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A Social Media Strategy for Disasters

Some social media considerations for your next disaster response.

Like most of what we do, preparedness steps like planning and exercising pay high dividends when the actual disaster occurs. See this Government Technology article from GovGirl on Social, Why a Social Media Strategy Is Key to Emergency Management.

All her points are valid, however, there were a few things she didn’t talk about, which should include integrating social media (from a public information officer PIO perspective) and combining it with Joint Information Center (JIC) activities. She also did not address rumor control and what today I'm calling disinformation.

And, I advocate that social media can also be used for the operational aspects of disasters. First for bettering situational awareness on what is happening in the community and then also orchestrating the response to appropriate geographic areas.

Seven years ago, I championed an application for theses purposes, but FirstToSee was too early for hidebound non-techie people to adopt. Thus — it is dead! 

I'm still in mourning. 

 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.