1) Social media has become a major channel for communication, information sharing, and outreach for both individuals and organizations like government agencies. 2) For public health agencies and emergency managers, social media allows them to more directly engage with the public, share timely and important information, and monitor social conversations to better understand public concerns and needs. 3) While social media requires careful planning and policies around its use, it has proven effective for tasks like information sharing during product recalls, pandemics, natural disasters, and other public emergencies. When used strategically, it can help spread key messages and even save lives.

1. Where They Are @:
or how I learned to stop worrying and love social media
James Garrow
Philadelphia Department of Public Health

2. Easy On You
http://bit.ly/ITSummitGarrow
#2012ITS

3. What is
so'-shul me'-dee-a?
...not a representative timeline...

5. Millenia = Multiple milleniums
Bacteria = Multiple bacteriums
Symposia = Multiple symposiums
Data = Multiple datums
Media = Multiple mediums

6. me-di-um n.
2. a means of effecting or conveying something, as
b(1). a channel or system of communication,
information, or entertainment

8. Sender Receiver

9. Sender Receiver

10. ...now let's add in the
social bit...

19. People who like to talk
to each other
+
"Magical" technology
=

22. If Facebook were a country
it would be the world’s 3rd
largest and 2x the size of
the U.S. population

23. One hour of video is
uploaded to YouTube
every second

24. Super Bowl fans averaged
more than 12,000 tweets
per second at the end of
the game this year
And that's only the
second most tweeted
event

25. So big, even government
agencies sat up and took
notice
#publichealth
#gov20

26. The Great Peanut
Butter Recall of 2009
• Full court press of information
• Shareable widgets
• Searchable website databases
• Social media outreach
• Blog monitoring
• Led directly to HHS Social
Media Team

27. First Pandemic of the
21st Century
• CDC really began
experimenting
• Masking videos
• Twitter accounts
• Facebook Pages
• Push for states and
locals to use

28. The Blog Post
• CDC blog post on "zombie
preparedness"
• One million page views in
four days
• More than $3M in earned
media coverage
• Cost? What cost? $87

29. Even emergency
managers picked up on it

30. FEMA and Fugate
• FEMA Administrator
• Out of Florida
• Survivors not victims
• HUGE proponent of
social media use
• San Bruno explosion
and fire

31. LAFD
• Rotating PIOs monitor
social media
• Posts all calls that
affect the public (road
closures, etc.
• Manage two accounts
on Twitter, @LAFD and
@LAFDtalk

32. Shadow Lake
Wildland Fire
• 2011 wildland fire in
Oregon
• Federal IMT team
assigned
• PIO utilized volunteer
VOST team to monitor
social media
• VOST team identified
concerned citizen,
forwarded to PIO

33. As they say, it's no
longer your emergency,
the public is there, too

34. Haitian Earthquake
• 7.0 magnitude
• Massive infrastructure
damage
• Extreme lack of immediate
help
• Haitians utilized social media
to locate and request help
• Large scale citizen
"crisismapping" effort

35. JoplinTornadoInfo
• EF-5 tornado struck
Joplin, MO
• Nearby citizens set up
JoplinTornadoInfo
Facebook page to
coordinate information
• City of Joplin utilized
private Page to
distribute official
messages

36. How?

37. Same as any other
communications/information/
advocacy/outreach campaign
just 6
easy
steps!

38. Define goals

39. Define audience
(including secondary)

40. Define capability
(can you do this?)

41. Create policies

42. Policies:
USAF commenting policy

46. Responsibilities
and team roles.
PIO only, or everyone?

47. Approval process/
emergency approvals

48. HALP!
Socialmediagovernance.com

49. Choose tools

50. Implement!
(like Ops, but for nerds)

51. Fail!
(no really, you will fail)

52. TEACH!
(mission, tools, metrics, teach)
Jeffrey Levy
EPA Director of Web Communications, @levyj413

53. Tools
I present with no answers, only things to
consider and delightful anecdotes

54. Facebook
Grand daddy of them all

65. Posting Best Practices
• On-topic vs. off-topic
• Links vs. copy
• Images vs. text
• Highlight non-agency content?
• Best time to post?
• Posting frequency?

66. Monitoring???

68. Twitter
Breaking news

70. Multiple users

74. Hashtags
#okwx
#tornado
#hcsm #bieber
#mrc
jpeq
#
#2012ITS
#smem

75. Monitoring

78. Posting Best Practices
• On-topic vs. off-topic
• Links vs. copy
• Images vs. text
• Highlight non-agency content?
• Best time to post?
• Posting frequency?

79. Blogging

82. Social media 201:
Here's what's next

83. Where can I learn
more?

84. Participate/monitor

85. Twitterchats
#CDCchat
#hcsm
#smemchat

86. Ask! We're all (nerdy)
evangelists!

87. There is an expert in
your agency/company

88. Many thanks
Remember, notes available at:
http://bit.ly/
ITSummitGarrow