Use of Twitter during a Crisis

Aaron Prather, CEO Of StiQRd / @amprather

For MobileCamp Memphis #MoCaMEM

Use of Twitter during a CrisisThe Rise of #memstorm and #memflood

Saturday, May 7, 2011

“You don’t start communities. They already exist. They are already doing what they want to do. The question you should ask is ‘How can I help them to do better’”

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder and CEO


Effective Use Of Hashtags

✤ Iranian Election / Revolution of 2009

✤ Haiti and Japan Earthquakes

✤ Egypt 2011

✤ Other Middle Eastern “uprising”

✤ The Boston Snowpocalpyse

✤ SOME Tech Conferences

✤ Follow Friday


What Makes A Good Hashtag

✤ Easy to Identify - #egypt

✤ Short and Sweet - must fit in the 140 character limit

✤ Power Users

✤ ReTweets

✤ Community Supported

✤ No longer “owner” supported


“The real lesson is that the Twitter community decides what a hashtag is going to be, not the person who created it, and to some extent it is unpredictable.”

Mathew Ingram, Founder of Mesh


A Personal Problem

✤ My personal annoyance with the local media✤ Why do I have to visit 3 to 4 sites to get information?

✤ Why do I still not find the information I need / want?

✤ ADD✤ I’m easily distracted

✤ Just the facts, ma’am

✤ I like to contribute a voice✤ I want to help

✤ Photos, information, thoughts


The Light Bulb Moment

✤ Ignite Memphis 2

✤ Presentation to encourage Memphis to use hashtags

✤ #memstorm

✤ #memsnow

✤ #memtraffic

✤ #mempothole


Put into Practice

✤ Literally, the NEXT day -

✤ Severe weather rolls in to Memphis

✤ Start encouraging people to use #memstorm hashtag

✤ @memphisweather1 @HowellMarketing starts using the tag

✤ People start to RT the updates

✤ Shunned by the “mainstream” media


Getting Acceptance

✤ The Next #memstorm -

✤ Getting WREG to start using the hashtag

✤ @memphisweather1 starts picking up more followers because of the hashtag

✤ WMC-TV starts using the tag

✤ More and more community comes on


Lunaweb rolls out Memstorm.com

For those that don’t use Twitter, now gets the Power of Twitter


#MemStorm vs. #FoxStorm

✤ FOX 13 decides to launch #foxstorm

✤ #memstorm community rejects and even attacks #foxstorm

✤ FOX 13 goes on the defensive

✤ Community pushes back even harder

✤ FOX 13 relents and joins the #memstorm community


The Birth of #memflood

✤ Suggested by Drew Avery ( @CanesDrew )

✤ Promoted by Power Accounts

✤ Numerous Retweets

✤ Fully accepted by the “mainstream” media

✤ Used by Government and Quasi-Government agencies

✤ Shortly after 11:30 p.m. Monday, a random sampling of 500 tweets with the #memflood hashtag had generated almost 1.2 million views that reached an audience of more than 154,000 followers in the preceding 24 hours.


#memflood - 7,345 views in 1 dayOriginally posted on private Facebook account that had 328 friends


So What Now?

✤ Make sure you have a Twitter app on your smart phone

✤ Twitter, Hootsuite, Echofon, TweetDeck, Twitterrific, TweetCaster

✤ Follow folks

✤ Create Hashtags just for fun

✤ Participate in the discussion

✤ Retweet


Thanks and let’s talk@amprather


Use of Twitter during a Crisis

Technology

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