Risk Communications Times of Crisis

7/28/2019 Risk Communications Times of Crisis

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Expert Round Table on Social Media and

Risk Communication During Times of Crisis:

Strategic Challenges and Opportunities

Special RepoRt



Contents

Narrative 1

Survey Results 11

Speakers 15

Social Media Primer 17

Editors: Timothy Tinker, DrPH, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.

David Fouse, American Public Health Association

Writer: Donya Currie, MA

Photographer: Rick Reinhard

Cp


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narratiVe

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Organizations working to protect public health and saetyhave built strong reputations based on sound science, yearso service, and direct community engagement Yet, the com-munications landscape is evolving rapidly, and the implica-tions or managing messages and engaging the public toprotect public health and saety—especially during times ocrisis—can be staggering Fortunately, a wealth o new andaccessible communication platorms presents the possibilityo reaching more people with more relevant messages thanever beore

Now that citizens are able to create content reely and dis-tribute it wherever they please, the job o controlling theirmessages has become increasingly dicult Government,commercial, and not-or-prot organizations must broadentheir vision to understand how social media “tactics andtools” are embedded in their organization’s broader com-munication strategy

Today’s portolio o social media tools (eg, blogs, socialnetworking sites, Really Simple Syndication [RSS] eeds,texting and other ormats) is already shaping how crises arecommunicated and responses are coordinated To betterharness the power o these new media tools, the “ExpertRound Table on Social Media and Risk CommunicationDuring Times o Crisis” met on March 31, 2009, at theAmerican Public Health Association (APHA) headquartersin Washington, DC A select group o thought leadersand practitioners who are engaged in public health,emergency response, and crisis communications presented

best practices, common pitalls, and orward-thinkingnext steps or using social media to improve emergencycommunications

The use o social media during emergencies—rom the2007 shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and StateUniversity (Virginia Tech), to the 2008 terror attacks onMumbai, to the 2009 salmonella-related peanut recall—isleading to a roadmap to help public health and emergencymanagement crat a unied strategy on applying socialmedia to crisis communications

Wh Wk, Why sc M C Hp

Social media are the various electronic tools, technologies,and applications that acilitate interactive communicationand content exchange, enabling the user to move back and orth easily between the roles o audience and contentproducers

“At its most basic sense, social media is a shit in how peo-ple discover, read, and share news, inormation and con-tent,” according to Wikipedia, which itsel is a social media

tool because any Internet user can add content to a Wikipe-dia entry “It’s a usion o sociology and technology, trans-orming monologue (one to many) into dialogue (many tomany) and is the democratization o inormation, transorm-ing people rom content readers into publishers”

The explosion o social media—everything rom social net-working websites, to blogs, to broadcast text messaging—has changed the way in which anyone involved in risk


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/risk-communications-times-of-crisis 4/202 | Social Media and Risk Communication

communications must look at overall communication plansEspecially in times o emergency, social media can andshould be employed to transmit critically important inorma-

tion immediately to as many people as possible“It speeds up communication, and, or all practical purpos-es, it speeds up awareness,” American Public Health As-sociation Executive Director Georges Benjamin said aboutsocial media

That kind o awareness—broad, strategic public engage-ment—was largely missing when the levies broke aterHurricane Katrina A major challenge o social media,however, is a lack o condentiality and a danger o non-veried inormation fashing around the globe at lightning

speed But considering that President Barack Obama haspledged transparency in government and recently steered a$787 billion stimulus package that includes $19 billion orhealth inormation technology (IT) through Congress, therehas never been a better time to “stretch” into the world osocial media and risk communication during times o crisis

How do we do that? There denitely is no one-size-ts-allapproach, but best practices are emerging, and expertsand “newbies” are identiying ways to weave social mediainto existing risk communications strategies

Since the terrorist attacks o September 11, 2001, theCenters or Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), orexample, has developed innovative strategies or respond-ing to public health emergencies

In terms o risk communication, one example o how CDCocials use social media to reach the public is its “Hurri-cane Tip o the Week” This tip is not only posted on a hur-ricane website (wwwbtcdcgov/disasters/hurricanes) butalso e-mailed and “text messaged” to those who have reg-istered to receive the tips The weekly tip, which has more

than 1,600 Twitter ollowers and 34,000 e-mail subscrib-ers, also is available via widget

“Social media is obviously about more than how we reachout to the public and educate the public,” said NathanHuebner, emergency risk communication specialist andlead or CDC’s emergency websites “It’s about the publictalking to us It’s also about the public talking to the public”

CDC has been working on disaster preparedness e-cardsto encourage riends and amily to take preparedness stepsIn May, during National Hurricane Week, it launched

about a dozen e-cards The agency oers a mobile phoneversion o its website and a simple text version o all corecontent Public service announcements are available aspodcasts

The Tip o the Week campaign is not solely about pre-paredness CDC is building a subscriber base to extendits outreach on all health-related topics And, as Huebnerreminds us, it’s important to remember entire populationswhen disaster strikes

“With every crisis, you have your aected persons, and

your vast majority who are the unaected,” Huebner said“But I think it’s really easy to dismiss the unaected as justbeing the ‘worried well’ I think that’s a mistake I think it’san enormously missed opportunity”

Instead o dismissing the so-called “unaected” people—thepeople interested enough to ollow a disaster-related Tweetand subscribe to e-mail alerts but who have not been aect-ed directly—those people should be employed in a commu-nication strategy

“What I would say we should be doing is helping the a-ected stay sae, respond, and recover,” Huebner said,and to…use the unaected “as evangelists or the currentresponse”



Similarly, citizens can become health advocates by sharingCDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) messagesabout key health issues such as the early 2009 salmonella-related peanut recall Ann Aikin, with CDC’s National Cen-

ter or Health Marketing, remarked that e-cards have beena boon to the agency’s outreach eorts These e-cards oerhealth inormation, sometimes as simple as the ollowing:Get a fu vaccine Your patients are counting on you

More than 100,000 people have opened those healthe-cards; in act, one such message was sent 2,113 timesso ar These cards enable citizens to become health advo-cates on topics such as the salmonella-related peanut butterrecall More than 2,400 salmonella-related e-cards weresent in early 2009, and more than 172,000 total e-cardshave been sent since the eort’s launch

The agency encourages outreach via mobile phone be-cause such communication tools are becoming more perva-sive than traditional land lines Eighty-ve percent o Ameri-cans use mobile phones compared with 80 percent whouse home personal computers, 69 percent who use digitalcameras, and 40 percent who use MP3 players Age andracial or ethnic makeup also matter Eighty-nine percent o

young adults, ages 18 through 34, own a mobile phone

compared with 57 percent who own a landline In the sec-ond hal o 2008, 25 percent o Hispanics owned onlya mobile phone compared with 214 percent o Arican-Americans and 166 percent o Caucasians

“The New Face o AIDS: A Mobile Media Experience” isan example o CDC’s public service eorts using mobilephones On World AIDS Day in 2007, public service an-nouncements were pushed to mobile phone and web users,with those same messages transmitted again on HIV Test-ing Day in June 2008 Streaming video that users createddrove home the HIV awareness message

According to Aikin, mobile messages also can be key ininternational areas In Kenya, which has 33 million people,there are 113 million mobile phone subscribers but only

264,000 landline and 3 million Internet users An opt-insystem or blood donors enables them to receive text mes-sage reminders stating when they are eligible to donateagain and messages calling or donors o specic bloodtypes during critical shortages

Other health marketing tools rom CDC include communityvoice mail that sends voice and e-mail messages to near-ly 405 social service agencies, outreach to bloggers (by2012, more than 145 million people, or 67 percent o

Make social media eorts message driven, not channel driven.

Embrace every possible teaching moment so that your social medianetworks can grow.

Tap into all available resources. Do you have a large cadre o volun-teers? Consider training them as social media ambassadors.

Keep messages brie and pertinent. People are not really reading,they are scanning.

Make sure you can receive public input. Remember that socialmedia is not just about you talking to the public; it also is about themtalking to you and to each other.

Use social media to support a unifed message. Instead o creating anew message or social media, use social media to support your existingmessage in a larger communications model.

Have a Plan B. Suppose phone lines are jammed and/or computersare down?

Forge partnerships or sharing methods and messages. Federalagencies, or example, need to reach out to the private sector, andvice versa.

Focus on people when ormulating your communication plan. Networks o people will get work done, even when there is no electricity.

Avoid elitism or the belie that people in charge know more and thegeneral public is prone to misbehavior.

New technologies are not simply new types o media with which

to do the same old things. These new media signal a shit in thinkingabout how we communicate with our audiences.

Avoid “shiny new object syndrome” (being quick to adopt every newsocial media that emerges…as soon as it emerges).

tiPs For using soCial Media during eMergenCies



the US Internet population, will be reading blogs at leastonce a month), Twitter, widgets, and social networks

Widgets (ie, small programs that users can download

onto their computers or embed in their social media prolesor blogs to pass along to others) have proven a particularhealth marketing boon During the peanut product recall,there were more than 155 million page views o the sal-monella peanut product recall widget, which included asearchable database o recalled products, and 20,450people added this widget to their website, blog, or socialnetworking page

tpp V

“The social media network o the American Red Crosscame o age during Hurricanes Ike and Gustav in 2008,”said Laura Howe, the group’s senior director o publicaairs The organization had to battle against the ear ousing social media and also beware o what Howe de-scribed as “shiny new object syndrome” As new socialmedia tools emerged, some wanted to jump on eachtechnology bandwagon

For the Red Cross, the answer was to develop a disasteronline philosophy: use social media to empower clients and

supporters to get or give help during a disaster It does thisby maintaining six ocial platorms as points o engage-ment, providing content or and contact with media outlets,and striving to use social media and all its communicationsplatorms to acquire more inormation than they give out

“We want to listen so that we can hear rom people whoneed our help during a disaster,” she said, “and rom lovedones who also need to know what is going on”

In what rst seemed like an impossible task—but has sincebecome the backbone o the Red Cross social media suc-

cess story—150 public aairs volunteers received trainingon how to use social media Howe said, “the results havebeen absolutely amazing”

Volunteers upload content onto a website, and Red Crosspersonnel screen that inormation or appropriateness Soar, not only have volunteers readily embraced the newtechnology, but also, “everyone’s been very responsible inwhat they’re doing”

Red Cross platorms include a WordPress blog, Facebook page, and disaster online newsroom The latter includesshelter locations, numbers o meals served, and other inor-

mation the media might want to use Red Cross Twitter has10,000 ollowers Tweets cover topics such as shelter andpreparedness inormation, on-the-ground situational aware-ness, and a review o abundant CDC inormation

Flickr photo posts averaged 4,000 views daily duringHurricanes Ike and Gustav and helped the Red Cross“get the word out and let people know what was happen-ing,” Howe said The agency also uses Utterli, a servicethat enables users to call a toll-ree telephone number toupload audio

The overall benets are as ollows:

The number o calls rom media during disasters has be-

come more manageable

The Red Cross has learned that it is easy to tap into oth-

er social networks to spread its word when needed

Overall, responders state that they have better access to

situational awareness inormation

The salmonella peanut product recall widget was a key component in alerting the public

early to potentially tainted food products during the 2009 recall. Partnership between

the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was

critical to the success of this tool.



reCoMMendations on Core CHallengesRound Table participants ormed our breakout groups to tackle core challenges to social media use—public/private partnerships; evaluation and met-

rics; capacity and resources; and social media and communications strategy—and develop recommendations going orward

Pbc/Pv Php ev Mc Cpcy rc sc M Cmmc sy

g o

1 Form best practices oradoption o social media

2 Identiy social mediastrategically

3 Develop strategic goals andevaluation strategy

1 Measure engagementqualitatively

2 Continue to makeimprovements

3 Validate eorts and methods

1 Gain support o leadership2 Integrate with communi-

cations and emergencystrategies

3 Be proactive rather thanreactive

1 Build value o content, andestablish yoursel as a sub-ject matter expert in advanceo crisis

2 Allow organizations to dis-seminate inormation withouta lter

3 Dene a target audience

B

r r i e r

1 Lie-cycle issue2 Restricted access to social

media tools at work 3 IT and legal barriers

1 Costs and competingresources

2 Data coding3 Inaccurate perceptions o

problems lead to aultyinormation being reportedas act

1 Funding2 IT and physical security3 Cultural barriers

1 Buy-in o senior leadership2 Cyber security3 Sustainability

P r o m i i n

a p p r o c h e

1 New metric tools(eg, Omniture)

2 Partnerships between gov-ernment and less-constrictedorganizations

3 Leadership champions

1 Examine quantitative andqualitative data bothexternally and internally

2 Keep objectives measurable3 Use pilot programs to over-

come barriers

1 Mobilize by grassroots2 Look to CDC’s salmonella

widget success3 Use social media strategically

rather than dabbling in socialmedia

1 Incorporate volunteers intosocial media process

2 Use low-budget techniquessuch as fip cams rather thanhigh tech video production

3 Build advocacy or undrais-ing into social media

l e o n

l e r n e d

1 Reach out to content providers,including citizens and users

2 Understanding how peopleapproach social media helps

orm communications strategy3 New, popular technology

can ade ast

1 Determine measures oeectiveness

2 Develop best practices3 Develop guidance document

on types o evaluation orsocial media

1 Integrate social media intoexisting communicationsstrategy

2 Establish networks in

advance3 Educate employees and lead-

ership in social media

1 Remember that people arethere because they want tobe engaged (opt-in system)

2 Balance call-to-action and

education3 Overcome technical hurdles

(eg, cell phone towersdown ater hurricane)

P r i o r i t y a c t i o n

1 Provide data2 Create meaningul public

engagement3 Coordinate partnerships with

as broad a community aspossible

1 Institutionalization: Makeevaluation a part o strategy

2 Prioritize metrics and industrystandards

3 Develop research agenda

1 Establish strategy and ensurethat you are using the righttool or the right audience

2 Integrate with communica-tions strategy

3 Determine which existingcommunities you can get in-volved with rather than creat-ing a new community

1 Examine new social mediaoptions

2 Identiy ways in which traccan be driven to social me-dia outlets

3 Seek ways or motivating theleadership to get inolvedwith social media

K e y t o s u c c e

Priority actions are keys

to success

1 Resources and unding

2 Leadership support3 Partnerships with subject mat-ter and social media experts

1 Create evidence base

2 Determine demand or socialmedia3 Educate public health com-

munity about value o socialmedia tools

1 Ensure that inormation is

authentic and useul to thepublic2 Integrate social media stra-

tegically with organization’sobjectives

3 Become a community andbridge the cultural divide byorming relationships

P e r f o r m n c e

M e u r e

1 Number o partners2 Diversity o partners

(government vs privategroups and single users)

1 Behavior change2 Communication eciency3 Case studies

1 Behavior change2 Measure increase in trac3 Feedback rom communities

1 Measure hits to certain outlets2 Measure eedback 3 Seek new ways or measuring

how social media is impact-ing the organization



W C Wk

The recent salmonella-related peanut recall posed a wide-spread public health challenge that was ripe or social

media help Peanuts are an ingredient in a long list o prod-ucts, they have a long shel lie, and almost every house-hold has at least some peanut products in its cupboards Aso March 30, 2009, 3,800 products had been recalled

Online technology allowed FDA to maintain a product re-call database that consumers could search by universalproduct code (UPC), product description, or brand nameYet ederal ocials needed a way to make sure the publicknew how to access it

CDC ocials then built a widget to drive people to thedatabase “It gave so many more people the opportunityto get that inormation,” said Andrew Wilson, web contentmanager or the US Department o Health and HumanServices (HHS)

Calling it “The Little Widget That Could,” HHS ocials saidthat the most successul part o their social media commu-nications during the salmonella outbreak and related recallmet two goals: raising public awareness, and allowing thepublic to be involved directly in “exponentially increasing”awareness

On February 3, 2009, HHS held a salmonella-related we-binar or bloggers, knowing those bloggers were impor-tant to getting the word out accurately Buttons and badgesenabled partner organizations and web users to display

simple images and messaging related to the recall Blogs atHHS and CDC contained good examples o “being ableto cross boundaries,” said Wilson, and a related Twitter

(wwwnewmediahhsgov) had roughly 3,000 ollowers

Ch o Wy d th

At the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), John Shea serves as public inormation ocer or newmedia He believes that legal issues and internal politicsare roadblocks to establishing social media policy Theycan be overcome by educating people internally to achievebuy-in on the myriad uses o social media, and by tack-ling the legal issues in the best way possible For example,

there is a pending General Services Administration (GSA)agreement that any agency will eventually be able to useto start a social media application

Typically, ederal agencies have a particular way o accom-plishing tasks, which poses a particular challenge in thecommunications climate that adopts social media Whatwill happen to old standbys such as Federal Register

notices? Is a Tweet valid during a public comment periodon a new regulation? I so, what should an agency dowith the Tweet to ensure that it is accessible universally?

The tools and tactics are still emerging, and as they maturewe’ll better dene measures o eectiveness and next steps,according to Grant McLaughlin, Booz Allen principal, anexpert in strategic communications, marketing, and stake-holder outreach



Still, the ultimate goal is to be able to use social media tocommunicate quickly and eectively during emergenciesAnd it is important to have space that allows multiple voices

to be heardAnother key to success: Centralize use o social mediato eliminate multiple communication strategies rom multi-ple departments In an early March 2009 survey o howorganizations are using social media, more than 22percent o participants said that each unit or departmentacts independently and oversees its own social mediause (see page 12)

A common barrier to adopting social media in communica-tions strategies can be the ear that too much inormation

too soon will create panic But as award-winning authorAmanda Ripley reminds us, people can handle the truth

From researching her book The Unthinkable: Who Sur-

vives When Disaster Strikes—and Why, Ripley learnedthat humans are amazingly polite to each other duringcrises In act, people actually become highly social duringdisasters “I think it’s something we wildly underestimate,again and again,” Ripley said

According to her, communicators can take away a lessonrom the way people behaved during the World TradeCenter attacks o September 11, 2001 Once the planescrashed into the towers, it took an average o 6 minutesor people to enter the stairways Once in those stairways,people moved at a pace o about one foor per minute,or about hal the speed saety engineers would have pre-dicted While the res were raging and the towers were onthe verge o collapse, people routinely exited the stairwell,checked CNN on an oce television, went to vending ma-chines, and talked with each other

“The brain operates very dierently under a threat,” Ripley

said In addition to becoming very social, people also de-liberate about what steps to take When told to evacuatebeore a hurricane, or example, Ripley ound the averageperson checks with our to ve sources, such as a newsanchor, a neighbor, a spouse and a website, beore decid-ing whether to pack up and go Using social media duringtimes o crises requires communications to tap into people’sneed or comort and human connection

HoW to estaBlisH soCial Media Best PraCtiCes

Develop a research

agenda that will allow or evaluation o theeectiveness o social media in a disaster communications model.

Use subject matter experts to help with data collection.

Initiate a cultural shit. Allow your group/agency the room to grow in

developing a new approach to social media. This is where leadershipis key.

Get eedback rom users in the community.

Be aware o the three main barriers to adopting social media:

(1) leadership buy-in, (2) sustainability, and (3) IT/access issues.

Remember that people are there because they want to be.

They are not being orced into a social media environment.

Seek ways to address technical hurdles (e.g., mobile phone towers

not working during a hurricane).

Think partnerships. For example, use groups such as the American

Public Health Association (APHA), which might not have the sameconstraints as a government agency, to help you expand your socialmedia communications tools. It’s all about partnering—with yourleadership and with your community.

Keep trying. Best practices will emerge.

Balance core capacity with social media capacity. Know that part o any

communications strategy includes balancing time and resources.

Be relevant. Do not “spam” users with too much inormation.

Choose a ew social media tools and develop them well.

Realize that social media is a moving target. Be exible and use volun-

teers and community members to help you adapt your communications

strategy accordingly.Focus on building relationships. Work to give the public a way to engage.

Another lesson, according to Ripley, is to avoid elitism, or think-ing that people in charge know more and everyone else isprone to misbehavior



”I would argue that more people have died because o theocial ear o panic than o panic itsel,” she said

FEMA is known in government communications circles touse social media very eectively, and one area the agencyhas been tackling is explaining exactly its role during disas-ters Rather than respond directly to emergencies, the agen-cy coordinates response eorts and ensures resources areavailable where they are most needed

FEMA narrowed that inormation gap via a 1-hour newsconerence on Twitter The public presented questions toDavid Paulison, administrator at FEMA, and he respondedto them directly through Twitter Later, a ull transcript andaudio/video rom the session were posted online A week later, FEMA held a “bloggers’ roundtable,” and theseparticipants also had direct access to Paulison

FEMA also wanted to use social media to make peopleaware o the state-unded disaster recovery centers itmanages

”It’s not, ‘Hey, join our Facebook page and your recovery’sgoing to be swell,’” Shea said “We want to help them getthe help they need”

Twitter has been one o FEMA’s most active social mediatools, and the agency’s YouTube channel helps tell the storyo disaster preparedness and response The agency en-sured that its communications strategy is expandable toeach o its regions In this way, the agency’s message is

not being delivered rom Washington, DC, but rom localoutlets Another key, according to Shea, was using existingapproved and tested communications workfows, integrat-ing social media into communications plans, and leverag-ing national networks (like those o CDC and Red Cross) toprovide visibility or locality-specic messaging

For example, during the Boulder, Colorado, wildresin early 2009, one o the most active Tweeters was agraduate student doing extensive individual researchFEMA worked to leverage her ollowers and encourageinteraction with her network to help ampliy messagesabout the ederal response to the res

C h M: i i Pb aym?

One concern or many o those who are involved in cri-sis communications is that when disaster strikes, imagesare posted on Flickr, and words are already fying aroundon Twitter and Facebook beore CNN can issue its rstbroadcast

Indian citizens and journalists seek protective cover near one of the attack sites in Mumbai in November 2008. Social media tools such as Twitter, mobile text messaging, and Flickr provided the earliest reports from the siege.



“What that has done to us rom a public aairs standpointis it’s taken us out o the game or any media strategy,” saidRichard Kolko, chie o the FBI’s National Press Oce

Adjusting to this new communications reality is key not onlyor his agency but or all involved in coordinating messagesso those who receive the word are not overwhelmed

During a 60-hour siege in Mumbai, India, in November2008, terrorists killed at least 173 people and injuredmore than 300 The 10 gunmen, well armed with assaultrifes and grenades, Kolko pointed out, “were experts incommunications as well” Media outlets unintentionally in-terered with police eorts by pinpointing or the terroristswhere law enorcement was arriving by helicopter

Meanwhile, the terrorists had eectively used tools such asGoogle Earth maps and photos to scout a location beorethe deadly attack and used a Global Positioning System(GPS) device to navigate across the Arabian Sea Hostagesand resident witnesses were transmitting harrowing accountsand images using short message service (SMS) text on theirmobile phones, Twitter Tweets, and Flickr images Thoseuser-generated images would be among the rst availablephotos in the unolding drama being broadcast globally

Andy Carvin at National Public Radio (NPR) knows thata cadre o interested social media acionados can adddepth to coverage in ways that media sta alone cannotprovide And during emergencies, a well-established onlinecommunity means more voices are getting the word out

During the 2008 presidential election, NPR’s Vote Reporthelped identiy voting problems via 10,000 submissionsrom “average citizens” nationwide On Inauguration Day,NPR received more than 40,000 submissions o photos,video, text, and Tweets that added depth to its coverage

Carvin explained that tagging enables specic content tobe gathered rom various sources

“You can see what people are all yammering about,” hesaid, showing a search on Twitter or the term “Risk 20”to reer to the APHA-hosted roundtable session “But it be-comes a lot more interesting when people start using this inreal time when things hit the an somewhere”

A ew days beore Hurricane Gustav landed in 2008,Carvin created a website based on tags by pulling together

Tweets, Utterli voice mails, and photos rom Flickr and othersites Almost 500 people signed up via Twitter in the rst48 hours These people helped create various tools that

made it possible to automatically aggregate content romsources all over the Internet

Perhaps no recent crisis better illustrated the gap betweensocial media users and authorities than the 2007 shoot-ings at Virginia Tech Although the campus is one o themost “wired” in the nation and has been at the oreront othe adoption o new technology, students were mostly inthe dark as harrowing events unolded

The university was not able to quickly release the names othe victims because o legal issues, but those names were

already posted on Wikipedia

As university ocials struggled to help students, aculty,sta, and community members cope in the atermath, about1,000 journalists and crew descended on the Blacksburg,Virginia, campus

“It really became a very small town overwhelmed,” saidChris Clough, the university’s communications director atthat time

In what could have caused a technological meltdown at

a less-wired university, school personnel transerred 432 Gi-gabytes (GB) o data on April 16, compared with a normalday’s load o 15 GB Ater the shootings ceased statementswere posted to the web, and “lite” pages allowed the overallmessage to be changed as needed—a model other schoolsand agencies oten ollow during emergencies



Nationally and globally, people used social media to con-nect ater the incident On Facebook, 236 groups ormedwithin 24 hours o the shooting, and more than 500 groups

with 124,000 individual members sprang up within days,many consisting o students attending other colleges anduniversities

Clough said online scams also popped up within hours,and school ocials aced a “bake sale dilemma” Peoplewanted to raise money, but guidelines were neededTapping alumni was critically important or this eort

nw M h M Hw h Pbc rc

Fox 5 News started using social media tools such as Face-

book and Twitter simply or personal branding, accordingto news anchor Brian Bolter His early goal was to under-stand social media tools and gure out how to “own thespace or our viewers”

Bolter learned early that people did not like linked notesbecause using links to stories that took viewers back to theFox 5 website was considered “impersonal sel-promotion”

Bolter went on the air to explain Twitter to his audienceWhen a storm hit the region, instead o sta making phone

calls to sheris’ oces in remote counties, the station re-ceived instant eedback about storm damage via Twitterrom its viewers region-wide Although Tweets might notmake or great television, incorporating this social mediatool has helped the station build relationships with its view-ers This relationship building not only creates loyal viewers,it helps the station when social media savvy viewers send ineedback and story tips

“Ironically, the biggest usage we had, in the 9 or 10months that we’ve used it,” Bolter said about Twitter, “wasnot a local story and was hal a world away in Mumbai

There was little inormation when the story broke” The ter-ror attacks happened just ater noon eastern standard timeand by the 6:00 pm broadcast, Bolter’s station was stillscrambling or inormation But by then, the station alreadyhad about 3,000 Twitter ollowers

“With all the limited inormation we were getting, Twitterwas ring on all cylinders,” Bolter said “Flickr was ringon all cylinders People were talking to each other, and we

were able to cherry pick, veriy the inormation, and sort oput it together and give our viewers a much better presenta-tion o what was going on than so many other people inso many other media outlets”

That’s the type o edge that social media can give publichealth and emergency management organizations in thecrucial rst hours o a disaster

Craig Leebvre, a research proessor at The GeorgeWashington University School o Public Health and HealthServices, says that he also blogs and Tweets and envisions

social media changing people’s expectations o communi-cations and communicators

“We’re not just talking to people, but they’re talkingback to us, and, more importantly, talking to each other,”Leebvre said

Goodbye sources, messages, channels, and receiversHello, networks!

It is important to understand, too, that most o the worlddoes not use the Internet to search or inormation; rather,

the world uses the Internet to connect with social networks

“This is a community that’s orming out there,” Leebvre said“It’s no longer about individuals”

To engage communities in new ways, advocate rather thanpreach Instead o thinking o “transmitting” messages, es-pecially during an emergency, allow people to engageand participate When possible, the style should be inor-mal and conversational and should work to inorm and col-laborate with the audience—not command and control itAbove all, Leebvre advises, build a community And, aswe work to rene our communications strategies or times oemergency, do not let that crippling ear o new media orpublic reaction stand in the way o good messaging



surVeY results: u sc MPrior to the March 31 Round Table, the event co-

sponsors conducted a web survey to examine the

many facets of social media during times of crisis

such as types of tools used and their effectiveness,

barriers to their use, and coordination of social

media with broader communication strategies.

The survey was conducted using a sample of

9,000 participants; of these, 541 individuals and/or organizations responded.

A slight majority o respondents indicatedthat they did not use any social media toolsor communicating public health issues oremergencies

Does your organization currently use social media tools

(such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, texting, Wikis, etc.) to

communicate about public health issues or emergencies?

1) Use of Social Media Tools

Slightly more than one-third o respondents have usedthese tools less than 1 year, and more than 75 percenthave less than 3 years o experience using them

How long has your organization been utilizing social media tools?

2) Length of Time Using Social Media Tools

When asked how organizations used their social mediatools, nearly two-thirds o respondents said that they usedthem to communicate only externally, or externally andinternally Less than one-third o respondents used socialmedia tools only within their organizations

My organization primarily uses social media tools to communicate:

3) Primary Communications Use

of Social Media Tools

n=231

n=230

n=542



5) Social Media Strategy Coordination

Nearly hal o respondents used a combination o onedepartment leading social media coordination or the

organization, and departments independently oversee-ing their own social media use

6) Goals Using Social Media

Respondents placed slightly greater importance oneducating the public as a goal or using social media

Aecting public behavior/encouraging public actionalso garnered a solid response

4) Types of Social Media Tools

Social networking (eg, Facebook and MySpace) accounts or the largest percentage o tools that survey respondents use,with blogs in a close second place Respondents use virtual worlds, mobile websites, social bookmarking, widgets, and

image sharing less, at under 20 percent

Which o the ollowing social media tools does your organization currently use?

Social Networks (Facebook, MySpace, etc.)

Blogs

Mobile Text Messaging

RSS Feeds

Microblogs (Twitter, Plurk, etc.)Video Sharing

Podcasts

Which o the ollowing best describes how your organization coordinates itssocial media strategy?

A combination o both

One unit/department oversees all social media

use or the organization/agency

Each unit/department acts independently andoversees its own social media use

Which o the ollowing goals is most important in your use o social media?

Educate the public

Aect public behavior/encourage public action

Foster two-way communication

Network among public health/ emergency personnel

Other, please speciy

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

n=231

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%0 20 40 60 80 100 120

n=228

Wikis

Image Sharing

WidgetsSocial Bookmarking (Delicious, Digg, etc.)

Mobile Web Sites

Other

Virtual Worlds (Second Lie, Whyville, etc.)



7) Evaluating Effectiveness

A large majority o survey respondents are not evaluatingthe eectiveness o their organization’s social media use

8) Evaluation Tools

When evaluation metrics are used, a large majority oparticipants used web analytics Respondents used online

comments, surveys, and word o mouth to a lesser degreeor evaluation

9) Barriers to Use

With strong majorities, survey participants identied the key ostacles that limit their organization’s use o social media These

obstacles include other competing priorities, sta time/capacilevel o amiliarity with tools, and organizational culture

w

Do you evaluate the eectiveness o your use o social media?

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120

Stronglyagree

Agree Neither agreenor disagree

Disagree Stronglydisagree

Financialresources

Target population's

access totechnology

IT/tech-nological

capacity

Evaluationcapacity

Privacyconcerns

Organi-zational

culture

Level offamiliarity

with tools

Staff time/ capacity

Othercompeting

priorities

25 27 27 24 179

17 12 12

50 48 44

36

31

30

28 29 28

1813

14

21

2937

2324 27

510

1315

19 1723

26 23

2 2 3 4 5 79 9 10

Which o the ollowing evaluation tools do you use?

Web analytics

Online comments

Surveys

Word o mouth

Other, please speciy

Do you agree or disagree that the ollowing issues present obstacles oryour organization in using social media strategies to improve public healthor risk/crisis communications?

th wb vy v h pbc hh y

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Ky vy f w:

No organization can rely on its own website as the sole source o

inormation and orum or discussions about an incident. Nor canorganizations assume that they are the sole or primary knowledgeproducers o expertise.

Citizens who are ar removed rom “ofcial channels” o emergency

inormation will create and share their own knowledge; however,they connect their content to a vast, multipliable social network, ex-acerbating the potential or the propagation o rumors and myths.

Ky F

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

n=230



Social media (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter) are popular

and inuential because they help satisy the human need to cre-ate and connect. It is imperative that emergency communicatorsnot only monitor the inormation shared across social media, but

also engage the dialogue to help shape the conversation.

Public-private partnerships provide additional opportunities or

enhanced communication, whether in training, strategy develop-ment, system design and implementation, messaging, or stake-holder engagement.

While the public has ocked to the Internet and smart phones

with access to online content, the emergency community hasonly begun to catch up. Yet, as the survey data suggests, thereis a defnite trend toward adoption—and more importantly,toward strategic implementation.

The prevalent and exclusive use o social media to broadcast in-

ormation to large audiences ails to tap into the ull potential osocial media as a tool or outreach and collaboration. As the datasuggests, only 14 percent to 17 percent o emergency managersuse social media or anything other than a “traditional” one-waybroadcasting tool.

Most organizations do not seem to evaluate their social media

engagements. Although sotware that measures social mediaefcacy is as newly developed as the media it tries to monitor(e.g., Facebook’s Lexicon graphs the requency o “words” in

status updates and can help media proessionals observe publicsentiments and perceptions), it is nonetheless worrisome that some type o metric is not being applied throughout the liecycle o a social media campaign.

Overall, the data is encouraging regarding social media’s role

in emergency communications; however, the time is ast approaching when “social” media will simply become “media.”

The recent H1N1 u outbreak demonstrated the power o social

media to reveal concerns, ears, and ultimately the resolve opeople who oten want little more than assurance that the inor-mation they have (and will ultimately share) is accurate.

w Continued from previous page



sPeaKers

and business leaders working to identiy solutions to the digitaldivide He also is author o the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

blog “learningnow” (wwwpbsorg/learningnow), which ocuses

on the impact o Internet culture on education In 2005, MIT Tech-

nology Review magazine named Mr Carvin to its list o 35 o the

world’s leading high-tech innovators under the age o 35

Christopher Clough is a marketing communications consul-

tant based in the Washington, DC, area Most recently, he was

the director o marketing and strategic communications at Virginia

Polytechnic and State University (Virginia Tech), where he oversaw

the successul university-wide branding initiative and the university’s

trademark and licensing program Following the shooting tragedy

in April 2007, Mr Clough was a leader in the strategic communi-

cations eorts to help heal and position the university or the uture

Beore his position at Virginia Tech, he had his own consultancy,

hosted a local business radio program, and held numerous corpo-

rate communications positions

Michael Dumlao is a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamil-

ton specializing in creative multimedia design and social media

strategy Bringing more than 8 years o proessional experience in

visual communications and brand development, Mr Dumlao has

designed websites, print collateral, and social media or clients inthe deense, homeland security, and civil markets Beore joining

Booz Allen Hamilton, he was creative director and lead designer

or The Georgetown University’s Center or New Designs in Learn-

ing and Scholarship, a research think tank specializing in the con-

vergence o emerging media technology and higher education

Laura Howe is the senior director o public aairs or the Ameri-

can National Red Cross, where she is a spokesperson and over-

sees media relations and crisis communications Ms Howe also

manages all Red Cross social media eorts Earlier, she worked

with the Red Cross Southeast Service Area, where she led the

region’s communications response to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita,and Wilma She learned the media trade while spending more

than 8 years as a television news reporter and anchor in stations

across the south

Ann Aikin works or the Centers or Disease Control and Pre-vention (CDC) in health marketing on the Interactive Media Team

She leads the new media research activities and works to develop

innovative health communications products with other CDC part-

ners She also acts as the social media lead in emergency com-

munications at CDC, collaborating with partners at the Food and

Drug Administration (FDA), Health and Human Services (HHS),

and CDC to integrate numerous user-centric and research-based

social media tools or the peanut butter and peanut-containing

product recalls Previously, she worked or the National Center

or Health Statistics as a health communications specialist and a

technical inormation specialist

Georges Benjamin, M.D., FACP, FACEP (E), is executive

director o the American Public Health Association, the nation’s

oldest and largest organization o public health proessionals He

came to that post rom his position as secretary o the Maryland

Department o Health and Mental Hygiene, where he played a

key role developing Maryland’s bioterrorism plan Trained as an

emergency physician, Dr Benjamin served as chie o emergency

medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and later as act-

ing commissioner or public health or the District o Columbia

He is a member o the Institute o Medicine o the National Acad-

emies o Science

Brian Bolter is anchor and reporter with WTTG Fox 5 He is

a two-time Emmy award winner, including being honored as the

Mid-Atlantic’s “Best Live Repor ter” He also won a prestigious Ed-

ward R Murrow award or excellence in journalism From the

Pentagon and Ground Zero during the week o September 11 to

the wildres in Caliornia and the atermath o Hurricane Katrina,

he has reported on the ront lines o events that helped shape our

country Mr Bolter came to Fox 5 rom WBAL-TV in Baltimore,

Maryland, where he worked as the weekend anchor and reporter

He started his broadcast journalism career more than a decade

ago in Monterey, Caliornia

Andy Carvin is senior strategist or National Public Radio’s

(NPR) Social Media Desk, where he has helped NPR program

sta learn how to integrate user-generated content, crowdsourc-

ing, and social networks to promote dialogue and collaboration

with the general public Beore coming to NPR in 2006, Mr

Carvin was director and editor o the Digital Divide Network, an

online community o educators, community activists, policy-makers,



Nathan Huebner began his career at the Centers or Disease

Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1999 and shited ull time to

emergency risk communication as a result o his involvement in

the responses to September 11 and the anthrax attacks in 2001

As lead or the CDC Emergency Communication Web Team, Mr

Huebner is responsible or coordinating CDC’s use o the Internet

to prepare or and respond to public health emergencies, includ-

ing anthrax, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Hurri-

cane Katrina, oodborne outbreaks, and many other emergencies

Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) Richard J. Kolko is

currently assigned to Federal Bureau o Investigation (FBI) head-

quarters as the unit chie o the National Press Oce and as an

FBI spokesman He was assigned previously to the Counterter-

rorism Division as a supervisor on the Fly Team, which provides

a rapid worldwide response to terrorism matters In 2007, MrKolko served as the ESF-15 lead at the Top Ocials (TOPOFF)

exercise in Portland, Oregon Beore reporting to FBI headquar-

ters, he was assigned to the Atlanta division, where he worked

on white collar crime, violent crime, the 1996 Olympics and

subsequent Olympic bombing investigation, and domestic and

international terrorism Beore joining the Bureau, Mr Kolko

worked at CNN as an Emmy award-winning producer and as-

signment editor

R. Craig Lefebvre, Ph.D., is an architect and designer o

public health and social change programs He is a research pro-

essor o prevention and community health at The George Wash-ington University School o Public Health and Health Services His

work ocuses on social media and mobile technologies in social

marketing and public health programs Most recently, Dr Leebvre

was the chie maven at Population Services International, where

he led its technical teams in capacity-building, HIV, malaria, child

survival and clean water programs, reproductive health, and so-

cial marketing and its research and metrics unctions He produces

and writes the blog “On Social Marketing and Social Change”

(socialmarketingblogscom)

Grant McLaughlin, a principal with Booz Allen Hamilton,

manages proessionals in the strategic area o organizationchange He has more than 15 years o experience in strategic

communications, change management/change communications,

marketing, public education and stakeholder outreach, partici-

patory decision-making, strategic management analysis, and

implementation Mr McLaughlin’s most recent experiences have

centered on assisting US government organizations in moving

through change as a result o a transormation, modernization,

or implementation o a new service oering He has extensive

experience in establishing, ostering, and maintaining partnering

relationships among stakeholders with state, local, and ederal

agencies

Amanda Ripley is a longtime Time Magazine contributor,

who has traveled worldwide studying disasters, natural and man-

made Her book, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster

Strikes—and Why, is the rst mass-market book that explains how

the brain works in disasters—and how we can learn to do better

In her book and in her work or Time and other magazines, she

escorts us into the darkest regions o the human experience, ficks

on a fashlight, and searches or signs o lie She chronicled

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita rom New Orleans, helping Time win

two National Magazine awards She covered September 11rom Manhattan, the sniper attacks rom Washington, DC, and

the catastrophic 2003 European heat wave rom Paris Ms Ripley

now writes about human behavior and homeland security rom

Washington, DC

John Shea joined the Federal Emergency Management

Agency’s (FEMA) External A airs Oce in 1999 and was initially

responsible or FEMA’s online radio operations among other early

multimedia products He has been deployed to more than 50

disaster responses and recoveries Mr Shea was named public in-

ormation ocer or new media in June 2008 and developed the

strategies and standard operating procedures or FEMA’s socialmedia/new media eorts to integrate existing and uture com-

munications needs that the agency encounters or preparedness,

response, recovery, and mitigation messaging

John Verrico, media spokesman or the US Department o

Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, has

more than 28 years o experience in public aairs or govern-

ment agencies Earlier, Mr Verrico served with the Naval Facilities

Engineering Command, Maryland Department o Environment,

Maryland governor’s oce, and Maryland Department o Natural

Resources He is a retired Navy Master Chie Journalist, a ormer

reelance journalist, and a proessional trainer on communicationsand leadership

Andrew Wilson works in the US Department o Health

and Human Services’ (HHS) Web Communications and New

Media Division He is responsible or the management

o PandemicFlugov and is the lead member o the HHS Center

or New Media Beore coming to HHS, Mr Wilson was the

managing editor o the US Department o Agriculture’s Coopera-

tive State Research, Education, and Extension Service website



soCial Media PriMer

Wh c m?

Social media are the various electronic tools, technologies, and applications that acilitate interactive communication andcontent exchange, allowing the user to move back and orth easily between the roles o audience and author These toolsare underscored by a signicant cultural shit toward more open, transparent, and collaborative user experiences

sc M t ic:

t dcp

B

Short or weblog, a type o website that is updated requently; written

in a conversational tone and contains regular entries o commentary;

descriptions o events or other material

PcWeb-based audio and/or video content made available on the Internet

or downloading to a personal audio player

sc nwk s (Fcbk, Myspc, c.)Online communities that allow users to connect, interact, and exchange

inormation with those who share interests and/or activities

Mcb (tw, Pk, c.)

Form o blogging that allows users to write brie text updates (usually 140

characters) and to publish them so that their network can view and com-

ment on them

Mb tx M Short text messages exchanged between mobile devices

Wk Collaborative web page or collection o web pages that allow all usersto contribute or modiy content

WPiece o sel-contained code (a small application) that can be embedded

into a website or program to perorm a specic unction

sc Bkmk (dc, d, c.)Sites in which a virtual community exchanges links to content and stores

links or uture use

rss F

Short or Real Simple Syndication; a le that contains requently updated

inormation (such as news headlines or blog posts) that can be subscribed

to using programs called eed readers or aggregators

im/V sh s (Fck, Ytb, c.) User-generated sites that allow people to upload pictures or videos andthen view and comment on the uploaded content o others

V W (sc l, Whyv, c.)A computer-based, simulated environment in which users interact with

each other via avatars, virtual representations o themselves

i FmAlso called message boards; online discussion sites in which users can

discuss issues, exchange inormation, and share views

Mb Wb Websites geared or mobile devices



Documents

Risk Communications Times of Crisis