Liz Evangelatos & Shannon BarneyJan 2015

FACEBOOKA platform where you can post photos and lengthy posts (about 2,000 characters) and people can comment on your posts.

TWITTERA platform where you are limited to 140 characters (spaces and/or letters and numbers). A good place to have links to the more complete story. Think of Twitter as a place for your headline and Facebook the newspaper.

LINKEDINA platform used for business. Posting your work experience, past and current, awards, certificates and a good for networking with others. Also allows you post articles about business topics.

YOUTUBEYou can upload video from a variety of devices and link that video to your other accounts.

What Is Social Media?

A countless array of internet based tools and platforms that increase and enhance the sharing of information. Let’s touch on a few of the most popular:

PINTERESTA very visual platform that encourages photo posts (they call them ‘pins’) to be organized by a board. The end visual result is something akin to photos pinned to a cork board. You can add links from the captions to other platforms.

GOOGLE +Similar to Facebook with the biggest difference being that anyone can friend you (they call it being ‘added to a circle’) without you having to accept them and posts are by default public. You can share posts privately or to specific groups, but the open theory is opposite of Facebook’s.

FOURSQUAREA platform where you check in to different locations in real life and your friends can see where you are on their phones. It ‘awards’ you badges and various honors for repeated visits to the same location. When you have been to a place more than anyone else, you are the Mayor.

INSTAGRAMAnother visual platform. More simplistic than Pinterest and it only holds your most current 90 photos.

Non-Emergency Response Agency?You’re probably better off with just a website presence.

The public can still search your site for information they are looking for and if they don’t find it, they can email you. The public’s expectation on a response via email communication is from 1 – 3 days.

Your website should have:

• All the important information that is specific to your department • Consider adding a Questions and Answers page and include the questions your staff are asked most

frequently• Business hours• Contact information• With over 80% of the population in the United States using smartphones, it’s a good idea to make sure your

website works on smartphones and tablets as well as desktops.

Always have the information on your website current and be sure to assign someone to check and respond to emails daily.

Emergency Response Agency?

Several questions to consider before moving forward:

• How will having a social media presence benefit the public you serve?• Do you have staff to monitor all platforms even during off hours?• Have you considered how this extra cost will effect your budget?• Does your social media person know how to reach the social media managers in other emergency

response agencies?• In an emergency, how will the various social media managers work together?• Have you spoken to allied agencies about a joint information center (physical or virtual)? Do you have

agreements or MOUs in place to use as guidance?• Do you have a back up to your social media person, to facilitate 24 hour information flow during

emergency events?

Objectives

Objectives need to be determined long before any accounts are opened or posts made public. Write the answers down to the following questions and keep them for review later.

• What are the objectives of your department?• What is the core mission of your department? (IE. First response, warnings, seeking information for

damage assessments, etc.)• Are your social media objectives in line with the mission statement of your department?• How will your social media presence help the public? Be as specific as possible.• Are you willing to invest time, money, and resources before the event (any emergency or disaster )?

Example:

My objective at the Sheriff’s Office is to provide fast emergency notification about current events effecting the public. To do so I will attempt to gain 10,000 fans on Facebook. 10,000 fans represents approximately 10% of our County’s population. I feel comfortable that in an emergency situation with that many people on our Facebook page, most residents, through sharing and other interactions, will be alerted to information that is critical to them, through a combination of social media, Reverse 9-1-1 and local radio.

Social Media is not a strategy – IT IS A TOOL

Once you’ve determined your objectives, it’s time to outline your strategy. Just being online alone IS NOT A STRATEGY.

Example:

With my objective at the Sheriff’s Office of gaining 10,000 on Facebook, my next step is how to get them used to coming to the page regularly before an emergency hits the County.

My strategy is to post something a few times a week on either missing persons, cold cases and recent cases. I share information from our County Department of Transportation if there are road closures or hazards, from the National Weather Service if harsh weather is expected that may effect residents and/or visitors, and posts from other government agencies that may effect our residents.

People have grown accustomed to visiting the site regularly, so when an emergency hits the community, the public already knows they’ll find the latest information on our Facebook page.

What’s your strategy?

The person assigned to handle your social media must have a clear understanding of what the department’s objectives and strategies are. It’s best to have this person(s) involved in the planning of these objectives and strategies to help them stay focused during a disaster.

Once that is understood, before each post is made public, two questions should be asked:

• “Is this information in line with the department’s strategy?”

• “How is this piece of information I’m about to share going to help the public?”

At no time should personal or unfocused information be posted. Posts should focus on relevant information that affect the lives of the people in the community. It if does not, they will no longer follow the site and you lose your ability to influence them.

Example:

If I buy a Field and Stream magazine and take it home only to find it has articles on how to best apply makeup for a dinner date, the weather in another country and a great recipe for lasagna, I will soon be looking for another source for hunting and fishing information.

The Difference Between Social Media for Government Use and Personal Use

This is Not a Job for an Intern!

The person that is assigned to your social media should be fluent in current best practices of social media for business and government, and current first amendment laws, at least as it pertains to social media. They should also be politically sensitive. They should have a sense of the “big picture” and how their work product affects the big picture.

Example

Instead of posting:

• “Meet the newest member of our team! We’re excited to have an extra pair of hands to help around here.” Put yourself in the public’s shoes for a moment. Most regard us as overpaid and underworked, wasting away their tax dollars.

A better post to introduce a new employee might be:

• “We’ve been working understaffed for over six months and we have noticed that our customer service has suffered by causing the public unnecessary delays at the front counter. We hope that you’ll welcome our newest staff member and know our goal is to cut your wait time in half!”

Who Is That Masked Man?

It is important that the person in charge of your social media to remember they are representing the department at all times. Their identity shouldn’t to be known to the public.

Batman is the one that always saves the day. Nobody stops to ask “Who’s in charge of turning on the power for the Bat Signal Light?”

We know the Commissioner flips the switch, but who makes sure it lights up? It’s some guy in basement no doubt, but we’ll never know for sure.

And that’s how the voice of a department should be. Working in the background to make the department, and the County look good.