Engaging The Conversation ( Homeland Security Conference)

Web 2.0 and Social Media for Crisis Communication

3:00-4:30 – Room 214c

Engaging the Conversation

The Great Media Shift

The Great Media Shift

Source: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1133/decline-print-newspapers-increased-online-news

5

4

34

9

5

25

2006 2008

PrintBothWeb

43% 39%

Why the Shift?

Newspaper companies failed to respond to growing information needs form consumers.

Enterprising Americans created alternatives.

Craigslist – 1995Google News – 2001

The New Media World Order

Online traditional publicationsMobile traditional publicationsNews Aggregators (Google News)Social News Aggregators (Digg)Non-traditional media:•Drudge Report •Daily Show

Old Faithful

Word of mouth is the oldest and most reliable form of communication.

•We trust what our friends tell us•We trust what our friend’s friends tell us•We trust anything enough people tell us

“Social Media is Word-of-mouth or Community Based Marketing that leverages Technology as a Platformfor Conversations.” – Erica O’Grady

Why Should We Care?

Social media is fast.

Social media is not controlled.

Everyone carries a “portable news gathering device.”

There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.

Social Media Revolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

“If somebody is saying 'My house is on fire' and it's in an area that has wildfires, well, obviously that's not official data. But they're telling us their house is burning down. They're shooting video of their house on fire. I consider that pretty good information.”

- Craig Fugate, FEMA

Source: http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/interview-craig-fugate-director-federal-emergency-management-agency-fema

So, what now?

Understand the Ethos

Web 2.0 is transparent.Web 2.0 is direct.Web 2.0 is fast.

If you are too, you will build trust. The currency of communication today is trust.

Transparency

Always identify yourself.Disclose your objectives.

Answer questions honestly.Offer insight into government processes.

Don't be afraid of being honest.

Directness

No more press release speak.Use personal pronouns.

Have a little heart.

Speed

You will sometimes have better information.Communicate better information, fast.

You can never be as fast as “us.”Say what you know.Update frequently.

The JIC's new role is primarily rumor control.

Improve your Plans and Processes

Update your plans to streamline the approval process.

Create Social Media monitoring job aids.Get IT and legal approval for software.

Give the PIO more autonomy for communication.Shorten the distance info needs to flow.

Facilitate two-way information flow with the JIC.Add regular “incident updates” to your

communication plan, between news releases.

HouSnow Example

• During our winter weather event we set up a tag for our posts: “HouSnow”

• We evangelized the tag, even switching most conversation from “storm09”

• Thousands of posts tagged with HouSnow• Monitored Twitter and Facebook using

TweetDeck• Community established Google Wave• Saw a tweet about Hwy 6 being flooded over

and re-tweeted it, 30 minutes or so later it was verified through official channels.

Choose a Platform for a Hub• Pick a content management system (CMS)

that embraces open formats.• Be sure your CMS has an approval process

and can be used by everyone in your office.• You need to either host it of have a service

level agreement with the host with up-time guarantees you can live with.

• Build ties from your CMS into Social Media sites.

• Take home to your geek: XML, RSS, API, Open Source, extensible.

Hub and Spokes

Your CMS becomes the hub, the social media services are the spokes.

We can't trust a third-party company like Twitter to stay up when you need it, irregardless of track

record.

California Wildfire: Before

In 2007 a community effort built a tool called CrisisWire that monitored wildfire information.

Twitter ran amok, providing rapid-fire updates.

In 2008 California wildfires we had a “mole.”Efforts taken to snuff out mole were unsuccessful.

Why did we have a mole?

What fundamental problem was he solving?

California Wildfires: After

In 2009 LA Fire started a Twitter account. (http://twitter.com/LAFD)

“If it was important, LA Fire would have tweeted about it.”

Good Tools to Use

Content Management System (Hub)Google News SearchGoogle Blog Search

Google AnalyticsGoogle Reader

Bit.ly (Web-based)TweetDeck (Desktop)

HootSuite (Web-based)Seesmic (Handheld / Desktop)

The importance of Openness

Mash-ups are how the community can “have it your way.”

Using an open platform ensures that operations can be easily resumed if one spoke breaks.

The information being posted is public anyway, and should be used and re-used by them.

If attribution is a concern, consider Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 United States

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/

Sites to be on (for now...)

FacebookTwitter

YouTubeFlickr

SlideShareDelicious

Apps.gov

Determining what services to use

Acceptable terms of service?

Easy to use?

Easy to integrate?

Accomplishes your objectives.

Will it make less work for you?

Example of Service Justification

YouTube SLA approved by Apps.gov

Special YouTube Gov account gives flexibility.

Intuitive interface.

Publishes RSS feeds.

A video can save you an hour of update work.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is like posting text messages to the web.

Posts and replies are public.

Information can be re-tweeted (forwarded)

Setting up Twitter

Official Account

Work Account

Personal Account

RSS-to-Twitter of Twitter integration

How Twitter Works

Community posts update.TweetDeck and Seesmic “hear” the tweet.

We're alerted to new tweet.We reply to or re-tweet the information.

We post updates.Community re-tweets or replies.

Replies are logged and replied to.

What's Facebook

An interactive yearbook.

Users post pictures, video and status updates.

Walls are like community bulletin boards.

Organizations have pages and fans, people have profiles and friends.

Setting up Facebook

Page for your Agency

Import notes via RSS

Personal Account

Add administrators

How Facebook Works

Updates from our website post automatically.Community posts comments or posts.

We reply to posts using personal accounts.

Common Objections

Misinformation will spread.

I don't have the time.

We cannot keep up.

What about the haters?

What about viruses and malware?

Summary

Web 2.0 is the community's plea for more info.

Ignoring this need will make us obsolete.

Web 2.0 needs to be part of your plans.

Services can be integrated.

We go where the people are.

Questions? I'll stay around for a few minutes.

Feel free to follow-up by email, I'm happy to help.

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