Governments that opt to make more use of social media...
Governments that opt to make more use of social media shouldn’t do so lightly, Jamison Peevyhouse, director of emergency communications in Weakley County, Tenn., warned Thursday during a webinar sponsored by Urgent Communications. “Eighty percent of Americans expect emergency responders…
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to monitor social media sites,” according to a recent study, Peevyhouse said. “That let me know if I'm not constantly putting things out, then they're going to get them from someone else or they're going to miss a very important update that we may have for them.” Peevyhouse said when he saw the numbers on how many people thought public safety routinely monitored social media, “It kind of terrified me.” But Peevyhouse also said by monitoring services like Twitter during natural disasters, government can get help to areas that need it more quickly. “We can check on communities who are cut off,” he said. “If electricity is out, as long as they have some type of [mobile] connection they can get a message outbound and we can get a situational awareness of what’s going on in the community.” But Peevyhouse also said he has found the use of social media is most effective when multiple services are used. “Don’t focus on just Facebook, don’t focus on just Twitter,” he said. “Have multiple feeds ... go to one aggregate location. It’s very simple to do. It’s very cheap to do.” Michael Armstrong, chief information officer with the city of Corpus Christi, said the city is using social media in a variety of ways. The city put out a mobile app, CC Mobile (http://xrl.us/bnj3y8), a problem-reporting app to let the city know about everything from a broken sidewalk to a pothole, Armstrong said. Another app, my-waste (http://xrl.us/bnj3ze), provides reminders of when garbage and recycling is about to be picked up by the city, he said. Police in Corpus Christi use a Citizenobserver app for sending out alerts (http://xrl.us/bnj3zk) and a Tipsubmit app (http://xrl.us/bnj3zx) for those who want to report a crime. “There is a real generational component to this,” Armstrong said. “Folks who are picking up on the mobile applications tend to be a bit younger, though the response has been very positive for all of these.” Armstrong said he had one warning for local governments: “You have to be ready to use the tool if you're going to deploy the tool.”