Getting Folks to “ShakeOut” via Social Media: Lessons for all Hazards

Post by: Kim Stephens

 The Great ShakeOut (not to be confused with the Harlem Shake)  started in California but has now become a multi-state as well as international earthquake drill. The objective is to get citizens to practice the recommended action to take during an earthquake. The protective action mantra that is repeated in almost all of  the messaging is simple to remember: “Drop, Cover and Hold-On.”

Drop, cover and hold-on for ShakeOut BC (Photo credit: BC Gov Photos)

The ShakeOut has become a bit of petri dish for those in the social sciences who study citizen engagement and participation in disaster preparedness activities–as well as the effectiveness of preparedness messaging. In turn, the outreach efforts have been fine tuned throughout the years in order to take advantage of lessons learned from each year of the event.

A key aspect of the Great ShakeOut is the integration of comprehensive science-based earthquake research and the lessons learned from decades of social science research about why people get prepared. The result is a “teachable moment” on par with having an actual earthquake (often followed by increased interest in getting ready for earthquakes). The Great ShakeOut creates the sense of urgency that is needed for people, organizations, and communities to get prepared, to practice what to do to be safe, and to learn what plans need to be improved.

               Quote via:
http://www.washington.edu/emergency/shakeout

Marketing

This event is promoted through a variety of methods that are centered on websites designed  for each region. Citizens are encouraged to register via the website and make a pledge to participate in the drill.  Once registered, they are asked to use resources on the sites such as drill manuals, broadcasts, scenarios, and safety information to help develop their plans in order to be more prepared for an earthquake.

How do you keep interest year-round?

Even though the ShakeOut is planned for one day out of the year, community outreach  is a job for all 12-months; and reaching people via social media has increasingly become an important piece of the “ShakeOut” communications strategy.  Jason Ballmann, (@JasonBallmann) the Social Media Strategist of the Southern California Earthquake Center told me how they keep people’s attention.

“I think what makes us special is that we are already extremely relevant. We’re based in Earthquake Country. Yet, we try to make preparedness and recovery fresh, interesting, and fun. Social media is a great way for us to do that, and I think our sincerity and wish to keep people safe and ready is obvious.”

Define Your Strategy

Being “fresh, interesting and fun” however, is not something that can be done in an ad hoc fashion.  According to Jason, their social media strategy includes the following 5 main points:

• Define the best platforms for our audiences and ways to use them, notably Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Google Plus, and Vine App;
• Identify key players and read/share/retweet their content (Twitter lists, like them as our Facebook Page, follow them on Pinterest, etc…);
• Listen to how audiences are participating in ShakeOut, staying prepared, and practicing Drop, Cover, and Hold On with their shared content;
• Create innovative, unique content that will engage and inspire our audiences to be better prepared and informed;
• Attend live events (expos, fairs) and post event/news-related content to engage people on social media while staying true to our mission.

Their social presence, as mentioned above, include the big 3 (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) but also they have added the Vine App, Pinterest and Google Plus. Their presence is robust with over 7,000 thumbs up on Facebook and over 4,o00 followers on Twitter. I really like the way they have taken full advantage of adding other social apps to their Facebook page–making it a bit of a one-stop social stop: fans can readily see their YouTube videos and their Pinterest page without leaving Facebook.

I’m also loving that they are experimenting with humor. The video: “Don’t fight a brick–the brick will win” (see below)  is something that teenagers might actually share. Why is that important? Getting people to share the message is always one of the main goals of any social media strategy. Also, it is important to keep in mind that even though an older person might not find the video humorous, not all content can connect with all people. That is the beauty of social media–it allows the messenger to reach all segments of the audience with tailored content with the knowledge that one size does not fit all.

Don’t forget–the ShakeOut is on 10/17 at 10:17AM–no what your location. See the California ShakeOut website here: 
http://shakeout.org
.

Should Your Emergency Management Agency be on Vine?

Post by: Kim Stephens

Some consideration ought to be given to adding the new video-sharing-mobile-application from Twitter called “Vine” to your Public Safety Organization’s communications toolbox. However, if you don’t have teenagers in your house you might not be sure what Vine is or what it could do for your organization. Currently, Vine is one of fastest growing video-sharing apps and tops Apple’s app download chart. Some Federal entities have noticed: the White House is already taking advantage of this new means of connecting to their audience and GovLoop recently posted an article titled “Vine: Government’s 6 seconds to Shine.”

What is it?

For detailed  background information on this new social sharing application, see Twitter’s FAQ page here, but in a nutshell, Vine allows users to post very short (only 6 seconds) of video content to the application via a smartphone. Other Vine users can follow you to see your posts, however, content is easily shared via either Facebook or Twitter and can also be embedded in a blog (as demonstrated below). In fact, “A post on Vine cannot be viewed outside of the Vine app unless it is shared on Twitter or Facebook, in which case a link for the video will be made publicly available.” The Vines loop–so unless you click away from the video it continues to play over and over, although this can be a bit annoying, it is actually pretty good feature for getting your point across.

Why?

Public Safety and Emergency Management organizations are having a hard enough time finding resources to post interesting content to the “big 3″ social media sites–YouTube, Facebook and Twitter–so thinking about adding responsibility for another social network might seem ludicrous. However, in my opinion, the forced brevity of Vine actually makes it a great tool for preparedness messages and maybe even for protective action information/demonstrations. In terms of preparedness messaging, this video below is intended to be funny versus instructional, but it inspired me, nonetheless. (Click the x to hear the sound–otherwise it is muted.)

#howto Camp like a pro. #fire vine.co/v/b9EnzlQxZdw—
marcus johns (@marcusjohns) May 23, 2013

Although the Vine above is shot all at once, a great feature of the app is the ability to stop the action. Once recording from within the Vine app, to stop the scene you simply tap the screen of your smartphone and then tap again to restart.  This feature makes it a great way to create instructional snippets without having to edit the content post-production. See this cringe-worthy “How to Fail” video below by the same slapstick comedian from above (I hope this young man has a good relationship with his local EMTs).

#howto Fail at Scurfing #notready #jumpthegun #everytime #dude! Feat: Dane Gerwig, and Jake Mayer vine.co/v/bVFp3degQ7V—
marcus johns (@marcusjohns) May 26, 2013

Adding very short video content to your Agency’s Tweets and Facebook posts could be a very valuable asset. Instead of saying: If you catch on fire remember to “Stop Drop and Roll” you could actually demonstrate what to do. Similar demonstrations could be done for “Duck, Cover and Hold On” or  ”Don’t drown–Turn Around.” Increasingly this is an image driven society–this tool provides another way to insert ourselves into the conversation.

Let me know–is your Agency considering Vine or have you already started using this tool? I’d love to see some public safety examples.

#SMEMChat Receives Honorable Mention

Post by: Kim Stephens

English: Blue ribbon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Alex Rose (@U62 on Twitter) thought it would be a great idea to submit the #SMEMChat for the FEMA Citizen Corps “Partners in Preparedness Award.” Since #SMEM is populated with people who are collaborative by nature, a Google Doc was stood up where many of us contributed to the entry. I was asked, on behalf of the group, to send it in with my contact information.

I am happy to report….we almost won! Darn! We didn’t come in first, but honorable mention is not too shabby. Below is the email I received from the National Office of Citizen Corps.

Dear Partners in Preparedness

We are pleased to announce that you have received an honorable mention for the 2012FEMA Individual and Community Preparedness Awards! Thank you so much for promoting and sharing with us the amazing work that you do to help prepare your communities for disaster. It was obvious that you all put a lot of thought, time, and energy into your applications.  Thank you again for inspiring FEMA to continue to recognize achievements in Individual and Community Preparedness. As a recipient of an Honorable Mention, you should receive a certificate from FEMA in recognition of your accomplishments, and you will be recognized on our website.

While you were not selected to receive an Individual and Community Preparedness Award this year, please know that even among an exceptionally strong pool of applicants, your submissions really stood out! We received over 150 applications from every corner of the country, and we may follow up with you in the future to learn more about your programs and efforts – you’re all contributing to a safer America, and your work should be celebrated! We hope that you will apply again next year. Thank you again for your time and your efforts.

The National Office of Citizen Corps

 Here is the link:
http://www.citizencorps.gov/newsevents/awards/2012/2012winners.shtm

Yea us! Thanks to everyone who contributed and a special thanks to Alex Rose!

 

Using YouTube to Communicate Preparedness Messages

Post by: Kim Stephens

Image via CrunchBase

When communicating life safety and preparedness information online, it is really important to remember what retailers have already learned: video sells your message much better than text. The article “10 Web Video Stastics You Need to Know” details some interesting trends in how people are consuming web-based and mobile content. Five key points:

1.  Visitors who view video stay two minutes longer on average (Comscore)
2.  59% of senior executives prefer to watch video instead of reading text. (Forbes)
3.  50% of smartphone users watch web video on their mobile device. (Google Blog)
4. Video and other multi-media product viewing options were rated more effective than any other site initiatives in an Adobe survey of almost 2,000 interactive marketers. (Adobe)
5. Video in email marketing has been shown to increase click-through rates by over 96% (Implix Email Marketing Trends Survey)

What does that mean for the public sector? It means that we need to be more creative in content production and distribution. This, of course, is already happening. A simple search on YouTube for “emergency preparedness” yields 17,900 results. The content of these preparedness videos, however, does not always compel viewership. To be frank, if your video is lame, no one is going to watch it. Content is king–even with video.

One of the best videos I’ve seen to date is the recent Department of Homeland Security grant funded project produced by the city of Houston, titled: Run, Hide, Fight, which describes what citizens should do in the event of an active shooter in an office building (or any building). The release, or at least circulation, was very timely–just after the movie theatre shooting in Colorado. The best thing about the video is that the viewer feels genuine concern about the actors. I watched the entire 5:55 minutes to see who survived.

I did find the content, however, to miss the mark in some respects: they completely forget people with access and functional needs, both in terms of production and distribution. The video is not captioned nor is there a script readily available, and furthermore, they depict every person in the video as young and able-bodied. What about a person that does not hear that a shooting is happening in the building? What about a person that is in a wheelchair and therefore can’t run, hide, or fight easily?  They also disabled the comment section on the YouTube platform, which is unfortunate, in my opinion. How else will they learn what people thought about the content?  Nonetheless, the video is compelling. It made me consider my own exit and/or hide plan.

Does your agency have any videos ready for production? Let me know!

Cell Phone Preparedness: Small County, Great Example

blackberry (Photo credit: arrayexception)

Post by: Kim Stephens

Cecil County, Maryland proves that you don’t have to have huge budgets or a large staff to provide quality service to your citizens.  My last post highlighted Fairfax County and their cell phone preparedness page.   James Hamilton (aka @Disaster_guy on twitter) chimed in that he had written something similar for Cecil County’s emergency management website. The content, however, has some added tips for citizens that I think are really important.  I even like the introduction:

During a major emergency your cell phone may become a lifeline in many ways. Is your cell phone up to the task? Particularly if you have a smart phone such as an iPhone, Android, or Blackberry, there are many resources available that may be helpful in the case of an emergency. This becomes even more critical if you have lost power and/or internet.

There are five things this tip sheet does right:

1.  Points out what kind of phone will work with wireless emergency alerts:

• If you are shopping for a new phone, select one that is capable of receiving CMAS / Wireless Emergency Alerts messages. Your carrier should be able to direct you to these phones.

2. Highlights specific information regarding the county’s notification system and social media presence:

• Ensure that you have registered your cellular number with Cecil County’s emergency notification system. This system is only used in the event of extreme emergencies.
• If you use Facebook or Twitter on your phone, ensure that you are following our Facebook or Twitter accounts. (In an emergency, any phone that can send and receive text messages can receive DES’ Twitter feed by texting “follow @CecilCountyDES” to 40404).

3. Points to and provides hyperlinks to local response partners, including the power company:

• If your home is served by Delmarva Power, download their iPhone/iPad, Android, or Blackberry app to report outages and view outage status.
• Search for an app that will provide you with weather alerts and weather radar. There are many free weather apps for each operating system.

4. Describes cloud computing options and why they are important:

• Consider hosting emergency information such as insurance policies and a home inventory in an online repository such as Google Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox so that it will be accessable to you on your phone or from any computer after an emergency.

5. Describes power issues and how to address them:

• Consider purchasing a solar or hand-cranked charger for your cell phone.

Thanks again to James for directing me to their great tips. If your agency is doing something interesting please let me know!

Digital Preparedness Kit - Fairfax County, Virginia

Post by: Kim Stephens

I like to scan emergency management websites looking for best practice examples to share. Due to the recent #derecho storm on the easter corridor I checked into Fairfax County–always a great example–to see what they were up to and I stumbled onto their Digital Preparedness Kit. Although this recent storm was humbling regarding the use of cell phones in a crisis, now that power is being restored, cell service is actually one of the first things coming back online.

Verizon announced Tuesday afternoon that nearly all of its customers had cellphone service restored, but there were lingering problems with TV, landline and Internet service in Virginia, Maryland and The District. Mitchell  [of Verizon] said there was no timetable for when those problems might be resolved. (Washington Post Local)

Recommending how citizens can have their cell phones “emergency ready” therefore, is still a great idea. Fairfax has ten great tips that should be a staple on all emergency preparedness websites.  Recommendation #7, which describes the importance of conserving cell power in case the user needs to dial 911, is a bit ironic considering 911 was out of service for an unacceptable amount of time in the county during the storm. That recommendation should also come with a side note for government agencies: “avoid sending tweets with links to information that needs to be downloaded by citizens, therefore increasing network congestion.” Nonetheless, this page is a great resource which also provide information and links to all of their mobile apps.

Do you have a “cell preparedness” page on your local agency website? Let me know. Here are their tips:

Top 10 Digital Preparedness Tips

1. Tell your friends & family you are OK via text, email, Twitter, Facebook and other social media.
2. Learn how to send updates via text and internet from your mobile phone to your contacts and social channels in case voice communications are not available. Avoid calling by phone.
   
3. If you have a life-threatening emergency, call 9-1-1. Remember that you cannot currently text 9-1-1.  If you are not experiencing an emergency, do not call 9-1-1.
4. Save important phone numbers to your phone.
5. Keep charged batteries and car-phone chargers available as back-up power for your cell phone.
6. Conserve your cell phone battery by reducing the brightness of your screen, placing your phone in airplane mode, and closing apps you are not using that draw power.
7. Immediately following a disaster, resist using your mobile device to watch streaming videos, download music or videos, or play video games, all of which can add to network congestion. Limiting use of these services can help potentially life-saving emergency calls get through to 9-1-1.
8. If you do not have a cell phone, keep a prepaid phone card to use if needed during or after a disaster.
9. Charge your digital camera or buy batteries for your film camera if you need to document storm damage afterwards.
10. Get connected with us through the tools listed on this page: texts, Twitter and more.

YouTube Can Help Spread Emergency Preparedness Messages

Post by: Kim Stephens

Yesterday (March 26) I had the amazing honor of sitting on a panel at the National Emergency Managers Association with some of the most talented and creative emergency managers in the country, particularly with regard to their use and application of social media: Cheryl Bledsoe (@Cherylble), Greg Licamale (@G_r_e_g) Jeff Phillips (@JSPhillips), James Hamilton (disaster_guy), Chris Thompson (@redcrossmom), Brian Crumpler (@emgis), Rob Dudgeon (@sfDEMrob).

For my small contribution to that esteemed panel, I talked about how to creatively provide disaster preparedness information to the public via social media. My talk was based, in part, on this post.  A tweet today led me to another example of agencies doing great work in this area. The Greater Kansas City Region’s Metropolitan Emergency Managers Committee  (MEMC) has developed three YouTube videos that  look and feel little like the Mac/PC commercials. They even have nice catchy music in the background. A big guy is “Mr. Disaster,” and he’s up to no-good. Another reasonable guy walks citizens through easy steps they can take to prepare for Mr. Disaster should he come their way.

The use of YouTube here, is important.  YouTube allows for videos to be shared easily on a multitude of platform: blogs, facebook, twitter, and google +.  The MEMC have embedded the video on their own webpage, and as you can see, I’ve posted the video to this blog post. This ease of sharing can only allow for more eyes to see the content and therefore, hopefully, increase public engagement and preparedness.

Is your agency creating this kind of message for YouTube? It would be fun to have a repository for those videos. Maybe the Emergency 2.0 wiki would be a good place for that.

Using Social Networking to Foster Community Preparedness and Participation

Post by: Kim Stephens

How are you providing information to your community members about disaster preparedness?  I met an Emergency Manager at a recent conference and he answered this question confidently. “We are having an event at the library to teach individuals and families how to prepare.” Then he adds, not so confidently, “We had a similar event about six months ago, and I was the only person who showed up.” I asked him how he was advertising. He indicated he was putting information in the local newspaper and distributing it to local senior centers. I said, “Oh, so your target audience is elderly individuals?” ”No.” he replied, “We are targeting everyone in the community: families, seniors, as well as young-single people. Everyone needs this information.” He stopped to think for a second, and I could see the realization cross his face. Then he said, “I’m not going to have anyone show up again. Am I?” Nope.

National Goals

The need to provide information to citizens to help them prepare has been outlined in national guidance for years. The 2007 Target Capabilities List has a “common capability” entitled “Community Preparedness and Participation.” The desired outcome “…everyone in America is fully aware, trained, and practiced on how to prevent, protect/mitigate, prepare for, and respond to all threats and hazards.”  The new  National Preparedness Goal , called for in the Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8), defines success as:

“A secure and resilient Nation with the capabilities required across the whole community to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the threats and hazards that pose the greatest risk.”

This new goal has come under some criticism. Read these great comments on the Goal by the Homeland Security Policy Institute.  Other important comments were made on the Homeland Security Watch Blog. I also agree with their assessments:

1. the new goal seems heavily tilted toward counter-terrorism;
2.  the proposed preparedness architecture seems mostly a matter of preparing-to-respond; (emphasis added)
3. the core capabilities and performance measures as currently articulated would not substantially enhance the commitment of the whole community to the preparedness mission.

Community Outreach and Collaboration

The criticism that the new Goal does not “enhance the commitment of the whole community” I think is a great point. From my perspective, the entire framework assumes somewhat of a passive role for citizens. This, however, seems contrary to the current way people are engaging with the world and with information. Frank Rose, a long-time Wired editor, writes in his book “The Art of Immersion”

“NOT LONG AGO WE WERE SPECTATORS, passive consumers of mass media. Now, on YouTube and blogs and Facebook and Twitter, we are media… No longer content in our traditional role as couch potatoes, we approach television shows, movies, even advertising as invitations to participate—as experiences to immerse ourselves in at will.”

 Although Mr. Rose’s book’s main audience is intended to be the entertainment industry or people in “marketing,” we in the emergency management community and the public sector need to take notice. Trying to get the public to pay attention to preparedness messages requires not good, but excellent marketing skills. Furthermore, citizens don’t necessarily want to be “marketed” to at all. In this “Age of Collaboration”  people expect to be provided opportunities to engage and participate (read ”MarcoWikinomics” by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams).

Using Social Networking for Preparedness Messages

Let’s get back to our guy with an empty library room and a table-full of well-intentioned “How to Prepare for a Disaster” handouts.  Every Emergency Manager understands that ensuring citizens are prepared is a primary function of their job. But it is clear a new more horizontal/participatory model for the distribution of that  information is needed.  Arizona’s Emergency Information Network (of the Arizona State Emergency Management Office) provides a great example of how to engage the community in that fashion.

http://emergencykitcookoff.blogspot.com/p/food-photog-contest.html

During September’s National Preparedness Month  @AZEIN decided that they would not distribute the normal “get prepared–make a kit”  campaign. Rather they conducted a competition in conjunction with Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, called the “Emergency Kit Cook-off“.  The contest had 4 components:

1. They asked the public to vote for their top two choices of shelf-stable foods from four categories (proteins; starches, grain and nuts; fruits and vegetables; and beverages).
2.  The two top vote-getting ingredients from each category were then included in a “black box” of available ingredients.
3. People were then  challenged to create a blue-ribbon “but easy-to-follow” recipe from the foods in the black box. They stated  ”We’re not looking for gourmet cuisine, but we’re also not looking for simple PB and crackers.” They encouraged people to “[g]et creative with the ingredients and create a hot or cold dish that you’d eat if asked to shelter in place.” Participants were not allowed to use anything that required electricity, but could use water. A few pantry items, such as condiments and spices were also allowed.
4. Le Cordon Bleu Chef, Jon-Paul Hutchins, then re-created the dishes using the winning recipes and  ingredients on a local, live morning television news show (see video below).

Social networking was used throughout this competition as a tool for promotion and interaction with participants (as well as other curious emergency managers from across the country). They had a multilayered, multi-media information dissemination approach, ensuring maximum viewership: a blog site was established that connected to their main website (their website also displays their twitter feed); facebook and twitter accounts were used to promote the contest from August when it started to the end in October; a widget was created that allows for AZEIN’s twitter feed to be displayed on other people’s homepages or blogs (see above pic); the TV show appearance was placed on  Youtube.

Some EMs indicate that they will not use social networking because not all of their citizens have access to, or desire to use the technology. However, Arizona’s  approach provides a perfect example of how social media are not the end to a means, but rather a means to an end. Furthermore, if we were to simply count the number of people that actually participated in the Cook-off we would also miss the point.  In “The Art of Immersion” Frank Rose points at that not all of your audience will do all of the activities. He uses a triangle model to describe levels of engagement. Some people will be very excited and do all of the activities, a lot of people will probably just see some of the public relations content via social networks, and most might just catch the TV appearance alone. Nonetheless, each component is an important feature, working together to make the campaign a success by reaching the maximum number of citizens.

The use of social networks for this purpose provides three other advantages:

1. People can participate on their own time from their own home, or from anywhere if they are accessing the content via a smartphone (no need to go to the library on a week night after a long day of work);
2. People will share their experience via their own social networks (“Hey, I just submitted the award winning recipe–watch them cook it on Friday morning!”);
3. Metrics can be used to measure the level of participation and awareness of the information.

Thanks to AZEIN for the information!

http://www.abc15.com/video/videoplayer.swf?dppversion=12740

Related articles

• National Preparedness Month – Using Social Media to Engage Your Community (idisaster.wordpress.com)
• PPD-8: Announcing the National Preparedness Goal (whitehouse.gov)
• Conflict and Disaster Management in a hyper-connected world–cooperative, collaborative, real time. Acid Labs (May 19, 2011)
• “The Roles and Tasks of Implementation Science on Disaster Prevention and Reduction Knowledge and Technology: From Efficient Application to Collaborative Generation“