According to a recent study by the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Center for Marketing Research, Inc. 500 businesses are embracing Facebook and LinkedIn as the most popular and effective tools for fast-growing companies. Additionally, the survey identifies that corporate blogging has fallen over the last year with a general trending away from more mature tools (ex: blogs, message boards, online videos, and podcasting).
So what does this mean for emergency management....?
Emergency management is not a major company with significant investment in marketing or industry trending. However, we should always be aware of what is happening at major companies. Because they do look for efficiency and effectiveness in all the tools they utilize, there are certainly lessons that can be learned.
For instance, in the most metaphysical question possible to ask in this forum....what should emergency management do with blogs? Many great practitioners blog via this site or many others and share unique (and hopefully interesting) perspectives on activities and trends in the field. These types of blogs seek discourse and engagement one a one-to-one or one-to-community basis. This type of engagement is at the crux of emergency management and response. We have to engage sometimes one to one with disaster survivors or one-to-many during community recovery. We have to be honest and true whenever possible. Ultimately, it's all about the humanity, which blogs are true mirrors for. Measuring the idiosynracies and needs of the community are critical whether it's in this forum or during an event.
So even though major companies may think blogging is of less importance, it may be one of the best tools emergency managers have to be genuine and honest.
