Using Social Media in a Disaster
Victoria Edwards | Digital Content Strategist | Florida Blue
Background Information
 Working in Social Media/SEO/Content Marketing for 9
years
 Digital Content Strategist for Florida Blue
Where You Can Find Me
 Twitter - @TallChickVic
 LinkedIn - LinkedIn.com/in/VictoriaLEdwards
 Email – Victoria.Edwards@FloridaBlue.com
 Website – Victoria-Edwards.com
When I am Not Working
Overview
 Social Media Network Basics
 Case Studies (Air Asia/Ferguson Riots/Charlie Hebdo)
 Florida Blue Social Media Best Practices
 General Best Practices with Social Media
 Questions?
 Resources
Top Social Media Networks
 Facebook:
 A social networking website that makes it easy for you to
connect and share with your family and friends online.
 Permission needed for friend request
 Can Follow someone with friend requesting them
 Follow = only sees publically shared updates
 Can “like” any public pages (company, brand, place and so on)
 Twitter:
 Micro-blogging format that lets users send messages in 140
character posts or messages called “tweets.”
 Can follow anyone on Twitter without permission needed
Top Social Media Networks
 LinkedIn
 Business social networking site
 Designed specifically for professional networking -- finding a job,
discovering sales leads, connecting with potential business
partners -
 Instagram
 Online photo and video sharing social network
 Pinterest
 Is a web and mobile application company that offers a visual
discovery, collection, sharing, and storage tool.
 Users create and share the collections of visual bookmarks
(boards).
Hashtags #
 A word or phrase preceded by a pound sign (#) that is used
to identify messages or posts around a certain topic.
Case Studies
 AirAsia
 Ferguson Protests
 Charlie Hebdo
AirAsia
AirAsia
 CEO (Tony Fernandes) was active on Twitter when the
AirAsia passenger jet went missing
 Messages were directed to his staff, the public and the
families passengers
 AirAsia Twitter and Facebook page linked statements
published to reach a wider audience quickly.
 Created hashtag around incident #togetherwestand
AirAsia
AirAsia
 Hands on, honest and transparent during
crisis
 Utilized social media = quick response
 Proved that direct and genuine/real
compassion is what the public need in times of
crisis.
Ferguson Protests
Ferguson Protests
"On August 9th Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer
Darren Wilson. Within minutes, various accounts of the incident
began appearing on social media, accounts filled with speculation
and little, if any, solid, accurate information.”
A few minutes later in his speech, McCulloch added,
“The most significant challenge encountered in this
investigation has been the 24-hour news cycle and its insatiable
appetite for something, for anything, to talk about, following
closely behind with the nonstop rumors on social media.”
Ferguson Protests
 And social media erupted!
Ferguson Protests
 Social media informed people first
 Social media raised questions that reporters on site were
not always asking first
 Social media gives users and outlet to express and inform
Charlie Hebdo
 The gunmen said the magazine was targeted because of its
publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
 TV news struggled to keep up at first compared with the
fast-moving wave of information on live blogs and social
media.
 Within 24 hours there were more than 3.4 million
mentions of #JeSuisCharlie
Charlie Hebdo
 Not only did this event spark discussion around social
media…
 It also helped spread malware
Charlie Hebdo
 Innocent photo of a newborn with the #JeSuisCharlie
 Upon downloading the image a message appears in French
explaining that the image was created in a previous version
of MovieMaker
 Reality is that the user has been compromised by an access
toolkit which lets the attacker to take control over the
machine to send out spam or distribute more malware.
Florida Blue Best Practices
 Monitoring Commentary
 Handling Social Media Posts
 Responding to Posts
Monitoring Commentary
 Monitor comments daily on Florida Blue’s social media
networks
 Monitor other mediums like external blogs, news articles,
forums and so on for brand names, employees,
newsworthy events
Handling Social Media Posts
 Response not recommended for:
 Inflammatory, negative, or satirical postings (rants).
 Questions that cannot be answered transparently.
 Situations where a response is unlikely to affect change or
provide clarification.
 Situations where a response could potentially result in a
“flame war” or negative back and forth, which could
potentially be harmful to the brand.
Handling Social Media Posts
 Response is recommended for:
 Inquiries related to providing information about the crisis or
issue .
 Inquiries or commentary sent directly to company-sponsored
social media sites (@ reply or emailed).
 A question or concern where there is an opportunity to add
value.
 Erroneous facts or incorrect information that can be cleared
up transparently.
 A topic that is negative but true, in which case the core social
media team will consult External Communications to
determine the appropriate manner of outreach.
Responding to Posts
 For general inquiries regarding health care:
 Social Media Team (SMT) responds within one hour with a
statement or reference to an existing Florida Blue source
based on crisis communication plan and messages.
 SMT gather information needed to address a request or
inquiry by asking the user to provide his or her name and
contact information with a response to specified email
address.
 If the user does not complete the form or email his or her
contact information, the Digital Services Team (DST) will
continue to monitor the site for additional posts but will
not attempt a second message.
Responding to Posts
 The DST handles specific customer issues such as:
 Benefits
 Claims
 Enrollment
 Precertification
 and DST problems, in accordance with current policies and
procedures
Best Practices
 Invest in listening tools (Radian6, Sprinklr, Brandwatch)
 Develop an SOP document and response flowchart
 Acknowledge the crisis
 Don’t ignore
 Be human
 Be apologetic
 Know when to take it offline
 Create a crisis FAQ and make it east to find/access
Best Practices
 After crisis, deconstruct and reconstruct crisis:
 Document tweets, status updates, blog comments
 Store any images of event
 Analyze traffic patterns
 Analyze search volume patterns
 How did your team response work?
 How did the internal communication work?
Resources
 To find, analyze and optimize your Twitter experience -
https://followerwonk.com/
 http://time.com/3604700/ferguson-riot-mcculloch-social-
media/
 http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/11/charli
e-hebdo-social-media-news-readers
 http://www.slideshare.net/wearesocialsg/how-to-
manage-a-social-media-crisis