The Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS) informed NBC Chairmen Mr. Jeff Gaspin by letter that AAMS has asked its members to protest the television show Trauma by using social media. The AAMS president writes:

“Beginning today, we will challenge our members of to “tweet” via Twitter and post messages on Facebook every time an inappropriate, unethical or inaccurate portrayal of EMS is depicted on Trauma. And we will continue to do so until either your producers “get it right” – or the series goes off the air.”

Download the letter from October 5, 2009
View AAMS Facebook group
View AAMS Twitter page

Emergency responders, their employers, and professional associations have lots of potential uses for social media. When mobilizing your colleagues and or members to participate in a social media campaign ensure the following:

1. Numbers to make a meaningful impact. AAMS has 199 Twitter followers. A tiny fraction of Twitter users. For a national organization wanting to impact an international corporation that is probably not enough. On the other hand if a local fire department had 199 local followers that might be enough to garner support for local initiatives to improve service or prevent fires.

2. Reach of members to spread message. Even with a small number of members social media could give AAMS tremendous impact. Imagine if one of their followers was @LanceArmstrong or @Oprah (each with more than 2 million followers). A retweet from Lance or Oprah could make the AAMS campaign worthy of national entertainment news. Are you following and being followed back by key social media influencers that have thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of followers?

3. Solve problems that make people’s lives better. People use the internet to make their lives better. They do that through connecting, learning, sharing, and or purchasing. We are surrounded by media messages that tell us what is wrong in the world and what individuals, organizations, and parties are against. Reading this letter from the AAMS is my first significant interaction with AAMS. I now know what they are against – a television show, but I have no idea what they are for and what they might have to offer me as an EMS professional to make my life better.

How is your agency or member organization using social media to connect, teach, learn, or share? How would you mobilize a social media campaign to teach what you are about?

About the author

Greg Friese wrote 58 articles on this blog.

Greg Friese, MS, NREMT-P is an author, podcaster, blogger, and advocate for emergency response agencies to use social media before, during, and after any incident. Greg is the Director of Education for CentreLearn Solutions, LLC. He is also the co-host of the EMSEduCast podcast and is a paramedic for a 911 agency in northeast Wisconsin

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