Being in the younger generation, I have taken to Social Media and I utilize it on a daily basis. It is interesting, because when I first got into Social Media I was very apprehensive about joining the "fad". Well, many years have past since I first joined the world of myspace and Facebook. Since then I have long lost the myspace account and traded it in for a Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, and 2 Facebook pages, 3 organizational twitter feeds, and...really I am not sure I am tracking it all right now. In addition, I write this blog and sit in on podcasts with the EMS Educast and Educast MINI, and the EMS Office Hours. To manage all of this I use an application that is designed to help an individual efficiently utilize each of these resources, but I have come to find out something today.
Now, with everything that I have going on with my life I want to make sure that I adequately manage my time to ensure that I spent every quality minute with my wife and children as possible. That is a hard thing to accomplish, and with social media that is even more difficult. In watching the daily stats of the Combomedic website, I took yesterday off and my statistics have dropped dramatically in the last 36 hours. I could easily activate my hootsuite and put into cue a large number of scheduled tweets to be sent to my entire social media family, but I try to tweet all my tweets in a real time environment.
Now, as we all know, social media is not a fad that is going to leave us in the next couple of days. In fact, social media is taking a strong hold in emergency services and is quickly becoming one of the best ways to notify the masses in the event of a disaster type event. I have become a fan of Erik Qualman and his books on social media. Socialnomics and Digital Leader are two of my most recommended books here lately. It has also prompted me to create a presentation on social media in Emergency Services. Erik Qualman (socialnomics.com) (twitter.com/equalman) has put together an excellent video on Social Media and the impact that it actually has. Not only does it have great figures, the game is great as well. The social media revolution (click here) is bringing great change to the EMS community.
Social media has the potential to reach more people, more quickly than any other media outlet in the world. Most people look to facebook and twitter as a means to get information on topics well before going to other sites that were prominent just a few short years ago. Social Media is a key point that all EMS leaders should be looking at. However, social media isn't something that you can just jump into. You can read the information provided by Erik Qualman and know that there must be things that you put into place first. Now to create a good social media policy, I will provide you a couple of topics that must be address.
Must be active
Now, this is something that I eluded to above. In just a short 36 hours, the average number of daily hits to this blog has decreased slightly. This is because of the lack of publication through my various means during this time. This is the same if you have an active emergency services social media brand that is stagnant. Now, you may ask yourself the following question. Why should I update this is all I am going to use it for is disaster notification? First, you should know this is so much bigger than just disaster notification. Second, if that is all you are going to use it for then nobody will be looking for your page information. Creating a brand on facebook, twitter, linked in, or the many other social sites is a daily task. You can use this method of communication to develop a more disaster prepared community. You can use it to publish good things your organization is doing, and you can update members of your community of things that are going on. By creating a brand that is able to be as all around as your response staff, the community will be watching your daily notifications and ready for when things happen.
Include your staff
Now, many people try to control the number of individuals that are participating in the social media outlay of information. That can help, but it can hurt your organization. Ultimately you have a large public information staff waiting for an opportunity to help. Now, without training this can be a disaster, but if you put together a good policy and educate your members of what you are trying to accomplish most will be willing to help fill in as needed.
There are many, many more topics in social media and I will be discussing those soon. For now, begin your training. Develop your social know how. Read the information from Erik Qualman and watch the video that I have referenced on this page. Also, visit this great training from a great friend and mentor in EMS. Greg Friese has put together the Social Media Bootcamp for EMS. Find this information at PIO Social Media Training
Take Care and Stay Safe
Combomedic
twitter.com/dsblev
Now, with everything that I have going on with my life I want to make sure that I adequately manage my time to ensure that I spent every quality minute with my wife and children as possible. That is a hard thing to accomplish, and with social media that is even more difficult. In watching the daily stats of the Combomedic website, I took yesterday off and my statistics have dropped dramatically in the last 36 hours. I could easily activate my hootsuite and put into cue a large number of scheduled tweets to be sent to my entire social media family, but I try to tweet all my tweets in a real time environment.
Now, as we all know, social media is not a fad that is going to leave us in the next couple of days. In fact, social media is taking a strong hold in emergency services and is quickly becoming one of the best ways to notify the masses in the event of a disaster type event. I have become a fan of Erik Qualman and his books on social media. Socialnomics and Digital Leader are two of my most recommended books here lately. It has also prompted me to create a presentation on social media in Emergency Services. Erik Qualman (socialnomics.com) (twitter.com/equalman) has put together an excellent video on Social Media and the impact that it actually has. Not only does it have great figures, the game is great as well. The social media revolution (click here) is bringing great change to the EMS community.
Social media has the potential to reach more people, more quickly than any other media outlet in the world. Most people look to facebook and twitter as a means to get information on topics well before going to other sites that were prominent just a few short years ago. Social Media is a key point that all EMS leaders should be looking at. However, social media isn't something that you can just jump into. You can read the information provided by Erik Qualman and know that there must be things that you put into place first. Now to create a good social media policy, I will provide you a couple of topics that must be address.
Must be active
Now, this is something that I eluded to above. In just a short 36 hours, the average number of daily hits to this blog has decreased slightly. This is because of the lack of publication through my various means during this time. This is the same if you have an active emergency services social media brand that is stagnant. Now, you may ask yourself the following question. Why should I update this is all I am going to use it for is disaster notification? First, you should know this is so much bigger than just disaster notification. Second, if that is all you are going to use it for then nobody will be looking for your page information. Creating a brand on facebook, twitter, linked in, or the many other social sites is a daily task. You can use this method of communication to develop a more disaster prepared community. You can use it to publish good things your organization is doing, and you can update members of your community of things that are going on. By creating a brand that is able to be as all around as your response staff, the community will be watching your daily notifications and ready for when things happen.
Include your staff
Now, many people try to control the number of individuals that are participating in the social media outlay of information. That can help, but it can hurt your organization. Ultimately you have a large public information staff waiting for an opportunity to help. Now, without training this can be a disaster, but if you put together a good policy and educate your members of what you are trying to accomplish most will be willing to help fill in as needed.
There are many, many more topics in social media and I will be discussing those soon. For now, begin your training. Develop your social know how. Read the information from Erik Qualman and watch the video that I have referenced on this page. Also, visit this great training from a great friend and mentor in EMS. Greg Friese has put together the Social Media Bootcamp for EMS. Find this information at PIO Social Media Training
Take Care and Stay Safe
Combomedic
twitter.com/dsblev
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