Social Media Used in Emergency Management

After a quick analysis of the Local Civil Defence events from the early hours of Monday 14th, the Civil Defence response and messaging about Tsunami warnings and threats has been an epic fail. MCDEM's website collapsed. MCDEM then reversed their warning about tsunami activity via Twitter and Facebook, yet the Waimakariri Christchurch and Canterbury Civil Defence Facebook pages continued to say there is no tsunami threat. This is simply dysfunctional. NO clear messages to the community 

However, this issue we will be pursuing directly with the Local Council. The 7.5-magnitude earthquake and the strong aftershocks that followed are a good reminder about how important communication is in a crisis. As soon as the swaying stopped, the first thing many of us did was grab our phones to find out what had happened and to contact loved ones. Overnight, we saw first-hand the role that social media can play in communicating public service announcements

Social media emergency management might as well be a discipline within the field of emergency management all on its own. There are numerous benefits of participating in social media emergency management activities but there are still disadvantages to knowing about as well.

As we all know Social media is a powerful tool often used by businesses and organisations, the media, government officials and the masses because of its features and abilities to spread the word out to a significant amount of people in a timely manner. Social media emergency management practices should be used by all emergency management professionals where the community or organisation is big or small but it is important to understand the cons just as much as the pros are understood which is why this article was written. 

Social media disadvantages for crisis communications and this is, in my opinion, this is what happened on Monday Morning 

• Unauthorised or inept use of the social media platform by the organisation’s personnel could be damaging to credibility and ability to earn trust. 
• Effective use of social media requires a commitment to policies and resources. 
• Information gathered from social media users may be inaccurate. Hoaxes are prevalent. 
• Requires increased human resources to properly monitor social media, assess it and respond appropriately. Individuals of the organisation may not know procedures for flagging and reporting pertinent information gleaned from social media. Training is necessary.
• Information gathered that seems critical to public safety requires careful confirmation. 
• The public’s views on the disaster and the response to it could be erroneous. 
• Immediate corrections, necessitating a commitment of communications resources, may be necessary.
• Social media can also fan negative public opinions about the way first responders managed the disaster, possibly creating a post-disaster public relations crisis

Social media advantages for crisis communications

• Before a disaster affecting the public strikes, social media provides organisations with a powerful tool for building trust among people who use social media by developing constructive dialogues in social media communities. Emergency managers, in particular, are thus able to establish their social media presence as a go-to source for authoritative public information during a natural disaster.

• Reinforces crisis alerts being sent to the public through traditional routes, e.g., sirens and traditional media, while simultaneously fostering public feedback.

• Regular monitoring of social media can help serve as an early-warning system for helping first responders identify pending disasters.

• Enables monitoring of timely reports from the public as well as general public opinion before, during and after a crisis.

• Offers an additional way to track the course of a disaster and the effectiveness of the response as perceived by the public

• Another way to assess recovery progress in the wake of a disaster.

A wide variety of social media platforms are available, each having its own characteristics, e.g., short messages (Twitter), long messages and multi-media (Facebook), video (YouTube), photo sharing (Flickr). The software is available that can help sort through data and support human evaluators.The goal for any organisation experiencing a crisis that affects the public is to integrate social media with traditional communications channels. The two platforms must be mutually supportive in their messaging and responses to the public. During a natural disaster, understanding and acting upon both the advantages as well as the disadvantages of social media can literally be a matter of life and death.

Dave is the Director of Emergency Management Consultancy Ltd and Consulting Executive for Legendary Psychology Ltd