use of twitter during a crisis

Aaron Prather, CEO Of StiQRd / @amprather

For MobileCamp Memphis #MoCaMEM

Use of Twitter during a CrisisThe Rise of #memstorm and #memflood

Saturday, May 7, 2011

“You don’t start communities. They already exist. They are already doing what they want to do. The question you should ask is ‘How can I help them to do better’”

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder and CEO

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Effective Use Of Hashtags

✤ Iranian Election / Revolution of 2009

✤ Haiti and Japan Earthquakes

✤ Egypt 2011

✤ Other Middle Eastern “uprising”

✤ The Boston Snowpocalpyse

✤ SOME Tech Conferences

✤ Follow Friday

Saturday, May 7, 2011

What Makes A Good Hashtag

✤ Easy to Identify - #egypt

✤ Short and Sweet - must fit in the 140 character limit

✤ Power Users

✤ ReTweets

✤ Community Supported

✤ No longer “owner” supported

Saturday, May 7, 2011

“The real lesson is that the Twitter community decides what a hashtag is going to be, not the person who created it, and to some extent it is unpredictable.”

Mathew Ingram, Founder of Mesh

Saturday, May 7, 2011

A Personal Problem

✤ My personal annoyance with the local media✤ Why do I have to visit 3 to 4 sites to get information?

✤ Why do I still not find the information I need / want?

✤ ADD✤ I’m easily distracted

✤ Just the facts, ma’am

✤ I like to contribute a voice✤ I want to help

✤ Photos, information, thoughts

Saturday, May 7, 2011

The Light Bulb Moment

✤ Ignite Memphis 2

✤ Presentation to encourage Memphis to use hashtags

✤ #memstorm

✤ #memsnow

✤ #memtraffic

✤ #mempothole

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Put into Practice

✤ Literally, the NEXT day -

✤ Severe weather rolls in to Memphis

✤ Start encouraging people to use #memstorm hashtag

✤ @memphisweather1 @HowellMarketing starts using the tag

✤ People start to RT the updates

✤ Shunned by the “mainstream” media

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Getting Acceptance

✤ The Next #memstorm -

✤ Getting WREG to start using the hashtag

✤ @memphisweather1 starts picking up more followers because of the hashtag

✤ WMC-TV starts using the tag

✤ More and more community comes on

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Lunaweb rolls out Memstorm.com

For those that don’t use Twitter, now gets the Power of Twitter

Saturday, May 7, 2011

#MemStorm vs. #FoxStorm

✤ FOX 13 decides to launch #foxstorm

✤ #memstorm community rejects and even attacks #foxstorm

✤ FOX 13 goes on the defensive

✤ Community pushes back even harder

✤ FOX 13 relents and joins the #memstorm community

Saturday, May 7, 2011

The Birth of #memflood

✤ Suggested by Drew Avery ( @CanesDrew )

✤ Promoted by Power Accounts

✤ Numerous Retweets

✤ Fully accepted by the “mainstream” media

✤ Used by Government and Quasi-Government agencies

✤ Shortly after 11:30 p.m. Monday, a random sampling of 500 tweets with the #memflood hashtag had generated almost 1.2 million views that reached an audience of more than 154,000 followers in the preceding 24 hours.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

#memflood - 7,345 views in 1 dayOriginally posted on private Facebook account that had 328 friends

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Saturday, May 7, 2011

So What Now?

✤ Make sure you have a Twitter app on your smart phone

✤ Twitter, Hootsuite, Echofon, TweetDeck, Twitterrific, TweetCaster

✤ Follow folks

✤ Create Hashtags just for fun

✤ Participate in the discussion

✤ Retweet

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Thanks and let’s talk@amprather

Saturday, May 7, 2011