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Optimizing the use of social media
- 2. • Background to the study. • Research question. • Approach and limitations. • Results and recommendations. • Questions and discussion.
- 3. • UK military and Vancouver police crisis management and operational planning. • Royal Roads University Master of Arts in Disaster and Emergency Management. • Two-year programme with a one-year independent major research project.
- 4. 8:04 p.m. PDT on October 27, 2012.
- 7. • How emergency managers in Vancouver can optimize the use of social media for the formal dissemination of warnings. • What are the most utilized forms of social media within Vancouver for personal use? • How are those forms of social media perceived in terms of credibility by the residents of Vancouver? • Is there a relationship between the source of the message and the perception of credibility? • Would Vancouver residents wish to receive emergency warning information via their social media?
- 8. Method: • Internet-based survey with follow-up interviews and exposure to a series of simulated warning messages. Limitations: • Convenience sampling was used via email. • Social-economic background was not considered. • Survey was in English. • Vancouver residents only (no commuters/tourists). • Ethical considerations.
- 10. Age Group % Male % Female % of Sample Population 18-35 5.88 11.76 17.64 36-50 28.43 38.23 66.66 51-65 5.88 8.82 14.70 Over 65 0 0.98 0.98 Total 40.2 59.8 100
- 11. Internet Access % of Respondents Internet Access at Work 87.4% Internet Access at work – Regulated by employer 61.8% Access to mobile Internet device 91% Currently use push notifications 49%
- 13. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100%CredibilityRating Social Media Credibility Rating Credibility
- 15. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Email Twitter Facebook Text Message Frequency Credibility Behavioral Change Promulgation Warning Message Medium
- 16. • Creation of an on-line personality or resume. • Recipient will identify commonalities between themselves and the sender. • Familiarity influences our decision-making. • Who am I really speaking to? • Message personalization.
- 17. • Email, linkedin, facebook, twitter, YouTube, and Google+. • Acknowledge trepidation of automatic notifications. • Transparency. • Respect for privacy. • Messages attributed to a trusted source. • Creation of an on-line identity. • Information personalized. • Leverage existing social networks. • Provide a means of verification. • Free and easy to use.
- 18. Potential Future Research: • Information flow mapping. • Impact of information on decision-making.
- 19. • Social media is a versatile and a highly utilized medium in Vancouver. • There is an appetite for use of social media as an emergency management warning tool. • Perception of credibility is key by the user.
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Jim Forrest and today I am going to be giving a short presentation on some research I conducted on optimizing the use of social media for the dissemination of emergency warnings. CLICK
- A brief outline of what we will be covering today.. CLICK -A background to the study CLICK -The specific research questions I posed CLICK -The approach and the limitations of the study CLICK -The results and recommendations CLICK Finally, I will take any questions and open the floor up to discussion. That being said, the tone will be quite informal, so please do stop me and jump in with any questions or points if you wish..
- CLICK - By way of an introduction, my background is predominantly military and also police. I served for 12.5 years as an officer in the British Army and I retired as a major from the Parachute Regiment in 2008. I then joined the Vancouver Police and served on patrol in South East Vancouver and on foot patrol in the Downtown Eastside. I am currently with the Emergency and Operational Planning Section within the Vancouver Police Department where I help to plan and coordinate the policing and security component for all manner of civic events in the City of Vancouver. CLICK - In 2012, I started a Master degree in Disaster and Emergency Management at Royal Roads University and several certificates in emergency management at the Justice Institute of BC, all of which I have completed this year. CLICK - As part of my MA, I was required to undertake a year-long independent major research project. So shortly after beginning the MA program, I began to think about which topic I would choose for my research. This would have been around October 2012…. CLICK
- While I was considering what topic I might like to research, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake occurred in Haida Gwaii in North West British Columbia. The earthquake's epicenter was believed to be on Moresby Island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands). This was believed to be the second largest Canadian earthquake ever recorded by a seismometer, after the 1949 Queen Charlotte Islands earthquake, about 135 kilometers (84 mi) away.
- Within five minutes of the earthquake, by 8:09 p.m. Pacific time, the American National Weather Service, part of NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), issued an update about the possible tsunami risk. This was posted on their website, and emailed to emergency officials as well as to any concerned residents who had opted in on NOAA's automatic email information list. The update indicated that a tsunami "warning" had been issued for areas between the northern tip of Vancouver Island to Cape Decision, Alaska. In the U.S., Hawaii was also placed on alert, and over 100,000 people were evacuated to higher ground. At the time of the earthquake, I was on vacation in Maui with my family. CLICK As I was sat enjoying a beer on the balcony, warning sirens started to sound. Like most tourists in a different country, I had failed to familiarize myself with the local emergency management procedures and did not know quite what was going on. Like many, I headed straight to the television and jumped online to see if I could see what was happening.
- CLICK As I began to watch the news, various TV stations were scrolling comments from their respective Twitter and social media feeds from concerned citizens, emergency management agencies and residents of the Haida Gwaii area and even unsolicited subject matter experts offering their services to the media.. Aside from email and facebook, I was not what you would call a seasoned social media user at all. I quickly became overwhelmed with the volume of information that was literally exploding on the screen in front of me. I also noticed that many of the social media comments were subsequently being picked up by the newscasters and then referenced in their commentary. I began to wonder what pieces of information were potentially taking on a life of their own… I began to reflect on how plentiful a source of information social media can be, but also how little I knew about the credibility of much of that information. This of course impacts on how I would inform my own decision making regarding what action to take for myself and my family. And thus was born the idea for my research project…
- CLICK The purpose of my research study is to determine how emergency managers in Vancouver can optimize the use of social media for the formal dissemination of warnings. I’m focusing mainly on emergency managers within municipal, regional, provincial and federal government, emergency services and non-governmental aid agencies. Basically anyone who might have a responsibility to disseminate emergency warning information to the wider public. In addition, the following sub-questions were addressed: CLICK What are the most utilized forms of social media within Vancouver for personal use? The purpose of this question was to determine what forms of social media Vancouver residents use for general social networking and everyday use. This provided an idea of the social media ‘channels’ available to the emergency manager through which to promulgate an emergency warning. CLICK b. How are those forms of social media perceived in terms of credibility by the residents of Vancouver? Different social media sites may mean different things to different people. Some sites may be highly regarded in terms of credibility, whereas others may be perceived as lighter entertainment and not a worthwhile source of warning information. Understanding the relationship between the forms of social media used and the assessment of credibility by the user and the target audience may make positive behavioral change and warning compliance more likely. The more credible the site is perceived to be, the higher priority that site should be for use as a tool for the dissemination of warnings by an emergency manager. You don’t want people to just receive the information, you want them to believe it.. CLICK c. Is there a relationship between the source of the message and the perception of credibility? Social media can serve as a rapid and widespread distribution method for information. However, often the originating source for that piece of information can be lost in the flurry of ‘re-tweets’, ‘posts’ or ‘likes’, forwarded emails etc. How important is it to a social media user to know the originating source for a piece of information? In relation to the prior sub-question, is knowledge of the originating source more important than the perceived credibility of the form of social media upon which that information is currently being viewed? So what is more important: knowing where the piece of information originally came from or trusting the site upon which you are now viewing it. CLICK d. Would Vancouver residents wish to receive emergency warning information via their social media? This question tried to identify if there is an appetite for using social media for emergency warning messages in Vancouver. In short, I wanted to try and produce some guidance for using social media when disseminating emergency warnings, in order to try and maximize saturation of the message and maximize the chance that the target audience will find the information credible and then choose to act on it.
- CLICK - Method CLICK - The primary method of data collection was an Internet-based survey to which 102 people responded. I then interviewed 5% of the respondents and exposed them to a series of simulated warning messages transmitted by email, facebook, cellphone text message and twitter. CLICK – Limitations of the Study This was a fairly small study, quite narrow in scope. CLICK - Convenience sampling was used. Time pressure due to academic year CLICK - Socio-economic background and education level was not considered for recipients. CLICK - Survey was conducted in English. A little limiting as there are a number of residents in Vancouver for whom English is not a first language. CLICK - Vancouver residents only. Did not extend to those who commute into the City, visiting tourists etc. CLICK - Unethical to create the level of anxiety in respondents that accompanies a warning message, which could effect accurate reaction to simulated warning messages. Study complied with the Tri-council policy statement for ethical standards for research. The results….
- The electronic survey was available online between 14 November 2013 and 02 January 2014, or a total of 50 days. The follow-up interviews and simulated warning message assessments overlapped with the final few weeks of the online survey and occurred between 22 Dec 2013 and 10 January 2014. Then came the analysis and all the ‘crunching’ or all that data.
- I broke down respondents by gender (across the top of the chart) and by age range (the left side of the chart). CLICK In terms of the demographic breakdown of respondents, as you can see, almost 60% of the respondents were female with 40% being male. CLICK Two thirds of the total respondents also fell into the 36-50 age group. The low representation of the over 65 age group was initially disappointing but is reflective of the smaller size of the over 65 age group in Vancouver. Based on the potential vulnerabilities faced by the elderly in terms of emergency management and the fact that the population is getting older, use of social media by this demographic is a worthy area for future study. From comments made during the survey and discussion during the interview stage, the low uptake of Internet usage by the over 65 age group appears to be more one of trust in social media and ease of use, and less a factor of physical access to the Internet. When contrasted with the Stats Canada census for the Vancouver Metropolitan area, the 36-50 year of age group is also the largest, but not by as significant a factor as in my research. The likelihood is that the heavy weighting in the 36-50 year of age group is that it is the age group to which I belong. As the starting point for distribution of the research survey was my peer group, friends, family and professional colleagues, it seems likely I am going to be hitting people more in line with my age group. This is a slight limitation and a consequence of convenience sampling that I outlined in the limitations section, which I would address if I was to expand the scope of my research and the size of the sample population.
- Internet Access Part of the survey asked respondents if they had access to the Internet at home, at work or on the move. 100% of the respondent population had access to the Internet somewhere (be it at home, at work or via a mobile device or all three). This was a given as the Internet was the only means of distribution for the survey. Distributing the survey via Internet does perhaps artificially elevate the number of Internet users in Vancouver, however the result is not too dissimilar to a Stats Canada survey that reports in British Columbia over 85% report having access to the Internet and use the Internet regularly (Statistics Canada, 2010) CLICK 87% had access to the Internet at work, but almost 62% of those who had access at work, had that access regulated in someway by their employer (i.e. certain sites they could not visit, no streaming of video, can’t save passwords or favorites etc). CLICK 91% of the population had access to the Internet on the move by way of a tablet or cell phone or mobile device Only about half of the respondent population currently subscribe to push notifications (i.e. putting themselves on an email list for automatic notifications about everything from weather, to breaking news, to stock market, changes to a friend’s Facebook status). This response is reinforced quite closely by the findings of a 2012 Canadian Red Cross survey on social media that suggests that 49% of all Canadians would sign up for email and Internet alerts if there was a significant emergency expected or occurring. Most who stated they do not use push notifications fear an overload of information and their email address being used by a third party for everything from marketing to political campaigning to identity theft.
- From Internet usage, I started to explore which social media applications specifically people used or routinely visit in Vancouver. The horizontal axis shows the applications being used by respondents. The vertical axis shows the number of survey respondents who use that social media application. I read several surveys from 2009-2011 that suggested about a third of adults in the US use blogs, social networking, video, text, and portable devices. A more recent survey in Canada suggests the figure is almost double at 60% of Canadians using social media, and that furthermore 94% of that figure use Facebook. That would equate to just over 56% of Canadian adults using Facebook. My research would suggest that the popularity of Facebook in Vancouver has increased since that survey, or that usage in this particular Vancouver sample is much higher. In my research over 80% use Facebook. That is exceeded only by those who use email from known contacts at 97%. In the context of this project, comments during interview show that respondents have interpreted email from a known sender as a source that the respondent is previously familiar with (either a friend or relative, or a news agency or emergency service that has a track record for credibility with the recipient). It is important to note that only one respondent reported using only email and no other social media applications. However, this represents less than 1% of the overall survey group. As such a small part of this survey group exclusively uses email, this would mean that the other members of that respondent’s online social network (email contacts) would statistically almost all utilize another social networking application. Therefore, that first respondent who uses only email, will be indirectly connected to other more popular social networking applications through their own email contacts. In other words, you might not use facebook or twitter or linked-in, but chances are you are connected to someone who does.
- I next asked respondents a series of questions to rate each of the social media applications they used in terms of credibility. They rated over a five point scale of preference. Very credible, credible, neutral, lacking in credibility or very lacking in credibility. Although I looked at those responses several different ways, on the graph in front of you, I have shown the number of people who rated a social media application as very credible or credible. That is shown on the vertical axis. Don’t forget we are dealing with a survey group of 102 people. From this graph, there appear to be four main groupings: CLICK - Email from a known sender: 90+% credibility rating CLICK - linkedin: 55%, and Facebook: 48% credibility rating CLICK - Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and email from an unknown sender: between 25% and 15% credibility rating CLICK - Remaining applications used: less than 9% credibility rating I then asked how likely respondents were to change their behavior in response to a warning message received via each of those social media applications. The results were quite similar and reinforced the responses from the previous questions. In essence, the most popular social media applications are considered the most credible. The difficulty is determining what came first: are these applications popular because they are credible or credible because they are popular?
- I then selected six willing respondents at random and interviewed them. This gave each the opportunity to expand on their survey responses. I also exposed each of those six respondents to 4 simulated warning messages regarding an imminent snowfall warning and anticipated freezing temperatures.. CLICK The first was an email warning from a government agency. It was more formal and business-like in tone. CLICK The second was a twitter feed from municipal government – a bit less formal. CLICK The third was a warning post from municipal government via Facebook – also a bit less formal with less detail CLICK And the last was a text message. Although it was indirectly attributed to municipal government, it was less clear than in the previous messages. Very limited on detail due to the length of a text message.
- I asked each of the six respondent to rate each message on three factors: 1. the level of perceived credibility, 2. their likelihood of behavioral change as a result of viewing the message, and 3. the likelihood that they would forward the message onto their own social network. Each medium was given a rating over a five point scale of preference (very credible, credible, neutral, or very likely, likely, neutral, etc. when it comes to changing behavior or promulgating the message further). The graph above again shows those that rated each medium as very credible or credible, or very likely or likely. Remember that we are talking about a total of 6 respondents CLICK - Email from a recognized sender or authority remains the most highly rated in terms of credibility, likelihood of behavioral change and likelihood of further promulgation. CLICK - Twitter and Facebook are broadly equivalent and come next in order of precedence in terms of credibility, likelihood of causing behavioral change, and likelihood of further promulgation. CLICK - Text messages however are seen as the least credible, but interestingly equal to Facebook and Twitter in terms of likelihood of causing behavioral change. Although the simulated message phase was quite small in scope, it reinforces the findings from earlier that attributable email from known sources generally exceeds Twitter and Facebook in terms of perceived credibility, likelihood of causing behavioral change and likelihood of being promulgated further by respondents. Text messages appeared the least credible but yet are equal to other social media in terms of the likelihood of causing behavioral change. Perhaps the lack of credibility for text messages is in part due to the limited amount of information you can squeeze into a text message. But by the same token, the limited amount of information translates to a more clipped, direct tone that perhaps conveys a sense of immediacy to affect behavioral change.
- In terms of usage, email from a known contact, Facebook, YouTube and linkedin are the most utilized with over 70% of respondents using them routinely. CLICK - For some of these applications like Facebook and linkedin, what may differentiate them from some other applications used by the survey group, is that they enable a user to build a personality online. Facebook users can build a comprehensive online profile and linkedin users build an online resume. With email from a known sender, to an extent, the user is potentially already familiar with the identity, physical characteristics and the qualities of the sender in advance or the characteristics of the organization. They may have even (here’s a shocker…) met them in real life! Therefore, on some level, using these particular applications is akin to having a conversation with a person with whom you are familiar. Although this is less the case in the event of a purely business relationship conducted via email when one is corresponding with a customer service representative, a bank manager or someone in a purely professional capacity, for example. With an online profile however, even if you have not met that person physically, you may have been exposed to a picture of that person online and engaged in online conversations and exchanges of points of view and you may feel like you know them. CLICK - You may be able to relate to that person based on shared common ground. Therefore, a person using these social media application may have an opinion (either conscious or sub-conscious) about the person from whom they receive a message and the degree to which they trust that person. The creation of an online profile as in Facebook and linkedin provides a user a more personalized rapport akin to meeting someone in person. In fact for some, it may be preferable and less effort to maintain a relationship with someone via a social media application than in reality, or by phoning them or arranging to meet them in person. CLICK – This degree of familiarity will influence how much ‘stock’ you put in that person’s opinion and how much you let that message guide your own decision-making. Of course a detailed online persona may not always be an accurate reflection of the person with whom you are communicating. CLICK Some studies suggest that some social media users routinely mitigate their privacy concerns by using false profile information, photographs, fake email addresses, and restrictive privacy settings. Some also seek amusement at creating an alternate on-line persona. Regardless, these social networking applications have the potential to personalize warning messages and information as if it is a single trusted source speaking directly to you. CLICK A person is more likely to consider information and more thoroughly assess that information for credibility if the information is personalized or relevant to them (i.e. coming from a known source or geographically or professionally relevant or likely to have some personal or financial impact on the recipient). Even if you have never met the person with whom you are speaking via social media, applications like Facebook and linkedin allow you to get to know that person ‘virtually’ prior to the receipt of any advice or warning message. That contact may develop with you a ‘track record’ on-line whereby you have been exposed to that person over time. That in turn may create trust so that a message received is less impersonal and more like ‘word of mouth’ that you would receive from a valued member of your social network. So I would suggest that popularity and credibility, from a social media and emergency management perspective, are symbiotic. They feed off each other. If a social media application appears credible, it may become popular, if they are already popular for the purpose of entertainment, but users see what they perceive as accurate and timely information passage, they may be regarded as credible.
- As a result of my research and my analysis of data collected in the survey, the interviews and the simulated message phase, I produced 10 recommendations for the use of social media as a means to promulgate emergency warnings in Vancouver. Emergency managers should consider in priority order: email, linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+, a priority for message promulgation via social media. 2. Emergency Managers must acknowledge the existing trepidation amongst half the population to subscribe to automatic notifications at present. This figure is consistent with survey findings from the wider Canadian population. Efforts should be made by emergency managers in Vancouver to establish and maintain trust with residents via social media in advance of the need to promulgate any warnings, and offer the use of automatic updates once that trust has been established. Emergency managers must be transparent about their motivations for using social media. Criteria for use should be distributed so recipients know under what circumstances emergency management practitioners are going to use social media to promulgate warnings. There should not be any surprises or any ulterior motives for getting people’s email contact information. 4. Online contact information for recipients should never be shared with a third party who is going to use it for non-emergency warning purposes and this should be made clear to social media users. 5. Warning messages must be attributed, preferably to an individual in authority, such as an emergency manager, political figure, or spokesperson for the emergency services. Or alternatively to a credible organization or institution, but ideally, an identifiable individual. 6. Emergency managers who are going to distribute messages must create an emergency management identity online. Recipients must feel they have the facility to engage with and ‘get to know’ that warning authority (be it an individual or an organization) in advance of any crisis. 7. Information should be personalized. That could be in the sense of it coming from a familiar emergency management authority, or information that is geographically pertinent to the recipient. If a recipient receives numerous updates that are not relevant to them, they may cease using automatic updates or ignore messages. 8. Existing social networks should be leveraged. In any promulgated message, recipients should be encouraged to forward the message onto their own social network by email, as email from a known sender is most utilized and perceived as the most credible by survey respondents. 9. Warning messages should offer a means of verification and should be issued in concert with multiple mediums to enhance credibility. 10. Any warning process should be free in terms of expense and limited in terms of the time necessary to understand it. If overly complex or cumbersome, user uptake may be limited. This is perhaps predominantly relevant in terms of mobile device usage and the cost of sending and receiving text messages or downloading data.
- What this MRP has demonstrated is the presence of a readily available medium for message promulgation and an appetite amongst Vancouver residents for its use. This research has also reinforced much of the pre-Internet crisis communication and warning message theory and demonstrated its continued relevance. Also, the survey data has shown some similarities between recent research by Stats Canada, the Canadian Red Cross and other academic studies into social media usage and the findings of this MRP. Two of the areas that have emerged as candidates for subsequent research are as follows: CLICK Mapping the flow of warning information via social media from source to recipient could pay huge dividends to emergency managers. Although this would be quite challenging due to the ever-changing social media landscape, visualizing how information flows from primary to secondary to tertiary contacts in a social network via social media could be beneficial. Noting which routes are the quickest and are likely to produce the highest level of behavioral change amongst users would provide some specific case study information on how to pass a message quickly via social media. CLICK This MRP has in part focused on the importance of credibility in social media. The next step would be to focus on decision-making by recipients. Messages can be passed quickly by social media and found to be credible by the user. However, does that necessarily translate into action by the user? Indications are ‘yes’… To that end, research into how to take that credible message and make it not just believable, but convincing enough to support a decision to act by the recipient, would be of significant benefit.
- So in summary… CLICK Social media applications are readily available and heavily used by the residents of Vancouver. Most survey recipients use several different applications. CLICK There is an appetite amongst the survey group to use their social media to receive emergency warning messages CLICK In order to do that, emergency managers must focus on establishing and maintaining credibility and an identity with their target audience, well in advance of a crisis. CLICK
- Are there any questions……….