when incorporated into a crisis action plan they can add a valuable
weapon to government public affairs arsenal. Two recent events on
Army installations with starkly different results demonstrated this
clearly.
The reviews aren't close to being done on all the things that went
right or wrong during the events that unfolded at Ft. Hood on November
5th. One of the questions that will have to be asked is whether or
not the crisis communications plans were built to support all of the
many means to communicate info to the community during the shooting
and its aftermath.
A cursory review shows that many things did indeed go right for the
public affairs office that day but at first glance the use of social
media to inform the community was unfortunately not leveraged
effectively. A review of the official Facebook Fan page and Twitter
feeds shows that both went completely silent throughout the entire
event. Neither had any official posts until over 24 hours after the
shooting when they thanked everyone for their support and put out the
info where donations could be sent.
One of the great advantages of using social media tools to put out
info is the speed with which you can update them and ease of use.
Most government websites are not built for quick updating or ease of
management. A month and a half after the shooting another crisis
unfolded at an Army base that showed how social media could be used as
a powerful part of a public information plan.
Fort Belvoir, south of Washington DC, has a robust presence in social
media and when a blizzard struck the area just before Christmas they
took advantage of their Facebook and Twitter outlets to constantly put
out the latest info throughout the storm. In a three day period they
updated their feeds well over 120 times and used the outlets as a key
part of their crisis action response.
Mr. Don Carr, Director of Public Affairs, tells me that "most of what
we did is part of the PA (public affairs) annex to the installation's
adverse weather response plan. The SM sites are not specifically part
of the annex; we just did it. Our update to the annex will roll 'em
in."
Mr. Carr goes on to note what made the social media outlets especially
powerful "was the 'instant' feedback we got on FB and Twitter. As
residents or employees would post a comment about how things were, I
was able to cut-n-paste them into emails to the IOC (Installation
Operations Center), DPW (Department of Public Works) or the Housing
folks, so that priorities for plows and other work could be adjusted
accordingly."
The results speak for themselves as over 100 more people became fans
on Facebook and the overwhelming majority of comments were effusive in
their praise for the amount and timeliness of the information they
were getting from the comfort of their homes or portable devices.
Both cases show how with the growth in popularity of official
government social media channels incorporating them into your crisis
action plan is imperative and effective. The instant speed of
information distribution they offer are powerful tools in the
communications toolbox and an increasingly savvy public demands the
two way conversation.
9 comments:
Great blog post. Check out CNN's coverage of the U.S. Army's use of Facebook in the aftermath of the Ft. Hood shootings at:
http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2009/11/05/dcl.facebook.fort.hood.cnn
Fred, Great post, but I know you're pulling your punches on the lack of use at Fort Hood during the shooting.
It was a huge mistake to ignore SM during the immediate hours after the attack. PAOs and Commanders could have updated the press, and the public, on what they knew at the time, and on given updates on the timing of their their multi-delayed press conferences using SM. This would have cleared-up a lot of the confusion and eliminated the hours of speculation while waiting for a delayed press conference that offered little insight or information.
If this weren't a sympathy story for the Army, the media would have crushed them...but they played nice.
The Army should have released (or better, made) an initial acknowledgment statement (probably best done from the Pentagon) and announced SM methods for information updates...and feedback.
This was an utterly BLOWN opportunity to demonstrate the acumen of today's public affairs professional...rather, it displayed the stuffy, unimaginative PAO the media is so used to.
I suspect the ideas were presented by one or several of our more savvy PAOs, but vetoed by some crusty, unimaginative O6 PAO or Commander who when faced with a crisis reverted to the familiar rather than embracing the possible.
@Robbie I did see that story but it only focused on the national level use of FB as a way of people showing their support for Ft. Hood we just weren't using those tools as effective means of informing the public with real info. It was all harnessed and sat on until the much delayed press conference.
@Greg I'm going to wait for the report to see what we actually say about the whole thing. In many ways no informaton at all was distributed by any means and not just social media unfortunately. My gut tells me that what you are saying is dead on though. My greatest concern is the same as on that day that we won't take the right lessons from this and continue to miss the fact that the speed of information distribution is no longer based on a "24/7" news cycle but an "instantaneous" one where the old rules don't work. On the good side lots of retired generals still have gainful employment talking about stuff when the Army won't.
Very true about most mil sites being hard to update. www.ironbde.com is done with Wordpress which is extremely powerful with its customization. One of the ways I sold it was that in Korea if anything every happened, it would be valuable to have a website hosted off-peninsula in case all the on-penn networks went down during a time of crisis.
You can more or less make an aesthetic copy of any website in Wordpress. The great thing is that with a blog you can update from anywhere, have multiple people with the ability to update, and are not tied to a single computer. While the Ft Hood incident was going down I googled Fort Hood, went right to the official website first and there was a number of unrelated articles and info on the homepage.
Wish the actual unit sites would migrate over to easy-to-update blog software; better for updates, SEO, etc. Army CORE is getting there also as far as unit pages go.
Mike, I think we both said basically the same things in our blogs that social media has changed the meaning of 'timely and accurate' information distribution. Its not the tools necessarily cause I truly believe that social media channels are just another set of tools in the public relations toolbox, but in the attitudes and understanding of what is timely or minimal delay in release. Not long ago sitting on facts for 8 hours until a press conference was indeed minimum delay but now it is a ridiculous dragging of our feet. In the Ft. Hood case that vacuum was being filled by retired generals who had in most cases not a clue what they were talking about. Why in the world LTG (R) Honore was on CNN all day spouting outdated information on the post is beyond understanding when a military PAO could have at least offered general military knowledge if not facts specific to the incident. It is as you mentioned on your blog about the attitude toward release that is the issue that needs to be looked at both by military organizations and most civilian as well.
And I think that's exactly what the after action comments -- at least the unofficial ones will show: that the only relation that social media tools have to the information vacuum problem is that they have changed our definition of "timely".
These tools have not changed whether the information actually is available. I believe we'll see that the information wasn't available via any other channel either.
Mike...I agree. I think that a total shut down went into effect. Its almost like they treated like a combat death situation. Cut off the internet and phones until the official release is polished to a deep lustrous shine and the general is ready to pitch it. I am eager to see the AAR after the 15th.
Where did you get the date from -- is that the date of the public release, or the date you'll get one?
BTW, did anyone read the Armed Forces Journal piece entitled "Dum Dum Bullets" about how Powerpoint actively makes us dumber?
I am going through some of that right now: we have to have our plan fit on one slide ... despite how many "back up slides" we'll need to explain the crap that is unreadable because it's crammed on one slide... (sigh)
The 15th is the day it is given to the SecDef. Not sure when it will be leaked...ahem...released to the public.
Haven't read that article but it seems logical. Everything is about bullets now instead of full explanations and detailed analysis.
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