Would you Turn to Social Media in a Crisis?

The American Red Cross hosted the Emergency Crisis Social Data Summit last week, which brought together over 100 influentials (including Robert Scoble) and practitioners from the tech, social media, and emergency response communities to brainstorm how we can use social media to respond better to emergencies and disasters.

During the event, the American Red Cross released a white paper based on a recent survey to over 1000 people that revealed interesting data about their use of social media in emergency situations. The survey found that if people needed help and couldn’t reach 911, one in five would try to contact responders through a digital means such as e-mail, website or social media. If web users knew of someone else who needed help, 44% would ask other people in their social network to contact authorities, 35% would post a request for help directly on a response agency’s Facebook page and 28% would send a direct Twitter message to responders.

The survey also noted that:

• Nearly three out of four people participate in an online community or social network with Facebook being the most popular;
• 89% of of people ages 18 to 34 use social networks verses 65% age 35 and older;
• One in 6 people (16%) have used social media to get information about an emergency;
• About 50% of respondents said that they would sign up to receive emergency related information such as evacuation routes, road closures and shelter locations  via email, text alerts, or applications;

Jocelyn Harmon, Director of Nonprofit Services for Care2, presented questions and feedback from the roundtable discussions to Scoble. Check out their discussion on C-SPAN.

You should follow Frogloop on Twitter.