Step 4: Understand the Challenges of Using Social Media in Emergency Management
Messaging
Due to the ever-changing environment of SM and the tendency of information redundancy, it can be very challenging to manage accurate messaging while remaining on top of an emergency event.
Ever-Changing Environment
Overwhelming numbers of messages can be posted through SM during emergency events. Filtering through these posts, finding the threads of truth, and choosing what needs to be communicated or responded to can prove impossible without proper training and technology. Airport staff members (or outside vendors) need to be properly equipped to listen, engage, publish, and report during these events. Selecting an SM management tool that can help you identify trends and look for key words and phrases can aid your team in identifying relevant content.
Industry Example
A paper published in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management,2 summarized the process by which the City of Brisbane established a “social hub,” an SM aggregation tool, where citizens could find emergency information from a variety of emergency response stakeholders in one location during a flood situation. Putting time-sensitive, key information in one spot enabled the city to minimize the “white noise” and speak with one authoritative “voice” during this crisis.
Information Redundancy
Over-posting repetitive messages that contain no new information can begin to erode public trust in an airport. In your SM guidelines, you should include procedures for developing a hierarchy system for releasing public-facing SM messages that is aligned with all internal and external stakeholder partners in order to ensure a “one voice” approach to public SM messaging. These guidelines will determine which organization or agency releases what types of messages and when.
As discussed in this step, there are quite a few challenges for airports to overcome in order to realize the benefits of SMEM; you will need to invest in the foresight and planning necessary to properly address these challenges. In the steps that follow, we will guide you through doing just that.
REFERENCES
2. All That I'm Hearing from You Is White Noise: Social Media Aggregation in Emergency Response, Whitelaw, T. and Henson, D. in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management, (29:4), Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. https://ajem.infoservices.com.au/items/AJEM-29-04-10.
