Social Media use by Emergency Managers: Survey Says!

Post by: Kim Stephens

photo credit: Rosaura Ochoa via photopin cc

CNA, a not-for-profit research and analysis organization,  in conjunction with the National Emergency Management Association, released the results of their survey of emergency management organizations about the use of social media. You can download the report here. The CNA website provides a description of why they felt a survey was important:

To date, much of the data on social media and emergency management is limited to anecdotal accounts or case studies. Thus, CNA, in partnership with the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA), funded the development and nationwide distribution of a 56-question survey to state, county, and local emergency management and response agencies in late 2012 to answer questions about social media use in emergency management. By taking a survey approach, we were able to provide a broader, complementary perspective to existing anecdotes and case studies. This report provides the key results of that survey.*

They posed the following questions:

• How knowledgeable are emergency management agencies regarding social media?
• Do emergency management agencies use social media? What goals do they have for social media?

• What are current capabilities for using social media?

• Do emergency management agencies have experience using social media in real-world events?

• Are agencies prepared to conduct social media operations in large-scale events?

• What are emergency managers’ attitudes toward social media?
• What are the main challenges to social media use by emergency management agencies? What can the Federal Government do to facilitate its use?

Findings:

Although the results of the survey do mesh with expectations, they did uncover a few nice surprises. For instance, the extent of adoption is higher than I would have thought: “Of those surveyed, all state emergency management agencies use social media in some capacity, as do 68 percent of county emergency management agencies and 85 percent of local response agencies.”

Not surprisingly, given the relatively recent acceptance of social media for crisis communications, they found that the emergency management community use these tools in a fairly ad hoc fashion–processes and procedures lag behind adoption. Furthermore, information found on social networks is also less trusted than “traditional media.” Most agencies do not have a person dedicated to updating and monitoring social media. During large-scale disaster events, this lack of dedicated personnel severely restricts the ability of organizations to glean information from users. “Less than one-quarter of state agencies responding, and even fewer county and local agencies, indicated that their data collection and analysis capabilities could sufficiently scale for large events.” The lack of personnel, however, does not seem to impact the ability for these organization to post status updates during events.

My favorite question–what can the feds do for you–also had an unsurprising response: send money. Although to be fair–training, guidance and standards were also mentioned.

Let me know–would you have answered the survey differently? Are you surprised by the results?

Report was written by Yee San Su • Clarence Wardell III • Zoë Thorkildsen