The social media manifesto: A comprehensive
review of the impact of social media on
emergency management
Adam Crowe
Received: 19th October, 2010
Johnson County Emergency Management & Homeland Security, 111 S. Cherry St.,
Suite 100, Olathe, KS 66061, USA
Tel: +1 913 715 1003; E-mail: [email protected]
Adam Crowe is a Certified Emergency Manager
(CEM) and Kansas Certified Emergency Manager
(KCEM) who currentiy serves as the Assistant
Director of Community Preparedness for
Johnson County (KS) Emergency Management &
Homeiand Security. He has spoken at numerous
nationai conferences in the USA and his work
has been pubiished in several professional journais inciuding the Journal of Homeland Security
& Emergency Management, Journal of
Homeland Security Affairs and the Disaster
Recovery Journal. He hoids a master’s degree in
public administration from Jacksonville State
University and a bachelor’s degree from Clemson
University.
ABSTRACT
Over the past five yeiir5, soda] media have
impacted emergency management and disaster
response in numerous ways. The emergency
management professional must begin to accept
this impact not as an arbitrary consequence of
an uncontrolled disaster, but rather as a tool to
help coordinate, manage and facilitate a saje and
expected response during emergencies and disasters. This paper will explain the power and purpose of social media as well as how social media
systems have equalised capabilities for all levels
and sizes of government. Moreover, this paper
will also Imhliçht the social media systems that
are being used as operational tools as well as
what the future holds. Lastly, common implementation challenges will he discussed through a
look at systematic approaches to applying social
media in emergency management as a positive
and valuable tool.
Keywords: social media. Web 2.0,
emergency management. Twitter,
Facebook
POWER AND PURPOSE
As the second decade of the 21st century
dawns, the biggest challenge for emergency managers is the need to modify
long-standing philosophies on how to
communicate with citizens regarding
emergency preparedness and management
issues that might affect them. This communication includes pre-event preparedness and planning as well as responsive
crisis communications necessary during
the emergency or disaster. Traditional outreach has included providing educational
pamphlets and flyers during local presentations or community events where citizens
may receive the information along with a
plethora of other material from other
sources. Unfortunately, those citizens may
or may not be interested in receiving that
information and consequently will not be
sufficiently swayed to consider necessary
behavioural changes like personal preJournai of Business Conrinuity
& Emergency Planning
Vol. 5 No. l.pp. 4(19-420
© Henry Stewart Publicitiotis,
I74′>-‘)216
The social media manifesto
paredness and/or prompt response when
directed by emergency officials. Moreover,
establishing trust between governmental
representatives and the general public is
challenging and again can lead to a lack of
behavioural change. These traditional
approaches and common challenges have
been the cornerstone of some of the most
significant communication issues faced by
emergency managers.
These challenges can be overcome (in
many ways) through the utilisation of
social media. Regardless of the system, a
shared connection of people and/or
organisations is created with common
values and interests, and choosing to
engage in the exchange of information for
the common good. Social media also
create an inherently higher trust factor for
information because of the shared network of friends, contacts and organisations. It is noteworthy, however, that this
engagement of information can be good
or bad. This is why it is critical for emergency managers to understand and engage
in the collaborative phenomenon of social
media. Consider, for example, Facebook.
It currently has over 500 million active
accounts, which means that it has more
users than the entire populations of
Russia, Japan and Mexico combined and
nearly twice as many as the population of
the USA. Or, put another way, were
Facebook a country, it would be the third
most populous in the world behind China
and India.^ In contrast to the traditional
model of education and outreach that is
offered where citizens may or may not be
spending their time, Facebook is where
communication and relationships are
actively happening. Specifically, an average
Facebook user has 130 friends, connection
to more than 80 community groups and
shares 90 pieces of personal content each
month.”‘ This type of pervasive establishment of community is also common in
other social media outlets such as Twitter,
YouTube and several different blog
sources.
Twitter is arguably the second most
important social media site for emergency
management practitioners. While currently maintaining 105 million users (21
per cent of whom are active), media outlets of all levels and types actively utilise
this system to seek out and distribute
newsworthy information at a tremendous
pace.’* This pace of information dissemination is exponentially increased due to the
significant levels of mobile use of Twitter
and its redistribution (or retweet) functionality of liked or trustworthy information. Specifically, numerous third-party
applications (eg HootSuite and
TweetDeck) allow various forms of utilisation of Twitter such as monitoring and
direct messaging.
While impressive, many governmental
leaders and local emergency managers
worry about the credibility of systems like
Twitter that lack verifiable accounts (for
most governmental entities) and that
admittedly are often filled with insignificant and/or irrelevant information.
Alternative communication sites such as
Nixie were developed to address such
issues related to emergency management’s
use of Twitter as a public education and
information dissemination tool.
Unfortunately, the number of users (particularly media) of these alternative systems pales in comparison to Twitter and
therefore they are highly unlikely to be
impactful tools for emergency management even though they allow for verifiable
accounts.
Nixie is just one of many social media
systems built to draw in people for specific
purposes, often related to emergency management and preparedness. For instance, in
early 2009, Microsoft announced the creation of Vine, a social media system
intended to serve as an emergency notification and naonitoring system by friends
and family; however, by September 2010,
Microsoft had announced the discontinuation of this system.” Citizens were not
finding Vine beneficial presumably because
they were not actively engaged on the
network, especially compared with
Facebook and Twitter. Based on the statistics already mentioned, Facebook and
Twitter have estabhshed their supremacy
and should be treated as such by emergency management. Emergency management must be careful to distribute their
messages where local citizens are spending
time, not w^here they want them to be, to
avoid repeating the mistakes already established through traditional outreach
approaches.
This premise is also true of how people
seek out information through the internet. According to one major technology
publication, the web (as utilised by local
governments for the last decade) is dead.
Citizen activity has moved away from
static browsing for information towards
applications and mobile browsing.^’
Additional studies have indicated that
mobile browsing will overtake traditional
browsing by 2015 as the predominant way
in which most people will view the internet.^ In the USA, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) and the
National Weather Service have both
implemented new mobile and/or application-based outreach services.**’^^ Moreover,
the impact of this mobile browsing and
notification has caused exponential
growth at the local level due to the ability
of many jurisdictions to automate emergency alert messages to established social
media outlets such as Facebook and
Twitter.'”
Interestingly, the availability of practical
emergency preparedness mobile applications is not limited to formal offerings
from governmental and quasi-governmental sources. There are a variety of apps
offered for free or minimal fees including
step-by-step guides for first aid, CPR, pet
preparedness and personal allergies,” as
well as function-based software including
flashlights'” and emergency dispatch
feeds. ‘ This type of information continues to carry common messages expressed
by emergency managers and/or creates a
transparency of information towards activities and direction.
LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD
As outreach philosophies are beginning to
change in the emergency management
field, the benefits of such a change have to
be understood. For instance, these benefits
are broad and multi-faceted, affecting
components including public education,
public communications and response
tools. Moreover, traditional approaches to
project management, technological development, training and public involvement
are on the verge of revolutionary change
due to the inclusion of social media and
other Web 2.0 concepts. Specifically, there
are three fundamental rules of social media
application in emergency management:
• Conversations are key.
• No more middle man.
• It has got to be free.
These rules allow a levelling of the proverbial playing field between emergency
management programmes of all sizes and
at all levels of government.
Perhaps the most significant change
relates to the cost management of activities
related to emergency management projects. Social media and Web 2.0 concepts
often eliminate the need for costly development of systems to manage emergency
management concepts such as planning,
exercise management and response mechanisms. These cost savings are possible due
to the establishment of robust networks,
servers and infrastructure by nearly all
Page 411
The social media manifesto
social media outlets such as Facebook,
Twitter,YouTube, Flickr and many others,
which generates a high level of confidence
•when used by emergency management or
other secondary sources.
A second reason these systems are
beginning to replace traditional mechanisms is the implementation of cro^wdsourcing. Crowdsourcing allows tasks
typically performed by employees now to
be performed by a collection of individuals within a crowd who have no particular
connection outside of the ability to perform the desired function. Within emergency management, cro^wdsourcing has
been used numerous times, most recently
by BP during the oil spill in the Gulf of
Mexico to collect suggestions about possible ways to stop the spill. BP received
more than 20,000 suggestions that were
categorised into not possible, already
planned or feasible. As a result, the company identified nearly 100 options that
•were feasible and previously unidentified
to stop one of the largest oil spills ever.
These response concepts and ideas were
made accessible to decision makers and
emergency responders in a more timely
manner and ultimately may have contributed to the resolution of the incident
in a quicker and more efficient manner.
Additionally, a free crowdsourcing •website called Ushahidi has been utilised
during several international emergencies
including the Haiti and Chile earthquakes
of early 2010. Ushahidi provided webbased or mobile connectivity to collect
(from ‘the crowd’) information about the
incident. This included web-based maps
that provided real-time crowd-generated
information about health conditions,
infrastructure damage and localised emergencies.”^ The speed and accuracy of this
type of information aggregation is impossible for governmental or first responder
agencies utilising current systems. The
application of Ushahidi in these situations
provides strong support that the public’s
growing expectation of speed and breadth
of information is much greater than official government communication channels
are currently able to provide.
Not only can emergency managers
utilise public gatherings and collection of
information, they also can self-define preparedness and response messages as well as
certain operational processes. Specifically,
traditional media outlets (television, radio
and print) are vital partners in public dissemination of emergency management
messages; however, these groups innately
filter the message. This type of message
adjustment can be positive or negative, but
inherently happens for a variety of reasons
ranging from media bias due to time (or
space) limitations based on the format
utilisation for distribution. Social media
can help to eliminate and/or control this
process and allow emergency managers to
have an outlet for an unfiltered and fully
developed preparedness or response message, which is critical to ensure public citizens receive clear and consistent
information.
Likewise, operational processes such as
donations and volunteer management
have been significantly improved due to
the involvement and application of social
media. For instance, in 2009, the City of
Fargo, North Dakota, was responding to
significant flooding from the Red River
and was having difficulty arranging for
enough volunteers to support efforts
during the middle of winter. At the suggestion of one local man who was already
volunteering, the community implemented a Facebook group and generated
interest in volunteering that •was approximately equal to 5 per cent of their local
population, •which significantly improved
their response capabilities.”‘
Similarly, donations management has
successfully moved into the social media
and Web 2.0 realms after the American
Red Cross utilised financial donations
through text messaging in support of the
2010 earthquake in Haiti. Specifically, the
Red Cross was able to generate a total of
US$5m in donations within the first 48
hours’^ and US$30m within ten days of
the disaster. This figure ultimately
accounted for approximately 10 per cent
of the total donated to the relief funds and
represented a significant reduction in the
time commitment and resources often
necessary to collect, manage and process
donations generated in response to an
emergency or disaster.
Another example of cost-effective,
direct access training and public education
is the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention’s (CDC’s) utilisation of Second
Life. Second Life is an online virtual world
where users can create avatars (or digital
likenesses) and engage in the virtual environment and communicate openly on various topics of interest. For instance, in
spring 2010, the CDC held a virtual talk
on Second Life about HlNl that was later
captured on video and shared via blogs
and YouTube. ^^'”‘” Second Life has also
been utilised by the University of Illinois,
Chicago School of Public Health, in conjunction with the CDC to simulate mass
prophylaxis sites and distribution of materials after an anthrax attack.”^^ This type of
systematic utilisation of a virtual environment has the opportunity ultimately to
decrease the cost of training and exercises
by minimising costs related to physical
setups and elimination of perishable items
necessary for resource intensive emergency preparedness training and exercise
activities.
THE FUTURE IS RIGHT HERE, RIGHT
NOW
There are many examples of how both
individual disasters and emergency managenaent professionals have been impacted
by social media and Web 2.0 concepts.
These include the utilisation of Facebook,
Twitter and YouTube to name a few systems, as well as a strong push to redefine
the relationships between local governments, the media and their citizens. While
these issues may continue to be developed
and/or redeveloped in the near future, the
emergency management community also
will have the immediate opportunity to
begin to utilise various Web 2.0 tools that
are already available for free. These tools
are free because of a shared network of
servers, computers, networks and interrelated systems often referred to as the
‘cloud’. This cloud is utilised by all online
social media and Web 2.0 service providers
to ensure robust networks that are both
redundant and sufficient to meet the needs
of the end user. When this robustness fails,
the social media community often has
abandoned the system or come up with
colloquial monikers like Twitter’s ‘Fail
Whale’.”” This sector of clovid systems
represents numerous operational and
response tools that can (and will) be
utilised by emergency management as a
cost-effective alternative to many current
systems commonly used. For instance,
real-time collaborative editing tools would
be of great value to emergency managers
and first responders who are creating planning and public information documents
during an event. This type of tool would
allow for multiple users to be simultaneously creating a docunient rather than the
document being written, reviewed, edited
and then reviewed again prior to distribution or implementation. The time necessary for review and approval for press
releases and other operational documentation could also be minimised and/or eliminated due to the simultaneous reading,
writing and editing of a document. Again,
this type of functionality is critical in
ensuring clarity and consistency of public
messages which are necessary to ensure
The social media manifesto
the public exhibits safe and expected
response behaviour.
The largest and most ambitious version
of this type of tool was Google Wave,
which was initially released in May 2009.
This system promised to have collaborative editing with time-stamped tracking of
information management, which was projected as a possible new technology for
implementation in joint information centres (JICs) and other information management sources. Unfortunately, Google was
unable to address issues identified during
its beta testing and ultimately shut down
Wave in August 2010. Since that time,
other software and browser-based collaborative editing systems have been released
with Type With. Me showing the strongest
possibility for implementation similar to
what was initially projected for Google
Wave.
Additional cloud technologies that may
impact emergency management include
those systems that support information
management, organisation and distribution. Specifically, there is a group of social
media systems referred to as social bookmarking that allo’w for a web-based listing
and categorisation of internet links that
can be privately accessed through
login/password combinations and/or
shared publically. Not only is this type of
social media an excellent opportunity for
planning and operational response, it also
allows free and robust redundancy for
many emergency managers and emergency operations centres (EOCs).
Likewise, there are similar online systems
that allow for free online storage of files
and online materials with almost no limit
to the size or type of file. Sources of these
services are sometimes fee-based, but there
are several robust free services such as
Drop.io, Evernote and MyOtherDrive that
could be utilised by emergency management in this fashion.
Another powerful type of social media
tool available for emergency management
is referred to as social geolocation systems.
These tools include FourSquare, Go Walla,
Google Latitude and most recently the
implementation of Facebook Places.
While all are built on slightly different
models, these social media systems are all
based on the concept of utilising mobile
telephone devices to determine the geographic location of individuals. This geographic location, which is based on WiFi
and GPS signalling, allows for the individual user to be virtually engaged in the
actual environment that surrounds them.
For instance, if friends and/or favourite
restaurants were geographically close they
would appear in these systems and allow
for the establishment and/or increased
level of social interaction.
Emergency management utilisation of
social geolocation systems is in its infancy
(or even gestation in some cases) due to
the relatively recent establishment of this
technology; however, there are numerous
operational applications that could be
considered for usage including weather
spotting, search and rescue, damage assessment and debris management. These
emergency management functions are
dependent upon field operations at diverse
geographic locations that are managed
from one central command location. This
makes communications, documentation
and technological implementation a
necessity and thus a viable option for
social geolocation systems. For instance,
debris management operations, due to the
necessity of contracted labour, are
extremely vulnerable to abuse and misreporting. Significant levels of process
accountability are required to eliminate
duplicate trips, weighted trucks and other
abuses. The utilisation of social geolocation systems would allow impacted jurisdictions to require contracted workers to
identify themselves geographically over
certain intervals which could then be
Page 414
recorded and reviewed by emergency
management staff to ensure proper actions
were maintained. This functionality would
potentially improve accountability and
response as well as potentially streamlining
the activities necessary to document and
justify possible disaster reimbursements.
Likewise, weather spotters, damage assessment teams, and search and rescue teams
would be able to be deployed to certain
geographic areas and report back real-time
observed information. While this reported
information typically would be done
through radio communications and/or
traditional paper documentation, social
geolocation systems allow for instantaneous reporting and capturing of the data
for faster processing by the field teams.
Having this type of information faster and
with greater reliability would be an
extremely valuable tool for efficient and
effective emergency management and
resource coordination.
Social geolocation systems like
Foursquare also allow for local geographic
holders like restaurants and bakeries to
offer announcements to individuals in the
geographic vicinity that include product
specials, coupons and other relevant information. This type of functionality could
also be utilised by emergency management entities to announce hazardous conditions impacting that geographic range.
Simple messages suggesting emergency
evacuation, weather protection and/or
sheltering-in-place could be attached geographicaUy to local government buildings
and disseminated to those individuals utilising the social geolocation system.
While emergency managers have not
yet fuUy implemented social geolocation
systems for operational usage, many emergency response agencies (at all levels of
government and response) have more
thoroughly implemented Web 2.0 mapping for geographic information analysis
and information sharing. This was particularly utilised by media outlets and educators to show the progression of events like
the BP oil spill during the summer of
2010.^^ Perhaps the most powerful utilisation of socially-interactive maps was
Google’s Crisis Response Center that
integrated publically-generated YouTube
videos, visual mapping reports, oil spiU
forecasts from the National Weather
Service, spill containment berm locations
provided by the State of Louisiana and
satellite images of the spill provided by
NASA into the Google Map technology
that is free to all. The need for crowdsourced, real-time mapping for emergencies and disasters is so well accepted that
Google has estabhshed MapMaker to help
facilitate just this concept.”‘*
The power of text messaging for the
improvement of donations management
has already been discussed in relation to
the American Red Cross’s fundraising following the Haiti earthquake in 2010;
however, text messaging has also become
an extremely powerful tool for mobile and
portable communications. According to
the latest Pew Internet research, 72 per
cent of US adults and 87 per cent of US
teenagers use cellular phone text messaging on a regular basis, which is 9 per cent
more than one year ago.””” This high level
of utilisation is extraordinarily beneficial
to local emergency managers as it represents a relatively easy, cost-effective and
robust mechanism to communicate emergency public information notifications to
citizens. This type of communication will
only continue to increase in usage and
impact over the next several years.
As established by Facebook and Twitter,
emergency managers would be doing
their local citizens an injustice by ignoring
the presence and growth of text messaging
within a community. Many jurisdictions
(especially schools and higher education
institutions) have utilised private companies to perform an automated text messag-
The social media manifesto
ing service; however, this is not as
common as a tool specifically utilised for
emergency messaging. Some emergency
management groups have tied Twitter’s
capability for text notification to provide
these services at a fraction of the cost and
with similar efficacy.”^’
SLAYING THE GIANT
Even with the numerous examples of the
impact of social media on emergencies
and disasters, most local emergency management communities have yet to adopt
comprehensive use of social media.
Application of social media and Web 2.0
options falls into three categories:
• Proactive utilisation, including the active
usage of social media systems like
Facebook, Twitter and others previously
discussed to both disseminate information and monitor public comments
regarding their agency and/or community event. Proactive utilisation is the
most complicated use of social media
and requires the most time and
resources to master.
• Reactive utilisation of social media only
disseminates and/or monitors public
comments, but not both, and is the
most common application within
emergencies due to its more reasonable
utilisation of personnel, resources and
time.
• The inactive category covers those
organisations that are completely inactive in social media. This inactive status
is probably the most dangerous to
emergency managers because it ignores
the significant impact of social media
on emergencies and disasters.
According to a recent study by the
American Red Cross, citizens are now
seeking out and utilising social media to
send and receive information. Specifically,
the online survey found that 20 per cent
of adults who could not reach 911 -would
try to contact responders through a digital
means such as e-mail or social media.
Moreover, 44 per cent of respondents
stated that they would ask other people in
their social networks to contact local
authorities on their behalf, 35 per cent
would post a direct request on a response
agency’s Facebook page and 28 per cent
would send a direct Twitter message to
responders.” More alarming for inactive
first emergency management and response
agencies is that this study also found that
69 per cent of respondents felt that first
responders should be monitoring social
media sites to send help quickly, and nearly
74 per cent expected emergency help to
come in less than one hour after a post to
Twitter or Facebook.”^^^ This survey clearly
states that the public expects proactive
social media usage by emergency management and first response agencies. Based on
these findings, it is operationally, ethically
and politically irresponsible for local
emergency management organisations
simply to try and ignore social media’s
impact on their response.
These survey findings are fuUy supported by BP’s experience during the
2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP’s presence on Twitter immediately after the oil
spill in spring 2010 was not fully developed and lacked the content and added
value that the general public was seeking
out regarding this disaster. Unfortunately
for BP, this social media void was filled by
a satirical twitter account presenting itself
as an official source of BP public relations
•which posted inflammatory comments.
Interestingly, the number of followers of
the fake BP account outpaced the real BP
account nearly ten-fold.”‘^ As already
established, social media users (who are
ultimately local citizens) are seeking out
information via social media systems and
will seek sources that supply the informaPaae416
tion they are seeking whether the source is
legitimate or not.
In addition to the reactive versus proactive challenge, another problem that emergency managers and emergency public
information officers face is the balance
between style and substance. Social media
system users expect informal, conversational tones and language which often
includes colloquialism, slang, abbreviations
and misspellings. Unfortunately, this level
of informality is extremely uncommon in
official government information releases.
Consequently, emergency managers must
decide what level of modification they are
willing to accept. For instance, the US
Government released its social media
guidelines in 2010, which included maintaining an active voice, use of present
tense, speaking directly to constituents,
utilisation of keywords and the avoidance
of colloquialism, slang and governmental
jargon.-“*”
Additionally, some emergency management agencies are overwhelmed by the
process implementation required for utilisation of social media. This implementation includes the identification of
personnel to oversee social media and the
establishment of vigorous and realistic policies. Many emergency management offices
are small with only part-time or volunteer
support staff, which makes ne^w concepts
like the application of social media challenging if leadership is not already passionate about its use. Rather than seeking out
creative and innovative ways to be proactive or at least reactive, some emergency
managers have taken the stance that the
social media phenomenon is simply a fad
that will pass if it is ignored long enough.
Unfortunately, this attitude that social
media will simply go away is short-sighted.
The utilisation of analytics and monitoring
measurement tools such as TweetDeck,
Google Analytics and Monitter show a
near constant social media discussion on
various issues impacting a jurisdiction. This
social media conversation will simply grow
exponentially during an emergency or disaster and be occurring all around official
emergency management and response
whether local emergency managers
acknowledge it or not.”” These monitoring
tools are free and sufficiently dynamic to
search for certain terms, concepts and associations to determine how the public is
discussing certain issues. Using these tools
ultimately will lead to more effective communications with the public regarding the
incident in question.
Lastly, social media are also significantly
impacting operational response systems
like the US National Incident
Management System (NIMS) that help to
define a uniform and coordinated
response to emergencies and disasters.
Specifically, methods like NIMS define
processes to include the collection, analysis
and distribution of emergency public
information through a command and control system in which all messages are ultimately approved by a single person with
ultimate authority for the overall operations (eg incident commander or EOC
manager); ” however, this revie^w and
approval process is antagonistic to the
speed and formality (or lack thereof) of
social media systems like Facebook and
Twitter.^ No system exists that effectively
and efficiently blends operational models
\vith social media systems. Consequently,
this •will continue to be a challenge for
emergency managers until adjustments are
made to the operational response systems
that maintain levels of accountability and
control without eliminating the benefit of
utilising social media systems.
CONCLUSION
Although the utilisation of social media
systems by emergency management professionals is in its early years, the future
The social media manifesto
benefits and applications are nearly
boundless. Emergency managers cannot
deny the fact that social media systems are
already being utilised by numerous citizens
and media outlets for the monitoring and
distribution of emergency public information. Because of the ever-changing nature
of information related to disasters, social
media systems thrive in emergencies and
must be considered in all phases of emergency management including preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation.
Social media must begin to be employed
by emergency managers in conjunction
with traditional outreach to provide a
comprehensive and thorough mechanism
for the distribution of education and
emergency public information. Only this
type of approach will effectively ensure
emergency management professionals are
providing information in a timely and
effective manner via mechanisms that take
account of where citizens are, not where
they have been or are hoped to be.
Additionally, emergency managers have
a tremendous opportunity to implement
social media and Web 2.0 systems as operational response tools. Many of these systems potentially provide greater
accountability and safety as well as redundant systems to store documentation,
resources and other vital response components. This application is nearly always free
and easily integrated into or through
mobile browsing and/or applications,
which allows for significant mobility and
portabihty of these new operational tools.
The future of emergency management
is right now. The ability of social media to
improve real-time collaboration via cloud
networking or social geolocation systems
is already becoming a valuable tool and
will continue to be so as more emergency
management professionals learn more
about these systems and creatively apply
their uses to current response systems in
JICs and mapping centres. Moreover, augmented reality may push these geographic
models into new cost-effective formats
and phases currently unimaginable by the
34
average emergency manager.
Implementation of social media is occurring at many different levels and in many
different ways. These organisations should
be profiled and examined for best practices
and ideal application for certain emergencies and/or crisis situations.’ ^ Moreover,
significant work must be completed
related to the recommended implementation of social media into emergency public
information systems to ensure they can be
utilised as a tool and ultimately benefit the
clear and consistent review of public messages. These best practices along with a
little creativity and ingenuity w^ill help
drive the future of social media’s continued application in emergency management. Social media systems are not going
away and neither are disasters, therefore, it
is paramount for emergency managers and
the profession as a whole to find ways to
understand and embrace how social media
are impacting their lives and communities.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The figures used within this paper were
accurate in October 2010. The author
acknowledges that these figures are dynamic
and change with time.
REFERENCES
(1) Pingdom (2009) ‘Battle of the sizes:
Social network users vs country
populations’, available at:
http://royaLpingdom.com/2009/03/13/
battle-of-the-sizes-social-network-usersvs-country-populations (accessed 8th
September, 2010).
(2) PCWorld (2010) ‘Facebook’s half a
billion users: Fun facts’, available at:
http://w\v^v.pcworld.com/article/
201650/facebooks_halfl_billion_users_fu
n_facts.html (accessed 8th September,
2010).
(3) Facebook (2010) ‘Facebook statistics’,
available at: http://www.facebook.com/
press/info.php?statistics (accessed 9th
September, 2010).
(4) Huffington Post (2010) ‘Twitter user
statistics revealed’, available at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/
04/14/twitter-user-statisticsr_n_537992.html (accessed 9th
September, 2010).
(5) Microsoft (2010) ‘Microsoft Vine’,
available at: http://www.vine.net
(accessed 10th September, 2010).
(6) Wired (2010) ‘The web is dead. Long
live the internet’, available at:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010
/08/filwebrip/all/l (accessed 10th
September, 2010).
(7) Switched (2010)’Mobile web to
overtake desktop by 2015′, available at:
http://www.switched.coni/2()10/04/14/
mobile-web-to-overtake-desktop-by2015-facebook-fans-worth-3-6 (accessed
10th September, 2010).
(8) Federal Emergency Management Agency
(2010) ‘FEMA: Mobile’, available at:
http://m.fema.gov (accessed 12th
September, 2010).
(9) National Weather Service (2010)
‘Interactive NWS’, available at:
http://inws.wrh.noaa.gov (accessed 12th
September, 2010).
(10) Johnson County Emergency
Management & Homeland Security
(2010) ‘JOCOAlert’, available at:
http://www.jocoem.Org/CIT/jocoalert.s
html (accessed 27th September, 2010).
(11) Mashable (2009) ‘7 iPhone apps that
could save lives’, available at:
http://mashable.com/2009/07/ll/
iphone-save-lives (accessed 29th
September, 2010).
(12) Apple iTunes (2010) ‘Flashlight for
iPhone’, available at:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/
flashlight/id285281827?mt=8 (accessed
29th September, 2010).
(13) Emergency Management Magazine (2010)
‘911 dispatch app puts emergency data
in hands of citizens’, available at:
h ttp : / /www. emergencymgmt. com/
safety/911 -Dispatch-App-EmergencyData.html (accessed 29th September,
2010).
(14) Government Technology (2010)’IT
trends: Gulf oil spill crowdsourcing\
available at: http://www.govtech.com/
e-government/IT-Trends-Gulf-OilSpill-Crowdsourcing.html?topic= 117673
(accessed 14th September, 2010).
(15) Ushahidi (2010) ‘Haiti’, available at:
http://haiti.ushahidi.com (accessed 16th
September, 2010).
(16) MSNBC (2010) ‘Fargo uses social
networks to fight floodwaters’, available
at: http://wAv\v.msnbc.msn.com/id/
29901184 (accessed 18th September,
2010).
(17) Mashable (2010) ‘Red Cross raises
$5,000,000+ for Haiti through text
messaging campaign’, available at:
http://mashable.com/2010/01/13/
haiti-red-cross-donations (accessed 18th
September, 2010).
(18) MSNBC (2010) ‘Mobile giving to help
Haiti exceeds $30 million’, available at:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/348505
32/ns/technology_and_science-wireless
(accessed 18th September, 2010).
(19) CDC (2010) ‘Virtual worlds — eHealth
marketing’, available at:
http://www.cdc.gov/healthinarketing/
ehm/virtual.html (accessed 20th
September, 2010).
(20) 111 Clan Animation Studios (2010) ‘CDC
discusses swine flu in second life’,
available at: http://www.illclan.com/iUblog/35-ill-blog/124-cdc-discussesswine-flu-in-second-life (accessed 20th
September, 2010).
(21) Medill — Northwestern University
(2010) ‘First responders meet in second
life: Public health enters the virtual
world’, available at:
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/ch
icago/news.aspx?id=l 14473 (accessed
20th September, 2010).
(22) ReadWriteWeb (2010) ‘The story of the
fail whale’, available at:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives
/the_story_ofLthe_fail_whale.php
(accessed 21st September, 2010).
The social media manifesto
(23) NewYork Times (2010) ‘Tracking the oil
spill in the Gulf, available at:
http://w\vw.nytimes.com/interactive/
2010/0.5/01/us/20100501-oil-spilltracker.htinl (accessed 24th September,
2010).
(24) TED: Ideas Worth Spreading (2010)
‘Lalitesh Katragadda: Making maps to
fight disaster, build economies’, available
at: http://www.ted.com/talks/
lalitesh_katragadda_making_maps_to_
fight_disaster_build_economies.htnil
(accessed 26th September, 2010).
(25) Pew Internet (2010) ‘Cell phones and
American adults’, available at:
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/
CeU-Phones-and-American-Adults.aspx
(accessed 26th September, 2010).
(26) Johnson County Emergency
Management & Homeland Security, ref.
10 above.
(27) American Red Cross (2010) ‘Web users
increasingly rely on social media to seek
help in a disaster’, available at:
http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/
menuitem.94aae335470e233f6cf911df43
181 aa0/?vgnextoid=6bb5a96d0a94a210
VgnVCM 1000()089f087()aRCRD
(accessed 28th September, 2010).
(28) Ibid.
(29) The Wall Street Journal (2010) ‘Fake BP
Twitter account followers with oil-spiU
satire’, available at: http://blogs.wsj.com/
digits/2010/05/24/fake-bp-twitteraccount-draws-foUowers-with-oil-spillsatire (accessed 29th September, 2010).
(30) US Government (2010) ‘Social media
style and editorial guide for USA.gov’,
available at: http://www.usa.gov/
webcontent/docunients/socmed_
editorial_guidelines_041210.pdf
(accessed 28th September, 2010).
(31) Mashable (2010) ‘Top 10 Twitter trends
this week’, available at:
http://mashable.com/2010/05/29/
top-10-twitter-trends-this-week-chart-3
(accessed 30th September, 2010).
(32) FEMA’s Emergency Management
Institute (2010) ‘IS-702.a — National
incident management systems (NIMS)
public information systems’, available at:
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is
702a.asp (accessed 3rd October, 2010).
(33) Journal of Homeland Security and
Emergency Management (2010) ‘The
elephant in the JIG: The fundamental
tlow in emergency public information
within the NIMS framework’, available
at: http://w~ww.bepress.com/jhsem/
vol7/issl/10 (accesssed 30th September,
2010).
(34) Billinghurst, M., Director of Human
Interface Technology Laboratory, New
Zealand (2010), personal interview, 7th
October.
(35) White, G. and Plottnick, L. (2010) ‘A
framework to identify best practices:
Social media and web 2.0 technologies
in the emergency domain’, available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/conniewhite/
a-framework-to-identify-best-practicessocial-media-and-web-20-technologiesin-the-emergency-domain (accessed 4th
October, 2010).
Copyright of Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning is the property of Henry Stewart
Publications LLP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without
the copyright holder’s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.
