A Great Study in Emergency Management and Social Media from the Hurricane Sandy Frontlines

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This week, I had the great opportunity to present to the Illinois City/County Management Association on municipal communication networks and the ways that their success and ROI can be measured (more on that in a future post).  In doing my research on the subject though, I ran across an awesome case study from Hootsuite on the uses of social media in managing a crisis situation.  I'm no stranger to the topic itself, so I wanted to share some of my experiences and the things I learned from sitting on the front line trying to manage communications in a town with no power.

To start, as you know, social media is a relatively new type of communications medium based around platforms allowing for publicly visible two-way interaction.  To this point, social media has been limited to what I've begun calling "platforms" or the designated spaces within which messaging can take place (almost always a website such as facebook, Twitter or YouTube).  Its beauty is its simplicity - all we have to do is craft a message and transmit.  Your "likers," "followers" or "subscribers" (different names all describing those users who are subscribed to your messages) then receive your message and decide what to do with it (whether ignore, read, interact or share).  This basic outline varies a little bit based on the platform but basically looks the same.

Now, understandably, the idea of publicly visible two-way interaction makes many organizations, both public and private, somewhat uneasy since they lose the ability to control their message once its sent.  Appleby's recently learned this the hard way.  However, for the public sector, the fears are often much greater - potential liability for inadvertently violating the First Amendment, transparency concerns, etc.  Therefore, I've heard more than one public sector manager say something like, "Oh no, with all those potential problems, we just won't participate."  I feel that's a mistake - the benefits of using social media can far outweigh the risks if you go about managing it in a strategic, thoughtful manner, especially in emergencies.

Sandy as a Case for the Use of Social Media:

As we all remember, Superstorm Sandy hit the east coast in October last year.  New York City, the Jersey Shore and any costal plain area in the area was seriously flooded, and power was knocked out for thousands (potentially millions) of customers in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.  One of the hardest hit areas was Morris County, NJ, a suburban county in the NYC metropolitan area with a population just under 500,000.  However, instead of doing traditional "spoke and hub" communications, the County turned to social media to help disseminate information to residents.

Using a Twitter account (@MCUrgent) and a sister facebook account, the County used social media as a way of transmitting emergency response information, taking in requests for aid and responding to those requests.  Obviously, there were two advantages to using social media: (i) it reduced confusion and the number of telephone calls coming in as information was readily available for consumption and (ii) it provides users with a sense of comfort that their concerns are being heard (the article does not elaborate on this but I think its an important point).  Overall, it makes an effective complement to traditional emergency management.

Additional Thoughts on Using Social Media in Crisis Situation:

As a complement to the case study, I wanted to briefly add the following points from my own experiences with social media:

1. Social Media Does Not Go Down: While a storm may cripple telephones, it will not bring down social media.  Since social media exists almost entirely "in the cloud," it can continue to be deployed at any point of a crisis.
2. It Reduces the "Whisper Down the Lane" Effect: Social media can actually be more effective than radio or telephone communications because the source of the information is tangible, posted and does not change (i.e. its less easy for people to distort or blow the message out of proportion since the actual message is posted and easily accessible).
3. It Has Its Own Special Brand of Reassurance: Those interacting with an emergency management agency's social media account and receiving a reply feel that they are being taken care of in a way comparable to a personal telephone call.  However, the exchange is much more efficient.
4. It Works Very Well In Conjunction With Other Communication Types: Social media has reached the point of integration where any type of other communication (a mass notification message, a website post, a listserv e-mail, etc.) can also be instantly and seamlessly posted to at least Twitter and Facebook.  Your social media team can continue focusing on personal interactions without having to worry about posting new messages.

Additional Things to Keep in Mind:

While social media is an excellent tool, as the case study points it, it is not an "all-in-one" solution.  It has some drawbacks that you must be aware of to effectively use it in an emergency:

1. Social media is relatively weak by itself: Depending on the platform, your social media posts may only reach about 5 - 20% of your total contacts depending on a few different factors.  Therefore, social media is based used as a supplemental form of communication to enhance your mass notification and website messaging.
2. There is no "Field of Dreams": Despite what that voice told Kevin Costner, just because you build a social media presence doesn't mean that anybody will come.  You have to notify people that it exists and how to access it before the emergency comes.  Actually, the best time to do so (from my experience) is immediately after a minor crisis where people figured out they needed easy information access but didn't have it.  They are likely to recognize the value and join at that point.
3. Messages may need to be reposted several times: On many platforms, the order in which a user sees messages depends on how users choose to see posts and the time that they log on. Particularly on Twitter, a message may be posted and be completely pushed off a user's immediately landing page in less than a minute depending on the frequency of posts from other users they are subscribed too.  I tend to post the same messages three to four times a day and update social media as soon as I have new information to maximize the audience seeing my posts.
4. You need to think strategically: Constantly improve your social media presence to attract more users and retain those you currently have.  If your crises are few and far between (and hopefully they are), users may lose interest in just seeing meeting agendas being posted.  Vary up your posts and learn about creative things you can do to keep your users attention.  I will have a post in the new few months on that very subject you can look forward to.

Again, thanks to Hootsuite for issuing that case study.   I hope to see some cool things from them in the future.  Remember, social media is a powerful tool and can be used to great affect - however, you can't do it haphazardly.  Think through what you're doing!