Listening to Your Community

1. Listening to Your Community Georgia Emergency Management Agency Georgia Department of Public Health

2. Hurricane Twitter Chat with GEMA Director Charley English @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial Inaugural chat Objective: To give Georgians the opportunity to ask Director English questions about what GEMA is doing to prepare for hurricane season and how households can get ready Used #AskGEMA Promoted via traditional press release, “The Hurricane Watch” e-newsletter, notices sent to local, state and federal partners, and social media. Started following influencers and sent direct messages to CERTs

3. It Takes a Village! @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial • Thanks to partners who helped promote the chat. • Local emergency management agencies • Meteorologists • State agencies such as georgia.gov, Georgia Dept. of Public Health, etc. • FEMA • Claire Simms with GPB

4. #AskGEMA Monitored Using GEMA’s Twitter Account @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial

5. Results/Best Practices @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial • Received positive feedback from the public • Example: @GeorgiaEMA Thank you for the answers! Always gotta think ahead of the game! Have a great day! #AskGEMA • Direct responses from Charley inspired deep faith in our audience and in the reliability of content • @GeorgiaEMA acquired 104 followers between May 31 and June 4 • Average is 150/month • Reach = 292,124 followers, 440,000 timeline deliveries (Hashtracking.com) • Created recap on “Get Ready” blog using Storify.com, a platform were users can aggregate tweets, photos. GPB also posted a recap.

6. Lessons Learned @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial • Use a tool such as tweetchat.com to facilitate the chat • Use only one hashtag and reply to questions with the hashtag included – some people just monitor the hashtag, not your feed • The Twitterverse will let you know when mistakes are made • Have a SME to verify or research information needed for responses • Keep a list of handles for partner organizations that can be referenced quickly for tagging

7. DPH Emergency Preparedness Twitter Chat @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial One hour on June 11, 2013; #DPHchat Featured tweeters from DPH, GEMA, health districts, Emory CEPAR, Home Depot Purpose: to promote emergency preparedness, educate about the roles of government agencies and individual citizens before/during/after disasters Format: panel discussion, including questions from followers

8. Putting It All Together @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial Coordinated two weeks in advance with organizations/individuals planning to join Promotion: DPH social media, partner organizations’ social media, news release, news stories During the chat: used Tweetchat to keep track of the hashtag; fielded questions from people experiencing technical difficulties After the chat: Storify, promotion via news stories and our website, hashtracking.com

9. DPH Preparedness Twitter Chat: Results @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial Reach = 177,122 followers, 1.26 million timeline deliveries (Hashtracking.com) Tweets, Facebook posts about the chat (before and after) were some of most popular/shared in the past 6 months Positive response from followers

10. What helped? What hurt? @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial • Hooray! • Collaboration with partner agencies (thanks GEMA, georgia.gov!) • Invitation to a national partner with a large Twitter following (Home Depot) • Wealth of SMEs, both at state and local levels • Twitter chat preparedness! • Stumbling block: • Tweets soliciting business

11. Thank you! @georgiaema, @GaDPH, #TeamGASocial • Questions? Comments? • Feel free to get in touch! • Lisa Janak Newman, GEMA lisa.janak_newman@gema.ga.gov • Carrie Gann, DPH Communications, cegann@dhr.state.ga.us