Crisis 2.0

I attended a roundtable this morning, hosted by the American Public Health Association and Booz Allen Hamilton on using social media and risk communication during times of crisis. Agencies really have made tremendous strides in the last few years improving communication and dissemination of emergency preparedness information both during and in advance of disasters.

Officials from CDC, FEMA and HHS highlighted some of the things they’re doing with web tools, and the numbers alone were impressive. CDC sends weekly hurricane and winter weather tips by e-mail and text to more than 60,000 people. HHS’ recall widget has garnered 9.6 million page views. The speakers were very insightful about the benefits and challenges for agencies in taking advantage of social media, but a couple of points stuck out to me:

 Nathan Huebner, CDC emergency risk communication specialist, made the very important point that agencies must take advantage of “unaffected persons” who access information about disasters and emergency preparedness despite not being directly affected by any one event. These people tend to be extremely engaged with the information and can be used as “evangelists” to help people prepare for future crises. This kind of thinking is very “web 2.0”. It goes beyond the common government fear that they can’t police the information and puts faith in citizens to spread what’s important.

 Both Andrew Wilson, web content manager for HHS, and John Shea, FEMA public information officer for new media, stressed the importance of leveraging existing media properties and communication channels during a crisis. It seems to me that agencies are constantly creating new Twitter feeds and Facebook groups for specific topics, instead of taking advantage of the audiences they already have, and Wilson and Shea acknowledged that. The number of people who track agency information online is staggering, and they shouldn’t jump ship to a new platform for each new topic or event.

 These smart “Gov 2.0-ers” understand that social media is not a gimmick. It shouldn’t be used just because it’s available. As one panelist said, “we want to make sure we’re putting out valuable information, not just fluff to keep people pacified.”

The more I focus on social media use by agencies the more impressed I am by how much is going on despite the constantly cited cultural resistance. While this kind of cross-platform engagement is something citizens are clearly starting to expect from their government, I’d be curious to hear how engaged feds are with learning about and using these tools.