited in characters, similar in principle to when there were AOL instant messenger usernames, or phone numbers which are transferred between phones without any spaces.
The purpose of twitter is to tweet and read each others tweets. A tweet is a 140 character comment, essentially like a shortened status or wall post on facebook. Your tweets can be about anything you want to share with a public audience: changes in staff at your organization, sharing interesting links, education, preparedness, warnings.
The graphical elements can be posted to any website, blog, social network profile, or email signatures.This can help facilitate viral spread of your message…Easy for organizations to share the message without creating their own content.
Widget are a small tool or application that is put on a website as a way to help the user either find information or perform some sort of task. One of the cool things about widgets is that are mostly made up of a bunch of lines of codes that can be copy and pasted from website to website.in 2008-2009 there was a large FDA recall of salmonella infected peanuts products. As officials indentified infected products they entered it into a big database. They wanted to share all the information they were collecting with the public so they created this widget that was fed by the constantly updating information in the database. Users could enter the product name or the barcode number to determine whether it had been identified as an unsafe product.If you want to interact with the widgets then go to cdc.gov/widgets.
Apps:Apple largest provider of Apps with 350K apps.Used with smartphones (internet capable & operating system)Can be developed by anyoneEasily downloaded and usually freeMany ICE- In case of emergency Apps that help you keep and share lists of emergency contacts known allergies medications you are on, any conditions you have, and personal identification information.
Short life span: most apps only opened once; badge related to a specific campaigns
Most of the time you just look for individual videos. However, some groups and organizations create their own page (called a channel) on YouTube to organize all their videos together.This is an example of an organization that has made a channel of all preparedness videos that include sign language.In NH, PSNH has a YouTube channel that shows videos about a variety of things including the affects of local emergencies such as the Ice storm, or wind storm.
Drawback: time to produce videos- but much shorter and more informal than in the past.
Location based services can also allow you to tell friends, organizations, or if the situation is needed emergency responders exactly where you are. Your computer or your smartphone will automatically find approxiametly where you are and attach that information to your message.In some social media tools, like twitter and foursquare, this is called a check in. You can search for venues around you and check-in to specific locations, such as I did here to Ryles Jazz club.
Benefits: rapidly send messages to many many people. Any one can contribute to the solution or the cause. It can also be used to reach very specific audiences that wouldn’t get that specific information through traditional media. It provides additional tools to reach people in different ways, and provides redundancy when one or more other communication channels are unavailable. -lastly, it allows the public to participate: feel connected to you, and help solve problems.Barriers: It’s scary for organizations because there is lack of msg control and fear of liability. It requires reallocation of time previously spent on traditional forms of communication.
Thank you everyone for staying till the end & contributing to conversationThank alyson & curtis for inviting me hereAny questions come see me.