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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?

Napa City Fire Department posted a great twitter message on 12/22 that connected their department with the Social Media Responder 2009 contest. Check out this screencast, using Screenr, to find out why I think this is such a great Twitter message.

Follow Napa City Fire on Twitter @Napa_City_Fire

Google Maps provide options to view streets, terrain, and satellite for the same location. Many streets have also been captured for a street view. Adding a map of an incident location could be important for describing the location of an ongoing incident, determining accessibility to a location, and planning evacuation routes.

I spent a few minutes figuring out to find the street view of any location, copy that html code, and embed in a blog. Watch this screencast (made with Screenr.com) to see the process. Below is the Google embed code for the location I discuss in the screencast.

View Larger Map

As a Social Media Public Information Officer one of the questions I receive frequently is “In 20-60 words can you describe what XYZ social media tool is so I can put it in our next newsletter, article, or blog post.” Have you been asked that question?

Podcast
A podcast is an audio or video program that is optimized for delivery and listening on a smart phone, mp3 player, or computer. Audio content can be easily captured and edited with free software An RSS feed delivers the content to a service like iTunes. The MedicCast.com, EMSEduCast.com, and EMSGarage.com are three popular podcasts. In 2010 PIOSocialMediaTraining.com will be launching a podcast.

Blog
Blog is shorthand for web log. A blog is meant to be a dynamic portion of a website or a stand-alone website. Using a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor a blogger can quickly add a new page or new posts to the blog. EverydayEMSTips.com and PIOSocialMediaTraining.com are two blogs powered by WordPress blogging software. Blogger is another popular blogging tool.

Microblogging
Twitter is a common and widely known microblogging tool that allows users to post messages that are 140 characters or less. Twitter features allow users to follow and read the posts (called Tweets) of other users, reply to Tweets, and forward Tweets to other Twitter users. Follow @PIOSMTraining, @DavidKonig, and @gfriese after you create a Twitter account.

Social Networking Sites
Social Networking sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace, are used to build and maintain relationships. Every emergency response agency should have a Facebook fan page as either its “hub” or as a “spoke.” Use your Facebook fan page to post events, share videos and photos, and link people to blog posts and content on other spokes. Make sure you become a fan of the PIOSocialMediaTraining.com Facebook fan page.

Media Sharing Sites
Upload training and injury prevention videos to your agency’s own YouTube channel. Viewers can subscribe for notification of future videos. Allow viewers to embed your videos in their blogs to increase the reach. Flickr is a photo sharing website. Post and tag training photos to your Flickr account, another spoke. You can also embed Flickr photos or slideshows into your blog posts.

Screencasting
Screenr is a screencasting tool that captures your on-screen actions and audio from a microphone. Use Screenr to create a quick narrated slide show, demonstrate a software process, or instruct viewers on how to receive your blog feed in an RSS reader. I use Screenr to showcase PIO websites. Check out our showcase page.

A common feature for the Hubs of Emergency Response Agency websites is badges and buttons that link to the agency spokes. Remember some of the spokes you can link to from your hub include:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Flickr

Twitter has a set of buttons available as a link from the Twitter Goodies page. Adding a Twitter button is as simple as copying the HTML code associated with button and pasting it into a widget, sidebar, post, or page.

View this screencast for a quick demonstration on how I added the Twitter button to this post.