The reading this week was a case study on social media and how it is used in crisis communication.
In crisis communication, information often times has to be disseminated in an instant in order for it to be effective to warn parties about the crisis that is occurring or is about to occur. Traditional news can take hours or even days to get information out, and this is not quick enough. That is why crisis communicators like FEMA and the Red Cross are taking to social media to prepare target audiences for crises and also using social media during them.
One comment I found really interesting that I did not think about before this case study, is that these emergency organizations have to think of what to do when the power goes out or there is no way to access phone lines or the internet. I never thought about this, but it makes sense that in a severe crisis people aren’t going to be able to jump on their computers and look up what to do all the time. My question, then, because they didn’t go into too much detail, is how do you reach people who don’t have cell phones, computers, television in a crisis?
Another statistic in the article that I found extremely interesting are the numbers on people with mobile phone devices. Almost the entire younger age group has a cell phone, I think they said 89%, but not many of them have a landline phone. Also, it was interesting when the article talked about how in less developed countries, much more people still have a mobile phone than internet or television access. This too me means that mobile phones should be the first way for crisis communicators to get information to their target audiences. Billions of people have mobile phones and the people who don’t will probably be near someone who does!
Interesting case study, and actually really important for everyday life, because even though we never think it is going to happen to us…it might!
Colleen's Class Blog 
You’re totally right that the major downfall is what happens if people don’t have power?! Scary how dependent we are on electricity, right? But I think it’s really cool that different organizations and city officials are using social media when there IS electricity! Mayor Bloomberg’s Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne is really making NYC the pioneer of using social media during natural disasters and other widespread crises. We can measure the effectiveness of Sterne’s social media strategies during Hurricane Irene (@NYCMayorsOffice Twitter following increased 113% in four days during Irene) but who knows how many lives she and her team saved by using social media to designate evacuation zones, provide helpful resources and clear up any rumors going around!
http://civiccommons.org/2011/08/nycs-tech-during-the-hurricane-stats-and-stories/
http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/tech-savvy-rachel-sterne/
Very good point about the case study in the reading. There are many technological steps that we take for granted when we talk about many of the subjects surrounding social media and pr. Another not mentioned is traffic to the site. Many organizations have had their online sites crippled by the flood of attention given to the sites in response to a crisis. Being able to handle a spike in traffic is key to controlling your message and ensuring the only messages out there are not your own.