Social media for natural disaster response and recovery

The course will provide participants with the knowledge and skills regarding social media and its uses, as well as the current tools, methods, and models to properly make use of social media for crisis communication. Participants will take part in facilitator-led activities. Through the use of social media tools, participants will learn and master skills to disseminate information and monitor, track, measure, and analyze social media traffic. Participants will be able to use social media as a method to identify warning signs that a crisis is developing. The use of social media for disaster preparedness has two components:

1. As an effective means for providing updated information about a crisis, proactive steps must be taken prior to disasters in order for effective communications to occur.
2. As a part of crisis observation, managers should be monitoring social media platforms and channels that may be relevant to their organization. Observing can be as simple as conducting regular searches and analyses of media platforms for keywords and phrases that may imply an emerging crisis or disaster. Monitoring of social media should extend into the crisis response and post-crisis phases to check how crisis management efforts are being received.