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Facebook has announced that on March 30, 2012 all Facebook Pages will be switched over to the new Facebook Timeline design. Right now Facebook is giving you an opportunity to preview how your page will look with the new design prior to the conversion date.

Here’s a video from Facebook regarding these changes:

Here’s a few of the things I see as a benefit to the new Timeline design for agencies

• A more visual layout focusing on photos
• The ability to document your agencies history
• The possibility of putting Events more front and center
• A better admin area
• Using the Cover Photo as a billboard to recognize your extraordinary responders

What do you think of the new Facebook Timeline design? Let us know your thoughts in the comments…

The United Kingdom’s Northwest Ambulance Service is providing citizens with a ride-a-long experience with paramedics via their Twitter account this week. During this week long endeavor the service’s Twitter feed will focus on a different ambulance crew each day to cover the five counties the agency covers.

Our patient is in labour – could this a be our first ‘tweet’ baby? #nwamb999

— NWAS NHS Trust (@NWAmbulance) January 30, 2012

While citizens are often made aware of the motor vehicle collision or murder victims through traditional media, this provides a way for the service to communicate ALL the different types of calls it handles. By communicating the variety of calls and patients the agency services increases their perceived value in the eyes of the public.

Huge kudos to Northwest Ambulance Service for taking this initiative. What is stopping you from taking this type of campaign directly to your communities?

It’s that time of year again (being near the end) when we look into our high definition monitors and attempt to predict what’s coming up for the next year in every imaginable category.

David Armano from the Harvard Business Review Blog Network named his Six Social Media Trends for 2012 as it relates to businesses and brands. He makes some good predictions, but what about for organizations and agencies that don’t necessarily view themselves as the typical capitalist business?

Here are my own six predictions for what we can expect to see from the first responder/emergency management agencies in 2012:

• Increased emphasis on content – The CDC proved that innovative content remains king, and I think agencies will take note of that and place a greater emphasis on creating valuable content specific to their communities. I think the progressive agencies who maintain their own content hub will see the value in having a Chief of Content who will bolster and unify their message across both platforms and mediums, thereby growing their presence and influence
• Increased app developement – We’ll see agencies follow the lead of the San Ramon Valley Fire District and begin developing their own apps as a way to connect deeper with their communities and provide more value in their service
• Increased emphasis on influence – There’s going to be an increased emphasis on the influence a department has with its constituents. This is the Return On Investment (ROI) that most businesses are looking for and that doesn’t change for the safety/health sector
• Increased agency presence – Progressive agencies that have embraced social media are already here, but for every 1 that is I’d venture to say there are 5 or 10 that aren’t. We’re going to see growth in that number, especially when agencies start realizing their neighbors influence is greater than their own due to social media
• New emphasis on presences within an organization – There’s going to be a new emphasis on individual departments and stations having their own presence. This will not be restricted to national or regional agencies, but any agency where there is two or more stations or locations
• Decrease in draconian social media policies – With the NLRB settlement earlier in the year I think a lot of agencies have rethought their draconian social media policies. Progressive agencies will have already recognized their responders as their greatest allies and will have brought them into the fold to help increase the agency’s influence. Agencies who have failed to do so will once again take note of the positive effects, realize the positive outweigh the potential negatives, and will follow suit. Admittedly, I may be overly optimistic about this, but that’s why it’s a prediction

What about the social networks? How will they fair? Here are my predictions:

• Facebook – there will be an increased emphasis on the leading social network since that is where the majority of users are with no true competition in its immediate future
• Twitter – there will be a decreased emphasis on the popular mobile micro-blogging platform due to both the increased mobility of other networks and its failure to address the consistent problem of information overload
• Google+ – there will be an increased interest in the network as it continues to develop and gain traction with the public
• LinkedIn – there will be an increased interest in the network as agencies look to recruit talent from afar
• Ning – the complicated use, chunky user interface, and failure to innovate has brought this spattering of networks to its death bed
• Dysphora – it needs to launch publicly first, but it may still be a contender for next year
• MySpace – really? It’s still around? Now we know what that smell is…

What do YOU think we’ll see in 2012? More importantly, what do you WANT to see? Share your thoughts in the comments…

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will conduct the first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) on Wednesday, November 9 2011 at 2:00pm (Eastern). The test may last up to three and a half minutes and will be broadcast simultaneously across all broadcast systems.

The public will hear a message indicating that “This is a test.” The audio message will be the same for both radio and television. It is imperative that we alert our communities that this is a test, and only a test, to avoid an unnecessary flood of calls into our 911 call centers and panic amongst the public. In order to help agencies get the message out FEMA published a National EAS Test Toolkit.

Here are a few things to do using content from the toolkit to help prepare your communities:

• Write a blog post about the Emergency Alert System
• Create a short video announcing the Emergency Alert System test. The video can easily be created using Screenr to show your agency logo with a voice over
• Share your blog post and video through social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Encourage your subscribers to share the link as well
• Schedule messages to go out via Twitter every 4 hours using tools like CoTweet or HootSuite
• Update your agency Facebook Page with information about the test the night before, the morning of, and one hour before the test is scheduled to begin
• After the test, us the opportunity to refresh interest in any preparedness content you may have previously published such as emergency kit information, emergency planning tips, and emergency medical information. Share those links through the social networks and encourage your community to be prepared for when it is not a test

This is a great opportunity for your agency to connect with the community as a trusted and valued source of information. Don’t let it slip by!

Have you heard what Washington DC Fire EMS (DCFEMS) have been up to? Their leadership suspended the departments Twitter account (@DCFireEMS) for 22 days.

The account reportedly stopped activity August 30 when the employee responsible for its content went on vacation. The accounts break was extended as the department investigated some of the content that supposedly placed Federal Agencies in “danger”. No specifics on the offending content were offered but Communication Director Lon Walls’ feelings about Twitter were made clear when he said, “Social media is for parties. We ain’t givin’ parties.”

Walls and the department came under intense scrutiny by both new and old media, specifically citing the lack of transparency that Mayor Vince Gray had promised would improve. The account returned to activity September 22, only a day after the suspension had been widely reported across multiple media platforms. However, the account will now be “filtered” with content requiring the approval of Lon Walls.

This situation has a number of issues that can easily be avoided if an agency takes the time to properly plan and implement a social media presence in a responsible manner. Here are a few things to help avoid making those mistakes:

• Have a communications guide for
• Include social media accounts in your communications plan
• Include social media accounts in your Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP)
• Establish a social media team
• Utilize social media in tabletop and full blown drills
• Read our blog considering we’ve already covered all these things!

Don’t let yourself or your agency become a casualty like DC FEMS where your transparency and trustworthiness are called into question by the public.

There has been a lot of talk over the changes made at Facebook. Change is not necessarily a bad thing, and has in fact become a necessity in the way we do things. It is important to understand how change will in fact effect you and your agency when the changes are made.

Undoubtedly spurred on by the coming changes,over the weekend I noticed an inordinately high number of friends who posted this message (or one similar to it) into their Facebook status:

FACEBOOK JUST RELEASED THEIR PRICE GRID FOR MEMBERSHIP. $9.99 PER MONTH FOR GOLD MEMBER SERVICES, $6.99 PER MONTH FOR SILVER MEMBER SERVICES, $3.99 PER MONTH FOR BRONZE MEMBER SERVICES, FREE IF YOU COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. WHEN YOU SIGN ON TOMORROW MORNING YOU WILL BE PROMPTED FOR PAYMENT INFO…IT IS OFFICIAL IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS. FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES. IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY

The actual factual truth is that Facebook is NOT charging. They even say so directly on the homepage that you use to sign in:

It is important to try and verify the actual facts before redistributing a status or a story. Neither you nor your agency want to be viewed as an unreliable source of information. Why?

As for those friends of mine who posted the status update? I have now placed them on the Acquaintance list and will no longer see their updates unless I choose to look at them. As for those organizations that helped to perpetuate the falsehood, I un”Like”d them. I don’t have the patience or the time to deal with untrustworthy friends and even less tolerance for untrustworthy organizations.

I am not the only one who feels that way, which is why its important to verify information as best you can before disseminating it. By not being a trusted source of information you risk any support you may have gained in social media.

Do you verify everything you share? Have you ever not shared something because you couldn’t verify it?

All responses to disasters and incidents become great responses in large part due to the planning and training before the event that takes place. Tuesday’s earthquake revealed some important lessons in Social Media preparedness that agencies should take for when such an event occurs.

• Be ready to respond in Social Media from wherever you are – When a disaster or event happens most users will consume social media from wherever they are including through their smartphone. The ability to generate a message from a mobile location is necessity for every agency, not a luxury
• Be ready for the disaster before it strikes – Hopefully you have a Social Media Response Plan already in place. If not, you need to have one before a disaster strikes and make sure that all team members understand their roles in the case of an event. This plan should include organizational succession strategies should a member of the team be out sick or on vacation
• Include agency content in the pre-planning – The LAFD already had content designed for earthquake survival and they were able to share it quickly with others
• Response time matters – It is important that the information put out from an agency is verified from more than one source. In the case of the earthquake there were numerous reports of the activity from independent sources and the media was able to quickly verify the event (undoubtedly a large part through Social Media monitoring) a full 43 minutes before the Office of Emergency Management. This is not a confidence builder in your agency’s ability to gather and disseminate information in a timely fashion to those affected by the event and might very well be viewed as a system failure. Its important to keep the necessity of timeliness in mind

Planning is an important part of preparation for disasters and events. Social Media needs to be included in that planning for it to truly be an effective resource for both your agency and most importantly your community.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode of our award deserving podcast, Greg and Dave are joined by content and communication strategist Carissa Caramanis O’Brien to talk about the results of a Pew Research Center project concerning who uses social networks in the US. Hear us as we discuss:

• The myth busting revelation about age and social networking
• Why the gender demographics aren’t that surprising
• Diversifying social media formats across networks
• The importance of owning your own content
• Why its important for organizations to understand this data for effective messaging

Want to listen while you’re on the go?

Thanks for listening!

What do you think of the research? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section…