1. Stewart Davies
Regional Communications with Communities Officer
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

3. August 2009 to May 2013
3 years
100 Million posts per day
537 Million users
March 2006 to July 2012
6 years
50 Million posts per day
517 Million users

8. •Created in 2009
•Fastest site in history to break 10 million visitor mark
•57 million users
•83% of users are female
•People’s platform choices are driven by personal
benefits, not by the technology.
•Trends towards images, video, visual presentations
growing rapidly.

9. A disaster management tool
Information consumers to producers
Crowd sourcing
Big, open and accessible data
Resilience through social capital
Users become citizens reporters
Real time
Resilient to infrastructure damage

10. How social media was usedDisasters
2005 London Bombings
Britain
One of the first examples of mass social media use in a disaster
Mobile phone cameras, photo-sharing sites (Flickr), Wikipedia
2009 Typhoon Ketsana,
Philippines
Twitter was newly popular, paypal used for donations
Google crisis map created and used by relief workers
2010 Haiti Earthquake Ushahidi crisis map widely used helping to create a hotline service
Twitter used by survivors telling stories
2010 Yusho Earthquake
China
Sina-Weibo widely used
Limited to Chinese language
2010 Typhoon
Megi, Philippines
Government set up Twitter account just before it hit 28,000 followers)
– broadcasted on traditional media (up to 20 typhoons each year)
2011 Hurricane Irene,
USA
US Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) encouraged
the use of SMS and social networks to prevent networks from jamming

11. Messages Types
Alerts
Awareness (or help)
Service provision
Self help
Advocacy
Common Messages
“Evacuate to the designated emergency
shelter for your area”
“Rising flood waters along the main road
reaching 1.5 metres”
“Red Cross is providing food and medical
care in village A & B”
“Boil or treat water before you drink it”
“Humanitarian partners desperately need
more funding to reach XXX many people”
Behavior Change
Did people move to area
due to message?
Did people become
aware due to message?
Did people receive aid
due to message?
Did people self-treat due
to message?
Did agency raise more
funding due to message?

12. The Reality on the ground
Adhoc use of social media as a
programme tool
Limited systematic research – lack of
research on its usefulness in disasters
Humanitarian responders committing
limited resources to use social media
Community capacity constrained (i.e.
electricity, connectivity)
Focus on campaigns and advocacy

13. 2010 Haiti Earthquake
•Twitter was the primary place people
turned to interact with others.
•2.3 million tweets included “Haiti” or the
number to text message a donation to the
Red Cross between Jan 12 & 14.
•Twitter not used by public to obtain news
about the disaster. Public turned to
traditional media for disaster information.
•Survivors used social media to tell their
story, therefore driving traditional media
coverage.

14. Thailand Floods, 2011
“ThaiFlood” website a collaboration
with private sector and volunteers.
Then set up their own
“FloodThailand”.
Less trust in Government -
information was constantly
changing.
People continued to use “ThaiFlood”

15. @thaiflood versus @floodthailand

17. #eqnz Christchurch Earthquake
2011
@CEQgovtnz – Official Government
(Canterbury Earthquake Authority)
Nearly 2500 tweets during first
fortnight after
Mobile operators @TelecomNZ and
@vodafonenz posted widely advisories
on how to minimise strain on networks
Sharing and discussing information
changed significantly over time

18. The Great East Japan
Earthquake 2011
Popular hash tags included:
#anpi – finding people
#hinan – evac centre information
#jishin – earthquake information
Strength of Facebook - filtering
personal messages (“We are ok”)
YouTube was also used after the
disaster (fundraising appeals and
educational videos)

19. Typhoon Bopha/Pablo, 2012
Digital Humanitarian Network
OCHA activated the DHN on Dec 5th 2012 at
3PM Geneva time.
To collect all relevant social media posts
posted on Dec 4-5.
Pictures/videos of damage/flooding.
Volunteers curated some 20,000 social
media messages.
Compiling results for Humanitarian partners.

20. Question?
Did anyone in the room participate in
the Typhoon Bopha/Pablo response?
If yes, did anyone see this
data/information and subsequent
communications products?

21. Ya’an, China Earthquake, 2013
7 out of the 8 top trending topics on Sina
Weibo were on the earthquake
Sina Micro-charity projects raised more
than $10,000 in the first 24 hours
The China International Rescue Team
asked people to report their locations and
damage on social media
More than 36,000 comments were left
under that post, which were forwarded
more than 400,000 times.

22. For the field practitioner
Assign people with ownership
Social media training
Two or one-way use
Program regular content
Assess analytics and recalibrate at
regular intervals
Don’t be pressured to be on too
many platforms
Tell stories graphically
Think mobile

23. Final message
As people call out for help on social media rather than
directly to aid providers/rescuers –is there a need for
responders to coordinate emerging communication
channels to bridge gap between providers and those
seeking assistance?