Four Ways To Engage Your Followers During Emergencies On Social Media
We all know that social media is the first place people turn when emergencies happen. But this week, I was once again reminded of its power to inform the public at times when they are most susceptible to absorbing the message: as the emergency/event is unfolding.
Background: there have been a lot of earthquakes in the past three days in southern California. Strong earthquakes there are felt in Las Vegas. While earthquakes aren’t super common here in Nevada, they aren’t rare, either. Nevada is the third most seismically active state in the country and we experience thousands of earthquakes per year, many of them too small for people to feel. With several faults lying underneath the Las Vegas valley, however, the potential for “the big one” exists. Plus, if “the big one” strikes southern California, it will be majorly felt here, too. But when earthquakes aren’t commonly felt here, it can be hard to get people’s attention and remind them that yes, you should be prepared. I’ve lived here for 11 years and can’t remember ever feeling an earthquake before the last few days.
After recent earthquakes in southern CA, we were able to get information up almost immediately after the first one was felt in Las Vegas on July 4 and again on July 5. Thankfully, there were no reports of injuries or damage but it was a GREAT time reinforce the importance of earthquake safety measures when people were very motivated to read and share.
And talk about IMPACT! Impressions have doubled. Engagements were up 2.5 times what they are on a normal three day span. And clicks were amazing. Our average time spent on page was almost three minutes which means many of them read our entire safety blog post.
Here are four tips to make the most of a captive audience.
Have Content Ready To Go
Don’t forget to build out your content ahead of time for likely emergencies. You never know when they are going to strike but chances are, it WILL be on a weekend or a holiday. Thankfully, we did have content ready although I hadn’t moved it over to our new blog yet meaning I had to use an older link/site that we couldn’t capture as much data from. I have it migrated over now so we can adequately track traffic and readers have the confidence of knowing the information is from a .gov site.
Utilize Polling While Still Sharing Critical Messages
People love polls and are more likely to participate, which helps your post get seen by more people. Entice them with a poll but still hit them with a safety message like we did below. Make sure you’re using all of your social media channels. Twitter was on fire and had 6,100 votes! Nextdoor, ironically, took second place with 1,400 votes followed by Facebook with almost 1,000.
Only Share Verified Information
When emergencies are happening, it can be tempting to share whatever info is out there in an effort to keep everyone as informed as possible but DON’T share media reports from official government social media channels. Real time info during emergencies is often found to be untrue or exaggerated later. Take a little extra time and make sure you’re sharing information that has been vetted from your emergency manager or other trusted government agencies. Share prepared safety tips in the meantime if you’re waiting to confirm reports of injuries or damages. It’s also helpful to research these accounts beforehand so you can keep an eye out as the event is unfolding.
Share Content That Helps People Prepare/Respond During The Event And In The Days That Follow
While you have a captive audience, get out there with critical messages. Safety messages. Accounts to follow. Apps to download. It’s helpful to research this before you need it and that is on my list for us to do in the future.
