Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
all phases of emergency management including preparedness, response, recovery,
and mitigation.
Social media must begin to be used by emergency managers in conjunction
with traditional outreach to provide a comprehensive and thorough mechanism for
the distribution of education and emergency public information. Only this type of
approach will effectively ensure that emergency management professionals are pro-
viding information in a timely and effective manner via mechanisms where citizens
are not where they have been or are hoped to be.
Additionally, emergency managers have a tremendous opportunity to imple-
ment social media and Web 2.0 systems as operational response tools. Many of
these systems potentially provide greater accountability and safety as well as redun-
dant systems to store documentation, resources, and other vital response compo-
nents. This application is nearly always free and easily integrated into or through
mobile browsing and/or applications, which allows for significant mobility and
portability of these new operational tools.
The future of emergency management is right here, or rather, right together.
Social media's ability to improve real-time collaboration via cloud networking or
social geolocation systems is already becoming a valuable tool and will continue to
be so as more emergency management professionals learn more about these systems
and creatively apply their uses to current response systems in joint information
centers and mapping centers.
Implementation of social media is occurring at many different levels and in
many different ways. These organizations should be profiled and examined for best
practices and ideal application for certain emergencies and/or crisis situations.
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Moreover, significant work must be completed related to the recommended imple-
mentation of social media into emergency public information systems to ensure
they can be utilized as a tool and ultimately benefit the clear and consistent review
of public messages. These best practices, along with a little creativity and ingenu-
ity, will help drive the future of social media's continued application in emergency
management. Social media is not going away, nor are disasters. Therefore, it is para-
mount for emergency management—from the individual to the industry—to find
ways to understand and embrace how social media is impacting their lives.
References
1. “Battle of the sizes: Social network users vs. country populations.” Pingdom. Accessed
on September 8, 2010. http://royal.pingdom.com/2009/03/13/battle-of-the-sizes-
social-network-users-vs-country-populations/.
2. “Facebook's Half a Billion Users: Fun Facts.”
PC World
. Accessed on September 8, 2010.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/201650/facebooks_half_billion_users_fun_facts.html.
3. “Facebook Statistics.” Accessed on September 9, 2010. http://www.facebook.com/
press/info.php?statistics.
