10 Trends in Online Disaster Outreach

Trends 1) Find your role: Passive or Active? Passive - broadcast and disseminate information Active & Interactive: respond to public, monitor and collect data, stories, information. Create situational awareness. 2) Use of visualizations Crowd-sourced data Tap into hyper-local information 3) Centralized & aggregated Info Need central hubs Relies on a lot of cross-linking Important to not duplicate resources

10 Trends (continued) 4) Personal stories matter See how you can use this info (capture personal stories use for online community assessments, or for creating relevant content for your community See Sandy Storyline 5) Fragmentation: So, many platforms, so many tools! Dont use all of them! Be selective Use tools to centralize your information-gathering

10 Trends (continued) 6) Manage information overload 7) Abundance of information = lots of misinformation Make time for fact-checking. It could be your only contribution 8) Review social media plans and policies Ensure your agency's intentions match needs of your community. 9)Collaborate! Identify key partners Find partnerships with volunteer technology community in your area (See DisasterLegalAid.org)DisasterLegalAid.org 10) Anticipate and plan ahead whenever possible Lots of things have to already be in place in order to provide effective disaster online relief when a disaster strikes.

Strategy 2 Manage the Information

Listening tools which help you manage information are: TopsyTopsy: View All Tweets By Twitter User: Find Topical Historical Content From A User sandy Create a Listening Dashboard HootSuiteCreate a Listening Dashboard HootSuite: By importing your Twitter lists. Or use TweetDeck.TweetDeck

More Listening Tips Twitter Advanced Search: to search for people who are tweeting within a geographic radius. This can provide you with live on the-ground news affecting your target community.Twitter Advanced Search Use Fast Follow: Anyone in the US can receive Tweets on their phone even if they haven’t signed up for Twitter. For example, let’s say you want to get Tweets from New York City’s office of emergency management Just text ‘follow NotifyNYC’ to in the Sprout Social Buffer

Hootsuite

TweetDeck

Strategy 3 Using Content

Simple SEO Identify 20 long tail keywords related to the disaster information you want to circulate: To find long tail keywords, use Google Adwords Tool and put in a general keyword phrase that describes what your content is about. For example, if you wrote an article explaining FEMA housing benefits and want to target your search in say, NYC, you can put FEMA Housing in the Keyword Planner section of this tool and NYC as the geographic area that you are targeting. When you hit search, look at the last few pages of the results as this is where long tail keywords can often be found. The blue boxes below highlight the long term keywords for FEMA Housing: (1) help for displaced families, (2) help with emergency housing, (3) how can I get housing assistance, and (4) fema help for flood victimsGoogle Adwords Tool

Keep in Mind: When designing your disaster-related content the formats that are most easily shared online are: Tips How-to Quotes Checklists Infographics

LawHelpNY Online Disaster Toolkit Download: PDF: ster-toolkit ster-toolkit E-Book:

NEXT BUNCH OF SLIDES ARE FOR GENERAL ONLINE OUTREACH

Social Media has Evolved Now oversaturated and mature Not broadcast media More interactive Collaborative problem-solving Sharing content information Responsive: People want to speak with us via social media and the blog. With blog alone we have had over 800 people ask us for information about their rights or legal help.

Using Social Media as CrisisTracker: Real-time Social Media Curation

Advanced Listening Dashboards Follow specific hashtags Create Twitter lists Follow groups, agencies, or people in specific geographical locations Find out where your followers are from

Following Specific Hashtags

Create Twitter Lists

Find out where your followers are from

Learn your Online Network Structure Learn your network structure: These conversational structures differ, depending on the subject and the people driving the conversation. Six structures are regularly observed: divided, unified, fragmented, clustered, and inward and outward hub and spoke structures. Use Free, Somewhat- Technical, NodeXL.NodeXL

There are six types of Twitter conversations according to a Pew Research Study.Pew Research Study

LawHelpNY’s Twitter Network

March 2014 #HurricaneSandy

Why Do This? Its no longer sufficient to Tweet or Post Away, we must better understand who we are reaching and why. To access network engagement and make sure they support your online outreach goals. Identify gaps and areas that you are not reaching? Lean the diversity of your network.

Launch of New Public News Blog: REALNY Mission: uses design, multi-media, and short and informative plain-English articles to help New Yorkers learn about their legal rights as they apply to current events and community resources. Strategy: Centered around the community service media model – focus on both state, national, and hyperlocal information. Audience: low-income New Yorkers, nonprofits organizations, community groups, state & local government agencies, elected officials.