In light of what happened in Japan last Thursday, the social media played another important role by getting the word out on the severity of the Japanese earthquake.
Presently, Collective Cloud Consulting uses Twitter as a real-time social media monitoring tool. Twitter is not just used to watch for breaking news, but used to monitor the competition, drive clients and prospects to our blog, gather product research, real-time analytics, and crowd-source ideas among the saguarosphere. (Saguarosphere is my name nickname for the Twitter-verse here in Tucson, AZ)
One can use Twitter preemptively or retroactively . Twitter’s real charm is its ability to allow for a high degree of planning and preparedness in marketing campaigns. These business activities can be transferred over into a Twitter Emergency Monitoring List for your business or family.
As part of your emergency response kit at your home or place of business, one should create a credible list of Twitter addresses and place them into a list folder on their Twitter account. Use this list as an emergency monitoring list for local or national crises. Also, one could create two Twitter lists, label them: National Emergency and Local Emergency.
Below, are a list of Twitter addresses for US federal and local based agencies that do release emergency information of all types through Twitter. Some of the agencies on the list maybe odd, but when government agencies disseminate major information to our populace they do trickle information through many channels.
National:
- @StateDept
- @USGS
- @RedCross
- @CDCemergency
- @Amber_Alert
- @FBIPressOffice
- @whitehouse
- @USDA
- @NASA
- @customsborder
- @Interior
- @usnoaagov
- @USCG
- @DeptofDefense
- @TheNatlGuard
- @ReadydotGov
- @TravelGOV -US State Department Travel advisories.
- @USTreasuryDept
- @fema
- @The JusticeDept
- @RayLaHood-US DOT secretary
- @AP
- @Reuters
- @BBCWorld
- @BBCBreaking
- @CBSNews
- @wxchannel
- @UN
Local Tucson and Arizona based.
- @townofmarana
- @cityoftucson
- @Rep_Giffords-Gabrielle Giffords-US Congress Representative
- @RepRaulGrijalva-US Congress Representative
- @OroValleyAZGov
- @PimaSheriff
- @PHXFire
- @StarNet -Arizona Daily Star newspaper
- @azcentral
- @KVOA -Tucson TV
- @kgun9 -Tucson TV
- @1030_KVOI
- @790knst
- @TucsonWeather
- @Tucson_Police
- @TucsonAirport
- @DMAFB -Davis Monathan Air Force Base
- @NorthwestFire
- @ArizonaAG -Arizona General
- @SenJohnMcCain
- @GovBrewer -Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona
- @ArizonaDOT
- @Arizona_DPS
Yes, if the power is out the list could be moot. Many times telecommunication based technologies do continue to work during emergency situations. If you have a smart phone, one could still access their Twitter lists. Do remember to place a Twitter based application such as Echofon, Twitter or Hootsuite on your smart phone. Do check to make sure the application is functioning by using it now and then.
