social media

We weren’t officially representing the city while we were doing this, but by virtue of our roles in the community we had credibility and a lot of folks relied partly on our communication to stay on top of the fire and the evacuation situation. We were both (naturally) very plugged in to what was happening, and we used discretion when we weren’t certain of the facts or where sensitive information was in play, but it was entirely outside the formal command structure and communications system, and it created some consternation within that system that the mayor and a city councilor were engaged in so much independent communication.

This probably sounds like a familiar story. In fact, any organization that is struggling with the pivot to a Web 2.0 world will find itself grappling with these very same types of challenges: how do you maintain the accuracy of information when the flow is dispersed, how do you control the message when everyone has the means to alter it or even challenge it, how do you deploy your communication resources when the information flow far exceeds any capacity you will ever have to manage it, and how do you manage independent communication by people who are part of your own team?

In the case of an emergency response system, unlike most nonprofit environments, there is still a need for an unchallenged command-and-control decision process. Incident commanders need to make big picture decisions that they know will be implemented down through the vertical hierarchy, just as folks down that command chain have to know that their decisions will be implemented as well.

But the part of all this that involves communication and information flow lives outside of this command-and-control chain regardless of how hard the incident commanders work to contain it, and that’s why this is such a familiar-sounding story. (The Emergency Management blog has an interesting post about these challenges from the perspective of the emergency responders.)

The answer doesn’t reduce to adding your social networks to your press release distribution list (although that may be better than nothing). As Beth Kanter and Allison Fine argue in The Networked Nonprofit, you can’t simply layer a social media strategy on top of an organization whose modus operandi is largely defined by deep organizational hierarchies and one-way communication between the organization and its members. Your organization needs to be willing to adopt a “social culture” emphasizing two way communication and conversation with people inside and outside the organization, an openness to trying and learning from new approaches, and staff autonomy and agility.

In fact, some of the most important lessons we drew from our experience during the fire in Golden are the same sorts of lessons that nonprofit folks are drawing all the time now as they grapple with social networking:

• Our social networking communication efforts didn’t replace face-to-face communication but supplemented and amplified it. In fact, our effective use of social networking depended on a lot of face time.
• Our social networking efforts took a lot of time and effort. There are certainly ways to streamline, but there’s no getting around the fact that doing it well requires a real investment.
• Most people seemed very plugged in to only one or two communication channels, which meant that using a wide range of channels was pretty important. For some, the traditional media channels were the most important, while for others it was Facebook or Twitter. Know your audience, and recognize that they may be diverse in which information channels they rely on.
• The listening was as important as pushing information out. By listening carefully to the conversations on social networks and elsewhere on the web, we were able to identify questions and concerns and respond to them quickly. Similarly, we were able to catch inaccurate information and to notice what rumors were starting to gather steam so we could address them directly.
• The social networking conversations were amplified considerably by the network participants themselves. Tweets were retreated, blog post links were shared, email newsletters were forwarded, and so on. Our communication efforts really did end up being a shared, community undertaking.
• There is no longer any simple way to control the accuracy of the information (or to control the information at all). For nonprofits accustomed to ensuring that information out there in the world about their organizations is accurate and flattering, this is a tough transition but it’s happening whether they resist or embrace. Consumers, donors, and clients now control information flow and organizational reputations in new and potent ways.
• Finally, people want to feel like they are in the loop. This desire is dramatically heightened during a crisis, but that instinct is there all of the time. This is part of why the organizations that use social networking tools effectively use them, in part, to pull back the curtain and give their supporters a more transparent, behind-the-scenes understanding of the work they do. People – be they constituents, consumers, donors, or clients – are more likely to be constructively engaged if you help empower them with accurate information in authentic and candid ways. The tools themselves aren’t really the point.

For the most nimble and cutting-edge social sector organizations, this is easy. In fact, they are already fully inhabiting a Web 2.0 world, using social networking tools to engage, empower, and collaborate with their supporters. For everyone else, change is hard (as Dan Health likes to say).