National Preparedness Month #OKready #AltusOK

September is National Preparedness Month and FEMA invites you to join the National Preparedness Community and download the 2013 National Preparedness Month Toolkit.

The National Preparedness Community is where more than 32,000 people connect and collaborate on emergency preparedness. You can use the community and the Toolkit to empower yourself to prepare and coordinate preparedness activities with your family, neighbors, and those with whom you worship during National Preparedness Month.

Here are the top 5 reasons to join:

• Download the 2013 National Preparedness Month Toolkit
• Get access to preparedness resources
• Promote your national preparedness event on the calendar
• Connect and build relationships with emergency management personnel
• Share and compare preparedness plans

Join the National Preparedness Community Now!

After the PLAN comes the tools #SMEM #VOST

Back in the early days of social media in emergency management (SMEM), early adopters adapted based on their favorite tools. Then the tool ended, e.g., Timely.IS and Splitweet. Then the scramblers, especially those who lacked a plan for social media engagement, raced to find a new tool to replace the old tool.  Even others developed multiple “favorite” tools to do multiple jobs.

Is it over? No. People still are looking for tools and new tools are being developed to help with new platforms of social media.

Looking at tools today may be necessary, but only after one develops the need for using social media. This article focuses on tools that can foster and forge team building and communication.

Tweet scheduling (including Facebook and Google+)

Should there be a need to schedule tweets, a number of services exist to facilitate that effort.  Leading the pack has always been Hootsuite, though Buffer and SocialOomph are finding followers among the adapters.

Each has different features.  For example, @NavyMARS uses SocialOomph to schedule Bravo Zulu posts, saving the post as a template and changing the verbiage as necessary.

Buffer and Hootsuite allow scheduling to Facebook pages.  Also, using If This Then, one is able to update Twitter with Facebook posts and vice versa.  One can see why tools should not be the focus in social media when one considers that ManageFlitter can allow Google+ updates to Twitter. Hootsuite also supports Google+ as does If This Then.

A competitor to Hootsuite is Gremln, a platform that supports Twitter, LinkedIN, and Facebook.

Twitterfeed takes your Really Simple Syndication feed and pushes it out to Twitter. So does DLVR.IT, Hootsuite, and Google’s Feedburner along with If This Then.

Are you seeing the pattern?  Focus on the why and the how becomes easy.

Do you have your social media plan in place?  Which tools do you use to support it?

Have three ways #AltusOK

Recently, the National Weather Service radio near Altus suffered a communications problem at an inopportune time.  A communications failure to the site made the transmitter go off the air.

As a result, weather radio receivers were unable to decode the Severe Thunderstorm Warning issued at the time.

This is an example of why area residents need to have at least THREE ways of getting information.

The City of Altus Blackboard Connect system is one way.  

The Weather Service does not recommend Twitter and Social Media for warnings but the AltusReady tweets warnings using Blackboard Connect and the National Weather Service feeds.

Other Twitter accounts tweeting warnings include @WX5EM, @Oklahomaalert and the Weather Services own @IEMBot_OUN.

While there may be delays in getting the warnings and the warnings may not appear on your phone at all, ex. your cellphone battery is dead, social media may be one of your three ways to get weather information.

Have at LEAST three ways to get weather information in Oklahoma.  What are your three?

Who has time for #SMEM?

Over at LinkedIN, there's a PIO group:  #SMEM

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1932428&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

and one on LinkedIN

http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1932428&type=member&item=76071533

One of the concerns I have about Social Media is, if we have PIO
groups on all, when will we have time to be Public Information
Officers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites is the
list of social media sites, excluding the dating sites.

If we say we are going to join only the "popular" ones, who decides
"popular" and when they become "unpopular" for one reason or another,
what then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_social_networking_websites
is a list of defunct sites, including three Yahoo attempts but it does
not list the announced exit of Google Buzz.

I am on the big ones ... Facebook (hate it but I'm here), Google+,
Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIN ... and still network on email groups both Yahoo and
Google. At some time, I am going to draw a line in the sand.

Have you drawn your line?

Where is it?