Author Archive

Last month I spoke about social media and networking at the EMS World Expo in Dallas. These are the slides I presented. During the session I utilized audience response pads to poll the audience about their experiences and opinions. I was really surprised by some of the audience data. The audience, about 40 people, included training officers, educators, state EMS office directors, field supervisors, and just a few field personnel.

Which results surprise you? Why?

A social media public service announcement, just like any other PSA needs at least these things:

1) A key message

2) An authority on the message

3) A cause and effect

Toronto Traffic Services posted this PSA on YouTube that features WineLibrary.com owner and social media advocate Gary Veynerchuk. A video like this could be recorded and posted with a smartphone in minutes. Then it can be posted and shared.

Have you made a social media PSA? Share the link in the comments area.

Check out this great event that is being hosted and broadcast by the American Red Cross. The agenda and speakers are impressive. Tune in with us on Ustream and Twitter to listen, watch, and participate.

2010 Emergency Social Data Summit hosted by the American Red Cross at its National Headquarters in Washington, DC on Thursday, August 12, 2010.

This participatory conference seeks to generate a widespread discussion about the issue of emergency social data, and develop a multi-pronged plan to address it.

Learn more 2010 Emergency Social Data Summit.

In the emergency response field, due to our access to patient’s protected health information and concerns about confidentiality, there is a lot of worry from employers about employees blogging about patient encounters that are true or loosely based on the truth. One of the best bloggers in EMS, Medic999, has decided to step away from blogging. While he emphasizes that he has not been asked to stop blogging he senses the pressure building in his organization against social media expression by employees.

Episode 94 of the EMS Garage podcast, the Day Social Media Stood Still, discusses Medic999′s departure from blogging, the implication to others, and the need for employers to clearly state social media policies for on-duty time and off-duty social media conversation. The conversation included some of the top voices in Fire and EMS social media like, Jamie Davis the PodMedic, Tim Noonan the Rogue Medic blogger, Chris Montera host of the EMS Garage and EMS Leadership podcasts, Kyle David Bates host of the First Few Moments podcast, Ted Setla the filmmaker of Level Zero and Chronicles of EMS, Natalie Quebodeaux co-host of the GenMed podcast and blogger, and Justin Schoor the Happy Medic blogger and co-start of the Chronicles of EMS. Hear what these industry leaders have to say about the importance of organizational support for social media and the potential positive impact on our communities.

Near the end of the EMS Garage episode 94 I shared a special discount code to receive a free copy of the PIOSocialMediaTraining.com ebook – Social Media Policies for First Responder Agencies.

Does your organization have a social media policy?

Does your blog put your job at risk?

This is a guest post by Michelle Mangen.

HootSuite is one of the many great third-party applications you can use to schedule tweets for future dates and times. It also allows you to connect multiple Twitter accounts, including co-workers and agencies who want to give you access to their accounts.

Perfecting Scheduled Tweets

One of the first times I scheduled Tweets in HootSuite I utilized their “drafts” feature and had originally intended that in the following weeks I would only have to change the bit.ly link as well as the specific info for that particular week. Brilliant plan, right?

About 30 minutes into Week Two of scheduling tweets I found multiple flaws in my previously “brilliant plan.” The pre-saved drafts didn’t go as well as I had intended due to the fact that HootSuite saves drafts alphabetically – which isn’t the most efficient when you have updates you want to send to Twitter on a specific day and time.  Additionally if you have drafts for multiple accounts it is not easy to determine which tweets are for which account. It quickly became apparent to me that a Plan B had to be devised when I realized that I would have probably been just as fast by typing entirely new updates from scratch vs. using the drafts.

Plan B: Scheduled Tweets in 10 minutes

A better option than using the drafts feature is to type the tweets into a Word document. Now I can schedule a total of 14 tweets (7 for two different accounts) in 10 minutes by utilizing the following tactics to publicize two different podcasts:

• Change specific info for the upcoming week’s tweets (guest names, episodes, etc.)
• Create a new bit.ly link and then using the Find & Replace option I can update all instances of the previous week’s bit.ly link to the upcoming week’s bit.ly link in a mere matter of seconds.
• Copy and paste the tweets into HootSuite; Select the desired date and time; Select appropriate Twitter accounts; Save and Done!

By simply adjusting the method in which the drafts were saved (using a Word document instead of HootSuite’s option) the invested time was reduced from over 30 minutes to just under 10 minutes per week.

My philosophy for both myself and for the clients I serve is that a minute saved is a minute that can be “used” elsewhere so I am continually hyper-vigilant in “tweaking” my procedures and utilizing other programs to achieve the same end result in the least amount of time possible.

What are some of your favorite shortcuts to get more social media done in less time?

Connect with Michelle on Twitter (@MMangen) or at her website Your Virtual Assistant.

Twitter has made it fairly easy to monitor using Twitter search features and hashtags.

1. Browse to Search.Twitter.com

2. Enter the word or phrase you want to search, such as your department name.

3. When the search is completed look in the upper right of the page for “Feed for This Query” That is the RSS feed for the search query.

4. Copy the RSS into your RSS reader.

5. Anytime the query appears in a tweet it will update the feed.

I would suggest monitoring for these terms:

• Department name
• Department name acronym
• Chief’s name
• Your name
• City name and key words like fire, police, ambulance, emergency

Use the results of your searches to refine the queries and select new queries.

Also use the Advanced Twitter search features to refine your search to your area. For example, searching NYFD might pull tweets from around the world. Narrowing the search to within 5 miles of zip code 10001 will limit the tweets to those coming from Manhattan and the surrounding Burroughs.

This is a commonly posed question: What are the consequences for an employee posting something negative about their employer on a social networking site like My Space, Facebook, or Twitter?

This is how I respond:

Monitor and Catch the Positive

What do you do if you catch employees posting something positive on Twitter or Facebook about being a paramedic, their co-workers, their patients, or their employer? I work with a lot of paramedics that like their job and are very proud of being an EMS professional. Their pride is infectious. They share it with co-workers, patients, other emergency responders, nurses, and physicians. They talk about the challenges and rewards of the job freely and without consequence.

You likely have some feedback mechanisms in place to listen to your employees that are saying good things about their employer. Your medical director or a triage nurse might mention it during a committee meeting. An on-coming crew might say something like “that last crew sure does a great job cleaning the rig at the end of their shift.” Before looking and listening for the negative conversations make sure you are hearing, encouraging, and applauding the positive employee use of social media.

Most conversations about employee use of social networks, social media content sites, and the web generally imply that employee use is negative and nefarious. From my anecdotal observation most of my co-workers spend their at work down time pursuing their own interests – playing games, learning more about a favorite hobby, or – gasp – working on becoming a better EMS professional. It is my suspicion that most social networking use on or off duty ignores or is simply indifferent to work. If you are skeptical start monitoring and measuring what and why employees are saying on social networks. On Facebook the ration of Farmville posting to work related posting is probably 99 to 1 based on my informal observation.

Working Hard or Hardly Working

Complaining about work is as old as work itself. Have you previously had rules or consequences for saying something negative about work or a co-worker while in a bar, bowling alley, or grocery store? People openly, with or without social networks, complain about work and all things work related on and off duty. I have endured hours listening to complaining workers. How I wish I could simply remove their rants from my Facebook news feed instead of being trapped to listen in the front of the ambulance.

Creating a policy means training on the policy and then enforcement of the policy. Training and monitoring the actual work of paramedics (driving, assessing patients, treating patients, writing documentation) is a pretty substantial task. Are you sure you want to add Facebook and Twitter monitoring?

Social Media Policy

A policy should cover the do’s and don’ts of social networking use with concrete examples that, at best, lead to positive and professional use and, at worst, lead to neutral indifference. David and I have recorded these poscasts about social media policies:

1. Create and Click Responsibly
2. Social Media Policies Interview with HR Professional Roberta Jackson

We also have an ebook on crafting a social media policy.

Neil McDevitt, program director for the Community Emergency Preparedness Information Network, has written an article about how emergency managers can use social media tools, like Twitter and Facebook, to increase accessibility to safety and preparedness information.

• Read Neil’s Article
• Learn more about CEPINTDI.org

When engaging your community with social media consider different methods to transmit messages including text, captioned video, and audio with transcripts available. As an emergency manager or PIO you might need to ask for requirements and opportunities to provide information in a variety of formats to ensure accessibility.

The hottest social media trend in 2010 appears to be having a policy for social media. Two of the biggest organizations in the world announced social media policies last week.

Department of Defense Official Policy on New/Social Media

California Social Media Standard

In 2009 many emergency response agencies and individuals established a social media presence. Clearly having a policy the defines the purpose of organization social media efforts, do’s and don’ts of social media usage, and assigning responsibility is important. A policy should also be adaptable to changes in technology. Twitter, Blogging, and Facebook are hot now. They may not be hot a year from now.

Does your organization have a social media policy?

What do you believe are essential elements of a social media policy?

It’s your turn. Join the conversation.

Last week I presented at the Wisconsin Technical College EMS Instructor/Coordinator conference. The focus on my presentation was on how educators can create social media for professional development and/or as a classroom education activity. Below are the slides I presented. I am sharing these slides here for several reasons:

1. Many of the skills that educators should have regarding social media content creation are the same skills that PIOs should have.

2. I was surprised (and not surprised) by the lack of familiarity with social media and even the consumption of social media among the conference attendees. It was an important reminder that a small percentage of emergency responders actively consume and create social media.

3. This is my first Slideshare upload. There are some intriguing capabilities available to Slideshare users that might be of interest to you. Slideshare content could be an additional spoke to add to your agency’s hub.