Why Emergency Managers Should Use Social Media

by Elaine Pittman on July 15, 2011

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Many emergency managers are avoiding using social media for all the wrong reasons. By utilizing social media, emergency managers get to be the official word on those platforms. They also provide a way to spread messages to the public not only during disasters, but also about preparedness when the state or local government is in nonemergency mode. Alexa Noruk, legislative policy analyst for the National Emergency Managers Association, explains why emergency managers should use social media.

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Elaine, You make an excellent point in your video and vignette about the importance of using social media before, during and after emergencies. In fact, the Red Cross even did a survey to help uncover the raw data behind how social media would be utilized during disasters and emergencies! See: http://www.commandcore.net/mediacenter/blogdetails.aspx?BlogID=14.

From Jake Haggerty September 07, 2011

I have an article in this month's Journal of Business Continuity and Emergency Management on using social media to provide situational awareness that you might find interesting. I'm @dit_dah on Twitter.

From Ed August 05, 2011

Hey Fernando. A few recommendations - 1. Follow the social media emergency management hashtag (#) on Twitter. Search #smem. Some of the thought leaders on Twitter use it to chat with each other on topics and issues related to social media. 2. Find a few of the blogs and websites on this. CrisisCommons (http://crisiscommons.org/), and Kim Stephens blog (http://idisaster.wordpress.com/) are decent places to start. Also, I'm @kgfreeman on Twitter - if you have any other questions feel free to direct message (DM) me.

From Katie August 03, 2011

Hi, I am an emergency coordinator at my company and I am new in the social media arena but I can see the advantages of using it. Where could I find training on how to use it to be able to talk intelligently to my superiors to persuade them to allow me to implement it at work? Thanks,

From Fernando Silva August 02, 2011