Federal Emergency Management Agency
Directives Management System
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
Date
07/19/2010
Organization
EA-PA-MR
Public Affairs
I.
Purpose
Standard Operating Procedures FEMA’s Facebook page
II.
Applicability and Scope
Administrators will be employees from HQ and regional External Affairs. Primary
administrator will be New Media officer in Public Affairs HQ. Content will be posted
primarily on a national level, however, blog messages and videos will be attributed to
specific disasters and regions. Biweekly records of original posts and public response will
be captured for records retention purposes through HQ External Affairs.
III
Supersession
The original SOP was drafted in 12/24/09. Amendments were made in an update on
7/19/2010.
IV
Authority
There is no published authority for this SOP.
V.
References
Public Affairs Field Video Annex includes helpful information.
VI
Definitions
Facebook – Social networking site that allows users to become fans of specific groups or
individuals.
VII
Responsibilities
Admins – Posting content to the Facebook site.
New Media Officer – Primary Administrator, grants administrative privileges
VIII Standard Operating Procedures
A. Purpose - Provide a web 2.0 presence for FEMA External Affairs messaging
that can be accessed through social media sites. The presence on FaceBook is
http://www.facebook.com/fema . FaceBook provides the ability to create a
social network before an incident, and the strategy for use centers on
cultivating a network of partners and the general public through useful
preparedness information, agency updates and mission specific
announcements.
B. Strategy - Develop a consistent network of fans comprised of emergency
management partners, general public and FEMA employees prior to national
and local incidents. Through daily informational posts, links, videos and
images, we can tell the mission of FEMA and share critical preparedness,
response and recovery information with a broad audience. This requires a
persistent engagement through multiple site administrators who develop
original content, strategically cross market FEMA.gov initiatives and
moderate public responses on the site.
Fans of the page receive updated posts from the FEMA fan page on their news
feeds through their FaceBook accounts. Nonfans and non-Facebook users can
also access the posted content by going to http://www.facebook.com/fema .
C. Metrics - There are valuable analytics inherent to the FaceBook platform.
Most notably are the direct responses to content on the page. These responses
are made by the fans of the page and give insight into public reception of the
message and need for more information. Other metrics break down overall
interactions (views and repostings), size of fan network, and the rise or fall of
public engagement. Other metrics show six of the potential audiences through
advertisement.
IX
Implementation
A. Workflow - Posting to the page will be done through approved Admin
accounts. Once on the page, Admins act on behalf of the page when posting
content or responding to posts. All original posts are to be 140 characters long
(including links), as original posts are pushed through the FEMA Twitter
accounts. We use www.tinyurl.com to condense longer URLs to meet this
objective.
B. Content
 Primary content will be Tips of the day that highlight public opportunities
to engage in mission-specific preparedness, response, recovery and
mitigation activities.
 Repost FEMA video and Photolibrary products
 Links to content from partners
 Provide space for public comments
 Host video blog (if applicable)
 Broadcast podcasts
 Network to local disaster orgs during disasters
 Third party applications and widgets will be used only after permission
from OCC and HQ External Affairs.
C. Managing Comments




HQ Public Affairs and/or regional EA will moderate comments with
assistance from identified administrators.
The comment moderation policy is posted under the Info tab on the
website.
The administrator who posts original content will be responsible for
moderating responses to that content
Comments will not be deleted until after a record (screenshot) is made
D. Components:
 Blog/ Notes – mostly reposting of news from fema.gov
 Comments – provided by the public
 Discussion Board –Topic-driven fields meant to encourage collaboration.
 Video Player – hosts videos posted on YouTube
 Photo box– Post photo content
X
Forms Prescribed
None
XI
Date of SOP review: (TBD upon approval)
XII
Questions
Jason Lindesmith
______________________
NAME
Director, External Affairs
Federal Emergency Management Agency