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Mother Nature Meets Social Media

Mother Nature Meets Social Media. Erik Proseus Meteorologist Cirrus Weather Solutions. History of Severe Weather Reporting. Word-of-mouth Amateur Radio Landline – trained public spotters Cell Phone – spotters become mobile Social Media – everyone’s a spotter!.

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Mother Nature Meets Social Media

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  1. Mother Nature MeetsSocial Media Erik Proseus Meteorologist Cirrus Weather Solutions

  2. History of Severe Weather Reporting • Word-of-mouth • Amateur Radio • Landline – trained public spotters • Cell Phone – spotters become mobile • Social Media – everyone’s a spotter!

  3. Why social media for weather? • Immediacy – way to get the message out at any time

  4. August 2011 - VA earthquake

  5. Why social media for weather? • Immediacy – way to get the message out at any time • Feedback – two-way medium • Aggregation – creates a sense of community • Ground truth, instantly

  6. Largest populations in the world Source: Wikipedia

  7. History of Social Media

  8. Facebook • Launched February 2004 • Used by individuals… to communicate and socialize • Used by business… to listen and build/promote their brand • Used by government… to inform and enable two-way communication with end users/public • NWS beginning experimental use with positive feedback

  9. Twitter • Launched July 2006 • Enables quick text message-style communication with links to additional information (websites, articles, pics/video) • Allows for very rapid (viral) spread of information – right or wrong • Can enable two-way flow of vital information

  10. Twitter Facts

  11. Twitter hashtags (#) • Keywords or search terms tagged with # • Extremely important for effective sharing • Allows multiple sources to contribute to one “story” • Allows info seekers to go to one source • Allows others to contribute to the story • “Virtual bulletin board”

  12. Twitter hashtags (#) • #wxreport – NWS-initiated for storm reporting • #tnwx #mswx #arwx • #memstorm – Severe weather episodes • #memflood – Historic flooding in the Mid-South

  13. #memstorm • Proposed by a local social media expert to enable single source of info from many sources • Has become synonymous with severe weather in Memphis after April storms (i.e., “will this be another #memstorm?”) • Developed into a mobile website (memstorm.com) that displays current weather information from MWN and a stream of #memstorm tweets

  14. #memstorm

  15. #memstorm

  16. #memflood • Suggested by a Memphian with an idea, modeled after #memstorm • Immediately adopted as the hashtag for the expected historic flooding event • Local, then national, media adopted it • Used by gov’t & quasi-gov’t agencies • Sample of 500 #memflood tweets on 5/2: 1.2M views w/ an audience of 154K

  17. #memflood 7,345 views in 1 day! Originally posted on private Facebook account with 328 friends

  18. History of MemphisWeather.net • It all started with a forecast… (1995-ish) • MemphisWeather.net (MWN) brand started in April ’03; revamped site in ’07 & again in ’10 • Blog and mobile site started ’08 • Facebook and Twitter – early ’09 (automated wx alerts on Twitter in Jan 2010) • iPhone/Android apps released – 2011 • April 24-May 7, 2011:website had18K visits & 66K page views

  19. MWN’s Use of Social Media • Adopted in 2009 using @memphisweather1 handle • Started slow as social media (esp. Twitter) was just starting to gain momentum • Continued use and word-of-mouth… and the snowball picked up more snow (literally) • Rapid growth in 2011 –> now over 7,000 MWN followers (Facebook + Twitter)

  20. Why MWN uses Social Media • Connect to the community – build relationships • Information sharing • Gather feedback on products / services • Brand lift • Product promotion

  21. How MWN uses Social Media • Used in conjunction with MemphisWeather.net on the web to provide quick/rapid updates in severe weather events • “Wall-to-wall” coverage – without interrupting local programming • On-demand weather coverage • Proven very popular – great feedback

  22. How MWN uses Social Media • Facebook/Twitter – quick posts, weather updates/nowcasting, interesting links, promotion of website • YouTube/Flickr – photos/videos • Blog – forecast discussions, event recaps/ summaries, promotion of website

  23. Other local media on Twitter • Employees at all TV stations/some news-radio stations tweet • Some “company” accounts • WMC used 3 meteorologists during spring severe weather/flash flood event (2 on air, 1 on Twitter in-studio) • FOX 13 also making excellent use of the medium

  24. Where to find MWN… • http://www.memphisweather.net • http://m.memphisweather.net • http://blog.memphisweather.net • http://www.facebook.com/memphisweather1 • http://twitter.com/memphisweather1 • iTunes or App Store & Android Market

  25. Questions ??

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