Social Media in Emergency Response
Topic Collection
October 17, 2022
Topic Collection: Social Media in Emergency Response
The use and impact of social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and YouTube) has skyrocketed over the past decade and has significantly supplemented—if not nearly replaced—more traditional means of communication in many areas of the U.S.. There are two primary ways that emergency managers engage in social media: posting information for public knowledge (e.g., road closures, shelter locations, and weather updates) and gleaning information to help allocate resources. Recent disasters have highlighted the level to which survivors and responders use social media to communicate about issues such as: their status and location, the effect of the disaster on their surroundings, where and how to locate shelter and supplies, how to report to areas that need volunteer support (and how to make donations over the internet), and strategies for obtaining medical care. In addition to building community relationships and setting expectations pre-disaster, planners can use social media to identify and monitor potential threats to public health, and communicate with residents about threats (e.g., infectious disease), pending incidents (e.g., severe weather), and the location and availability of services (e.g., shelters and points of distribution). Tools such as crowdsourcing (collecting information from a large group of people via the Internet) and data mining bolster these efforts. Because the nature of social media changes so frequently and is used for a wide variety of purposes, the ASPR TRACIE Team narrowed our search results to include lessons learned and promising practices from incidents within the past decade and actionable resources specific to our audience.
We understand that lessons are still being collated from recent events (e.g., mass violence incidents, hurricanes, and wildfires). We encourage you to share your resources with us for consideration; we will update this Topic Collection as new resources are published.
Access the following ASPR TRACIE Topic Collections for additional, related information: Communication Systems; Cybersecurity; Emergency Public Information and Warning/ Risk Communications; Information Sharing; and Virtual Medical Care.
Each resource in this Topic Collection is placed into one or more of the following categories (click on the category name to be taken directly to that set of resources). Resources marked with an asterisk (*) appear in more than one category.
Must Reads
This basic checklist can help emergency planners create a social media plan. It includes steps to take before, during, and after a disaster and links to social media platform pages for more information.
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The authors researched and developed a case study on the impact of the group "Occupy Sandy" (which grew from the Occupy Wall Street movement), the Twitter handle "@OccupySandy" and hashtag "#SuperStormSandy” used to share information about the storm via social media. Overall, the group helped mobilize volunteers, identify community needs in near real time, and share information; recommendations for future use of social media as a tool in emergency management are provided.
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The author explains how crowdsourcing, social media monitoring, and other tools can help disaster responders quickly collect information and tailor their on-ground response. These tools can also help volunteers contribute online or help onsite. Links to several tools are provided.
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This hour-long webinar can help emergency responders tailor their social media messages to ensure they are reaching community members with disabilities. Links to transcripts, PowerPoint presentations, and audio and video files are provided.
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Emergency planners can access and customize sample messages and posts for the following categories/populations: Natural Disasters, Infectious Diseases, Accidental Disasters, Intentional Disasters, and Individuals with Access and Functional Needs. Sample messages are provided in three main categories: general updates, response, and recovery.
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This interactive, web-based course covers best practices, tools, techniques, and a basic roadmap that can help participants in emergency management build their social media capabilities.
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The authors analyzed tweets disseminated by New York State and City agencies during two storms (Superstorm Sandy and winter blizzard Nemo) to determine which were retweeted most frequently. The most retweeted tweets used simpler wording and shared general tips or photos versus actionable information. These finding suggest that emergency managers consider sharing a variety of information via social media in the event of a disaster.
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The authors examined more than 15,000 tweets to understand how public health professionals used Twitter. Messages were broken into four themes: 1) inform and educate, 2) monitor health statuses and trends, 3) communicate about social justice, and 4) increase professional development.
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The authors reviewed the literature on the use of social media in emergencies between 2007 and 2014. They highlight how various tools are used by the public, emergency organizations, and academic institutions.
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Several case studies (and figures and statistics) highlight how social media was used by government organizations, news outlets, charity organizations, and community members to share information during disasters.
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Emergency planners can use the guidance in this document to better understand the use of social media in developing situational awareness (e.g., monitoring, crowdsourcing, and intelligence gathering), and analyzing data (e.g., baseline vs. event detection, and trend analysis). Other sections discuss challenges associated with technology (e.g., the use of third-party platforms, lapses in time and space) and information (e.g., aggregating and filtering, verifying, and integrating).
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The authors explain how responders can use social media to facilitate decision making during fast-paced disaster responses. Sections on operationalizing social media into incident command, the long-term use of social media, and challenges associated with using social media can help planners form their agency’s policies. Case studies are provided at the end of the report.
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This report can help emergency planners learn more about best practices for integrating social media into exercises and explains why social media should be a part of all aspects of disaster planning. It also highlights recent examples and challenges associated with integrating social media into exercises and training.
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The authors share lessons they learned from creating and maintaining the "Joplin Tornado Info" and "Branson Tornado Info" Facebook pages. The guidance in this document can help emergency managers set up their own social media platforms and draft messages before an incident occurs.
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Education and Training
This five-module course provides an overview of social network analysis, how it differs from standard approaches, and what some of the misconceptions are. It also looks at basic terms and concepts that underlie social network analysis.
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Emergency planners can use the guidance in this document to: learn about social media; understand their audiences; write for Facebook and Twitter; develop text messages; and base social media on existing web page content. Sample “hands-on” activities are provided, where readers have the chance to revise draft messages. A checklist, glossary, and links to helpful resources are also included.
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CDC’s Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) manual provides an integrated model for public health professionals to communicate effectively during an emergency. The chapter on social media and mobile devices covers social media’s role with mainstream media, its role in a crisis, and responding to social media regarding serious errors, myths, and misperceptions.
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This hour-long webinar can help emergency responders tailor their social media messages to ensure they are reaching community members with disabilities. Links to transcripts, PowerPoint presentations, and audio and video files are provided.
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This interactive, web-based course covers best practices, tools, techniques, and a basic roadmap that can help participants in emergency management build their social media capabilities.
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This hour-long webinar provides a summary and strategies that can help emergency responders and charitable agencies use social media to engage disaster survivors. The web page includes links to a question and answer document and other related resources.
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This presentation can help public information officers (PIO) understand and prepare to use social media in an emergency situation. The speaker provides an overview of crisis communication and the role of a PIO, explains to role of social media and associated challenges, and shares actual examples of PIOs using social media to inform the communities they serve.
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This webpage provides links to the center’s free courses on social media and related articles, reports, and tools.
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This 8-hour instructor-led course teaches participants how to use social media to recognize warning signs, disseminate messages, and monitor and analyze social media traffic.
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This 8-hour course builds upon PER-304 and helps participants develop messages for different audiences and understand the benefits of crowdsourcing and data mining.
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This 8-hour, instructor-led course prepares participants to engage individuals and volunteer organizations through social media, especially in the context of disaster preparedness and response.
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General Guidance and Research
The authors interviewed local health departments to better understand their experiences using social media. They identified the main factors influencing use of social media and listed recommendations for local health practitioners and policymakers.
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Emergency planners can use the guidance in this document to: learn about social media; understand their audiences; write for Facebook and Twitter; develop text messages; and base social media on existing web page content. Sample “hands-on” activities are provided, where readers have the chance to revise draft messages. A checklist, glossary, and links to helpful resources are also included.
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Information is split into four categories: tips for response and relief organizations, tips for first responders and government agencies, tips for individuals and communities, and Facebook crisis response products.
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The FCC states that this report has two goals: to advocate for complementary alerting via social media and emphasize the potential opportunity and advantages for social media platforms in emergency alerting. Section 5.2 highlights the advantages of using social media and 5.3 explains challenges and opportunities.
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This webpage provides links to the center’s free courses on social media and related articles, reports, and tools.
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This report summarizes presentations made at a 2012 workshop organized by the Committee on Public Response to Alerts and Warnings Using Social Media. Chapters cover the fundamentals of alerts, warnings, and social media, how social media has been used in emergencies by local agencies, the dynamics of social media, message credibility, privacy and legal issues, and research gaps and other challenges.
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This book provides a summary of conference proceedings where risk communications experts discussed the public response to mobile alerts.
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Emergency planners can use the guidance in this document to better understand the use of social media in developing situational awareness (e.g., monitoring, crowdsourcing, and intelligence gathering), and analyzing data (e.g., baseline vs. event detection, and trend analysis). Other sections discuss challenges associated with technology (e.g., the use of third-party platforms, lapses in time and space) and information (e.g., aggregating and filtering, verifying, and integrating).
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The authors explain how responders can use social media to facilitate decision making during fast-paced disaster responses. Sections on operationalizing social media into incident command, the long-term use of social media, and challenges associated with using social media can help planners form their agency’s policies. Case studies are provided at the end of the report.
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This report can help emergency planners learn more about best practices for integrating social media into exercises and explains why social media should be a part of all aspects of disaster planning. It also highlights recent examples and challenges associated with integrating social media into exercises and training.
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Project Responder can help prioritize capability needs for emergency response to critical incidents. The fifth iteration of this series is based on lessons learned by responders who worked some of the largest disasters in the U.S. over the past several years. The benefits, challenges, and lessons learned from resident and responder use of social media are interwoven throughout the document.
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The authors share lessons they learned from creating and maintaining the "Joplin Tornado Info" and "Branson Tornado Info" Facebook pages. The guidance in this document can help emergency managers set up their own social media platforms and draft messages before an incident occurs.
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Lessons Learned: Floods
The author discusses the strengths and challenges of social media use after the floods that struck Louisiana in 2016. Based on a small survey he conducted, he found that the use of social media increased while more traditional communication channels were compromised. Survey respondents were neutral or dissatisfied with the level of federal government engagement via social media.
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The authors analyzed Facebook and Twitter posts made by federal, state, and local government agencies (including public health and emergency management) before, during, and after the flooding events. They scored each post using accessibility and dissemination scales and found that most posts were related to situational awareness and recovery.
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Lessons Learned: Hurricanes
The authors researched and developed a case study on the impact of the group "Occupy Sandy" (which grew from the Occupy Wall Street movement), the Twitter handle "@OccupySandy" and hashtag "#SuperStormSandy” used to share information about the storm via social media. Overall, the group helped mobilize volunteers, identify community needs in near real time, and share information; recommendations for future use of social media as a tool in emergency management are provided.
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Can non-traditional data (e.g., tweets) supplement traditional data reporting during hurricane response? The authors examined tweets, news reports, press releases, and federal situation reports during the Hurricane Isaac response in 2012 to measure “Essential Elements of Information.” Their findings highlighted the utility of non-traditional data sources in disaster response.
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The authors analyzed tweets disseminated by New York State and City agencies during two storms (Superstorm Sandy and winter blizzard Nemo) to determine which were retweeted most frequently. The most retweeted tweets used simpler wording and shared general tips or photos versus actionable information. These finding suggest that emergency managers consider sharing a variety of information via social media in the event of a disaster.
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The authors used “advanced sentiment analysis” to examine tweets posted over an 11 day period before, during, and after Hurricane Sandy to highlight basic emotions and determine if they could map excess risk of these emotions. Their analysis revealed spatial clusters and they encourage further study that could help quickly identify community areas where behavioral health assistance is most needed.
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Social media facilitated emergency communications during Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The authors highlight how residents used it to request rescue and how responders used it to stay connected when more traditional means of communication were temporarily unavailable.
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The authors explain how the use of a Twitter list combined with Boolean searches helped the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response increased situational awareness and improved the HHS response to Hurricane Sandy.
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The authors analyzed Twitter activity before, during, and after Hurricane Sandy and found that physical disaster effects and real and perceived threats can be observed by studying the intensity and makeup of Twitter’s streams. Emergency managers could use social media data to quickly assess disaster-related damage in their jurisdictions.
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The author comments on analyses of Fairfax County Virginia’s Office of Public Affairs social media posts (and public reception) during Hurricanes Irene (2011) and Sandy (2012). Links to related resources are provided.
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This report shares how social media was used before, during, and in recovery from Hurricane Sandy. It includes best practices, lessons learned, gaps, and issues for further consideration identified by the first responder community.
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Lessons Learned: Infectious Disease
The authors describe the role social media can play in tracking, communicating about, and reporting emerging infectious diseases (e.g., Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Ebola, and Zika).
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A study of zika-related social media found that while most posts are in English, Facebook posts are more likely than tweets to be in a study author’s primary language. The authors of this article suggest Facebook is a more effective way to communicate in native languages of affected countries.
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The authors describe how they used social media monitoring during public health emergency responses in New York City, including Ebola and Legionnaire’s responses and for planned events. They offer concepts and implementations that can be applied to other agencies who want to build a social media monitoring team.
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This article highlights how the New York City Social Media Monitoring Team (SMMT) coordinated the 2016 Zika planning and response efforts. The authors encourage local health departments leading or supporting emergency response to dedicate staff to monitoring social media to improve real-time situational awareness and understanding of public perception.
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The authors examined more than 15,000 tweets to understand how public health professionals used Twitter. Messages were broken into four themes: 1) inform and educate, 2) monitor health statuses and trends, 3) communicate about social justice, and 4) increase professional development.
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The author shares information gathered from the 2015 Disneyland measles outbreak and highlights pros and cons associated with using social media to measure and track vaccine acceptance/doubt and anticipate disease peaks.
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The authors examine the miscalculation of Google Flu Trends in 2013 and explain the challenges and potential associated with using Big Data to predict and monitor disease.
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Public health organizations used a mix of social media and traditional channels to communicate with the community during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Researchers found that while social media linked to traditional media, the reverse was not true. They also found that traditional media was still relied on more to provide more comprehensive information.
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The authors describe how they aggregated and filtered Twitter data to identify “events”—data with an unusual count that is then assessed by an analyst. They then used this method to analyze social media surrounding the Boston Marathon bombing, New Year’s festivities, and the Ebola outbreak.
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The authors used data derived from Twitter to track two things: public sentiment specific to H1N1 (swine flu) and actual disease activity. They found that their estimates of influenza-like illness matched reported disease levels.
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Health officials in Brazil sponsored the development of Guardiões da Saúde, an app (available in seven languages) that monitored the health of participating citizens and visitors to the Olympics. Users would answer questions about their health on a daily basis and the app provided information about care and prevention.
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The study team collected all Ebola-related tweets sent by nearly 300 local health departments (LHDs) across the U.S. from September 3 to November 2, 2014 and analyzed their characteristics. The majority of Ebola tweets provided information, and the rest shared information on preparedness or shared news or promoted events. The authors recommend that LHDs use Twitter during public health emergencies “to ensure timeline dissemination of critical information.”
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Lessons Learned: Mass Violence
This comprehensive report describes the unified response the City of Orlando carried out during and after the Orlando Pulse nightclub attack. While slightly more focused on law enforcement, the report shares numerous lessons learned from several perspectives, including: leadership and relationships; media and public information (e.g., the use of social media and the importance of having one organization responsible for sharing information via one platform); and community engagement and relationships.
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Clicking on the tab “Research Highlights” takes readers to this article which focuses on guidance provided via Twitter after the Boston Marathon bombing. Guidance is grouped into themes (e.g., evacuation/shelter and advisory) and graphed by which of the seven organizational sectors tweeted about it (crisis, health, environment, law enforcement, government/elected officials, transportation, and other).
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This article provides a short overview of the feature and describes how it was used after the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting.
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Lessons Learned: Tornadoes
Social media was used after the tornado to: document the event, enable survivors to list themselves as safe (and find their loved ones), provide survivors with information on getting assistance, and help survivors locate lost items (e.g., pets and medical records).
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The authors share lessons they learned from creating and maintaining the "Joplin Tornado Info" and "Branson Tornado Info" Facebook pages. The guidance in this document can help emergency managers set up their own social media platforms and draft messages before an incident occurs.
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Lessons Learned: Wildfires
The authors describe an automated technique for real-time tracking of wildfire perimeters based on publicly available crowdsourced data collected from telephone calls to emergency services. This data allowed them to detect and track perimeters in real time, accurately, in two wildfires years apart.
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Plans, Tools, and Templates
This basic checklist can help emergency planners create a social media plan. It includes steps to take before, during, and after a disaster and links to social media platform pages for more information.
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This voluntary standard—developed with input from law enforcement, fire, and medical emergency responders—describes how social media can and should be used during disasters. Planners can access Chapters 6 and 8 for specific guidance on creating a social media policy for their organization.
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The author explains how crowdsourcing, social media monitoring, and other tools can help disaster responders quickly collect information and tailor their on-ground response. These tools can also help volunteers contribute online or help onsite. Links to several tools are provided.
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This policy document includes sections that emergency planners can use as guidance when creating their own policies. Information on personal use of social media, employee participation in social media, and review steps and levels associated with social media channels are included, as are a list of responsibilities by role, references, and an abbreviations list.
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This toolkit (published in 2011) can help emergency managers develop a social media program. It includes guidance on topics such as tools, creating buttons and badges, podcasts, RSS feeds, and widgets. Links to sample accounts and other helpful resources are also provided.
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This collection provides public service announcements to help communicators respond to a wide variety of public health emergencies, including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires and more. Topics also include messaging around common all-hazards topics, such as the needs of at-risk populations, safe cleanup, and safe use of medication after a disaster. The PSAs are available in a variety of formats, including text message, short scripts for broadcast use, short videos for use on social media and more.
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Emergency planners can access and customize sample messages and posts for the following categories/populations: Natural Disasters, Infectious Diseases, Accidental Disasters, Intentional Disasters, and Individuals with Access and Functional Needs. Sample messages are provided in three main categories: general updates, response, and recovery.
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This webpage can be used as a checklist and includes lists of actions emergency planners can take before and during a disaster to ensure their social media messages are as helpful, timely, and informative as possible.
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This highly visual report is structured around three key stages about monitoring social media before, during, and after an emergency. Each phase includes suggestions for implementation, key lessons learned, and examples.
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The speakers in this 17 minute video share how local health departments can use social media platforms like Facebook to identify pandemics or other illness outbreaks in communities, allowing them to more quickly address threats and care for and communicate with residents.
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Pages 20-23 of this toolkit provide an overview of using social media before, during, and after an event and include checklists sample posts (based on a pandemic influenza outbreak).
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TweetDeck allows users to customize their Twitter experience (e.g., build and organize collections), track specific topics, events, and hashtags, and manage multiple accounts.
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U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2012).
Social Media Strategy.
Virtual Social Media Working Group and DHS First Responders Group.
In addition to listing the benefits and challenges associated with implementing social media for public safety (including public health, emergency management, fire, and law enforcement), this document includes links to examples for each type of platform (e.g., mobile texting, Twitter profiles, Facebook, LinkedIn, photo and video sharing).
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This report can help emergency planners learn more about best practices for integrating social media into exercises and explains why social media should be a part of all aspects of disaster planning. It also highlights recent examples and challenges associated with integrating social media into exercises and training.
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Agencies and Organizations
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