Resources for Crisis Communication Through Social Media

Originally posted at the DeckersMarketing.com blog

I just had an article published in a special report for members of the International Association of Business Communicators to communicate during the swine flu pandemic. (Cue the “Proud Moment” music!). Anyway, this inspired me to find other resources related to using social media for crisis communication. (And yeah, this includes a few of my blog posts.)

Useful Social Networking Apps for Crisis Communication

• TweetDeck – Browser for Twitter. If you’re new to Twitter, get this!
• NearbyTweets – Website search app to find Twitter users in your city or state.
• bit.ly – URL shortener. Use it on TweetDeck, and then track it with Twitalyzer or Bit.ly’s click tracker.
• StatCounter – Measures website or blog traffic from minute to minute. Google Analytics is great, but they only update stats around 2:00 am EST. StatCounter may give you the numbers you need for rapid response during a crisis.
• Blogger.com/Blogspot.com – Blog software hosted on their servers. Easy to use, especially if you’re not technically savvy. Owned by Google.
• WordPress.com – Similar to Blogger: hosted on their servers. Not as easy to use as Blogger, but still pretty easy to use.
• WordPress.org – Regular WordPress software. You download this and load it onto your server. You either need to be technically savvy, or know someone who is.
• GoDaddy – Inexpensive server space and domain name (URL) registration. Not the best, but for cheap price and ease of use, it’s a pretty a good way to go. This blog is hosted on GoDaddy and uses WordPress.org.

Blog posts, PDFs, and PowerPoint slide decks

• How Social Media Can Help the Public Avoid the Swine Flu (blog post)
• Five Twitter Apps for Finding Local Twitterers (blog post)
• How Health Departments Can Use Twitter to Monitor Public Health Emergencies, Part 1 (blog post)
• How Health Departments Can Use Twitter to Monitor Public Health Emergencies, Part 2 (blog post)
• What Can Swine Flu Teach Us About Crisis Communication Through Social Media (blog post)
• Responding to Crisis Through Social Media (downloadable PDF)
• CrisisBlogger – A blog about crisis communication (blog post)
• Crisis Communication on the Social Web (PowerPoint slide deck)
• Crisis Communication on the Social Web (blog post)
• Advergirl – Crisis Communications and Social Media (blog post)
• PR 2.0 – Reinventing Crisis Communications for Social Media (blog post)
• Conversationblog – Using Social Media for Crisis Communications (blog post)
• DaveFleet.com – Social Media and Crisis Communications: My Talk Is Cheap Presentation (blog post and slide deck)
• DaveFleet.com – Social Media Reading for Traditional Communicators (blog post)
• ActiveMetrics – Crisis Communications and Social Media (blog post)
• In Case of Emergency – The NEW Disaster Media (blog post)
• ReadWriteWeb – Social Media Used to Keep Flood Victims Informed (American Red Cross – blog post)

If you can think of any others, please feel free to add them. If you add enough, I’ll do an addendum to this post.

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