Our goal here at PIOSocialMediaTraining.com is very clear. We want to empower Agencies to effectively engage in the creation of Social Media to achieve their own unique goals. In that vein we have given you 5 Reasons and Methods to Develop and Distribute Social Media, shown you that Social Media is cheap, demonstrated how to use Twitter to spark conversation, provided a checklist method for authoring blog posts, and we’ve shared with you how the TSA effectively handled negative Social Media allegations amongst other things.

Today is not about tutorials, best practices, or the latest tech revolutionizing the world we live in.

Today I get evangelical and am going to pontificate about the absolute one duty that ALL agencies share and warrants the use of Social Media.

The Golden Rule

The Social Media PIO Golden Rule: Agencies must empower themselves to be able to tell their own stories

Having the media misrepresent or incorrectly communicate an agency’s story is a very common occurrence. The most common errors are usually minor (a name misspelled, a photo miscaptioned) but can be annoying none the less. It is also not uncommon for the media to use an unflattering angle when reporting on our stories and that is not how we originally wanted our stories told. Finally, the media also commonly omits information and details that can provide the public with a fuller understanding of the story. Traditionally, we have had to tailor our style to the media’s tendency for 250 word stories and 10 second sound bytes, however this is not something we need to continue to deal with.

We need to stop relying on the media to tell our stories the way they interpret them to our communities. I know some people will consider this “media” bashing but the truth about the media’s state of business is evident more and more every day. When we hear about media outlets such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopping their print editions (after a 146 year history of doing so) in favor of online publishing, it is an omen. It is a sign that the current media model is at their own resource “Level Zero” and we need to be prepared to fill in the gap in order to continue communications with our communities.

We need to tell our stories to our communities ourselves. Now is truly the time to do so since the proliferation of Social Media will allow us to do that with few barriers in our way. We can do far better for the well being of our agencies by effectively communicating our own value, explaining our own views, and becoming a trusted source of information to the communities we serve than allowing the media to continue their stranglehold on being able to craft the public’s perception of our services.

The Case Of Pittsburgh EMS

Last week a story from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania made the national news after being featured by the local media and making the local Social Media circuits. The story centered around the death of a man who had called 911 10 times over 30 hours but no ambulance was able to reach him during the February 5-6 snowstorm.

Initial news reports included harsh criticism of the Pittsburgh EMS Paramedics failure to respond to the home and was spurred on by the city’s own Public Safety Director Michael Huss condemning the responding Paramedics for not walking the 1/4 mile to the home through the snow.

Now that more time has passed there have been more facts revealed surrounding the conditions during “Snowmageddon”:

• The city lost 25% of their EMS resources when ambulances became stuck in the snow for hours (1)
• Many streets were not plowed because drivers were diverted from their routes to try and rescue vehicles (2)
• Multiple ambulance crews were dispatched to the call and all encountered the same accessibility problem (1)
• The responding Paramedics were actually canceled off the calls by their dispatcher (3, 4)
• Response delays grew worse as the day and call volume wore on (4)

Although these new facts indicate that it was not personnel failure but more of a system wide failure, the damage to the reputation and morale of Pittsburgh EMS is done. A search at Social Mention gives us an idea of the extent of that damage:

Those results from Social Mention indicate an agency in a reputation crisis that doesn’t have to be. Pittsburgh EMS maintains a static website but has no discernible Social Media presence. The sentiment ratio of 1:1 indicates that for every 1 positive statement about the service, there is 1 negative statement. This sort of sentiment is a failure for any Agency, but it could have been different had Pittsburgh EMS had a Social Media presence.

With either a blog, or a Twitter account, or a Facebook Fan Page they could have issued Public Service Announcements to educate the community to better prepare for the storm. More importantly they could have stopped treating their community as a liability and treated them more as an asset by communicating the realistic expectations of delays in service, the challenges they were facing, and the best way to assist for mutual success.

While there is no denying that they had the sentinel event of a system failure, the Social Media presence could have been used to tell their own stories of success before, during, and after the “Snowmageddon” event. I find it hard to believe that there was nothing but failures over the course of those two days, but unless Pittsburgh EMS is willing to tell their own stories we’ll most likely never hear about those successes.

In Conclusion

Social Media is not going to disappear tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. It is here to stay and for that matter continues to gain momentum into being integrated into our society. Agencies that haven’t started using it are going to find themselves at a huge disadvantage when they find themselves needing it most.

To sum it up, here are the top 5 reasons that your agency should start using Social Media today:

• Empower yourself to tell your own stories directly to the community
• Share your agency’s successes with the community
• Communicate your agency’s value to the community
• Inform and educate your community to help transform them into assets instead of liabilities
• Have effective conversations with your community in order to find ways to improve your service

Need help getting started? Sign-up for our Free E-mail Bootcamp that will give you a better understanding of Social Media and actionable items to get you started.

Finally, I am going to make a special offer to Chief Robert McCaughan of Pittsburgh EMS. I will be more than happy to donate my time and services to help Pittburgh EMS set up a Social Media Presence so that they can tell their own story, share their successes, better prepare their communities, and transform that community from a liability into an asset for the organization. If you’re ready to take that step Chief, contact us.

One of the questions I seem to get quite a bit is how hard is it to write a blog post?

The short answer is that it is not hard at all.

The long answer is that, like a lot of things we do in public safety or public health, it is a process that you can become more proficient at the more you do it. Over the years I’ve refined my process with both major and minor changes that have optimized my work flow.

Here is the checklist style process that I am currently using for your reference with critical actions bolded:

Post Size-Up

• Determine the story that you want to tell in the post
• Title it
• Consider all the elements (photos, videos, etc.) you want to use to tell that story
• Estimate the appearance of the post on the spokes you want to use to spread it

Initial Blogging

• Write the post without regard for anything other than the essentials of your idea
• Once the essentials are down, go back and fill in additional detail where needed

Focused Editing

• Go back to your initial writing and begin editing
• Focus on the paragraph flow
• Read your post out loud. How does it actually sound? Edit the rough spots
• Focus on correct spelling and grammar usage
• Read your post out loud again. Does it sound the way you want your reader to hear it?
• Format and start placing your elements in your post including Strong and Emphasis tags to enhance your search engine optimization
• Read through your post to make sure none of your added elements break your flow
• Double check the proper spelling of names
• Double check links
• Does your title still work with the finished product? If not, re-title it
• Finally either publish or schedule your post for publishing

Published Examination

• Does your post appear the way you thought it would? If not, fix it
• Check all your links to make sure they are working
• Check your RSS Feed in your feed reader to make sure the post a) appears and b) still functions
• Is everything working? If not, fix whatever needs fixing. If everything’s perfect, have a large French Vanilla Ice Coffee light with cream and with four Splendas

While I find this to be the most effective and optimal process for myself, it may not be for you. Don’t be afraid to change something to make it work better from your perspective, but keep in mind the bolded critical actions you should take before, during, and after writing each blog post to assure yourself of high quality, authoritative, and trusted content.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

We have a new episode of our bi-monthly podcast for your listening enjoyment. This time, Greg flies solo with guest Lauri Stevens (@lawscomm) discussing the dual roles of Law Enforcement in Social Media and helping departments make the experience better for their constituents with The Social Media In Law Enforcement (SMILE) Conference (@SMILEConference) April 7-9 in Washington DC.

In our third audio podcast you can hear us discuss:

• The SMILE Conference is broken down into two distinct themes on three days:
  • Wednesday is a hands-on day covering both the fundamentals of services such as Twitter and Facebook, but also expanding into more advanced third-party applications and other services such as LinkedIn.
  • Thursday covers reputation management, community building, and outreach.
  • Friday is dealing with investigative techniques using Social Media.
• It is important to plan and understand the goals you want to achieve in Social Media so that you have a direction to go.
• More and more individual law enforcement officers are partaking in Social Media as opposed to waiting for the official agency PIO.
• Using novel methods of connecting with the citizenry both utilizing Social Media and in the actual community is essential to success.
• We need to shine the spotlight on the successes of Law Enforcement in Social Media instead of focusing on failures.

You can visit Lauri‘s blog at Connected Cops and find out more about The SMILE Conference

Want to listen while you’re on the go?

Thanks for listening!

There is a popular saying in the blogosphere, “Content is king.” While in many instances this is very true, what can also be said truthfully is that “Design is queen.”

Having a good set of design elements and creating an aesthetically pleasing experience for the end user is not always the highest priority of content creators. Still, it is not something that should be overlooked because the truth is that the quality of a design is an initial indicator of an the content creator’s credibility as an authority on the subject matter.

Here is a list of some simple tips when designing the look and defining the usability of your Agency Hub:

Design Elements

• Colors
• Content
• Font
• Layout
• Navigation
• Usability

Colors

• Learn the basics of color theory
• In order to determine compatible colors, reference a color wheel
• Your primary content area should have a light color background with a dark color font
• Your hyperlinks should be a different color than the rest of your text
• Blue is considered the best color for links (it is what Google and the vast majority of the web uses)

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Content

• The primary content area should be in the center of the screen
• Subscription methods to dynamic content, either RSS Feeds or E-Mails, should be visible “above the fold”
• Your content should not look like an ad
• Your main content area and sidebar content areas should be clearly defined
• There should be slight style differences between the main content area and the sidebar content area
• Images in content should be aligned and buffered with white space

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Font

• Choose a basic font (ex. Times News Roman, Arial) that is compatible with all browsers and mobile devices for content
• The font size should be a minimum of 12 points to be sure it is readable on all display types
• When using specialized fonts (ex. Igloo, Airwolf) for titles convert the titles into graphics

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Layout

• Main content areas should be the widest container on the page
• Sidebar content should not extend past the main content area
• Sidebar content should have a different background color than the main content area, even if it is just a shade or two different
• Layout should be scaled to a 1024X768 screen resolution, but be mindful that there are both bigger and smaller resolutions being used so centering your site will help maintain the focus on your main content area
• Featured content should be in a clearly marked area above the fold

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Navigation

• Navigation for the entire site should be visible “above the fold”
• Navigation should maintain the same location throughout the site layout
• Navigation should be easily readable as both active and visited links
• Navigation should be clear and concise
• If possible, utilize “breadcrumbs” in your navigation menu so users know exactly where they are on your site

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Usability

• Your site should be “browser friendly” and not coded for one specific browser or another
• It is important to understand that both Javascript and Flash elements may not be viewable by all users
• While Flash based sites are fancy and eye appealing, mobile users, in all likelihood, will not be able to view anything since the majority of mobile platforms currently do not support Flash
• Form labels on your site should be placed above the field
• Blue is considered the best color for links (it is what Google and the vast majority of the web uses)
• White space between elements helps declutter a site and improves viewer understanding of content differences
• The majority of users are “ad blind” and will not only not “see” an ad but also anything that looks like an ad so be sure that your content is not too similar to an ad

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Last week I wrote a guest post on using social media to promote a public access defibrillation program for the Cardiac Science Blog.

You read the post here: Public Access Defibrillation and Social Media: 7 Ideas You Can Use Right Now

David and I welcome inquiries for guest posting on this blog.

Today the 2010 Technology Entertainment Design (TED) Conference will begin in Long Beach, California. While I’m excited to see what this year’s conference will offer, I just wanted to rehash one of my favorite talks from last year.

This is Twitter co-founder Evan Williams on listening to Twitter users:

Five things to take away from this talk:

• Great ideas won’t always start out as the main goal
• The simplest idea can be changed and adapted by the user for their needs if you are flexible enough
• Tradional uses of mediums (and the media) for broadcasting is changing to be more of a conversation
• Real time delivery is a huge 2009 trend and continues to be a 2010 theme as well
• The first part of communication that will matter is being able to listen effectively

Are you listening effectively? If so, then how are you doing it? If you aren’t, then what is stopping you?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Yesterday morning my Twitter stream lit up with breaking news reports of an explosion at a Power Plant under construction in Connecticut. In this short screen cast I show how a Google Search and Advanced Twitter Search can be used to gather real-time incident intelligence from people at or near the incident.

When initiating my search I made a critical error. See if you can catch it.

This technique could be useful to:

• Hospitals preparing to receive casualties
• Administrators trying to determine how many off-duty personnel to call in
• Emergency management officials making decisions about opening a county or regional IC
• Selecting which shelters to open or close

How else could you use Google search, Google Alerts, and Advanced Twitter Search for social media intelligence gathering?