122: How to Use Social Media In Emergency Situations: Winter Storm Edition

After last week's devastating winter storm which swept through much of the country, millions of people in Texas were left without power. Heat, wireless Internet, broken pumps, burst pipes that left no drinking water while the temperatures plunged into the single digits. I just got power on after 36 hours. I'm over it. We need some help. This winter storm totally overwhelmed the power system in Texas. I don't have water again after four days without it because of frozen pipes, thousands still without power and more than 8 million people. People unable to drink their water. Welcome to the Confident Communications Podcast. I'm your host Molly McPherson, helping you find the right response at the right time and deliver it on the right channel. The first sector that most of us heard about last week was the power industry. Reports are stating that the state of Texas might have been seconds or minutes away from a catastrophic failure of its electric grid. This caused a chain of events that impacted utilities far beyond the state of Texas. In this episode, I'm sharing three takeaways for leaders and communicators who are responsible for getting the word out to stakeholders during an emergency. This is the Severe Weather edition. How many of you are still recovering from the impact of last week's megastorm? If the answer is yes, and you live outside of Texas, you could be someone who works within emergency management. You may have a job communicating emerging management and response on behalf of public works, water, electricity, broadband services. You could provide a service to your stakeholders that went down because of the weather. But you know, no matter the job, it's crucial for all types of agencies and major departments to incorporate social media into their crisis management plan. So today I'm offering proven tips. Not just tips, proven communication and PR response tips that worked for organizations that I was watching last week and also working for last week. Social media tools. They serve as an integral and significant component to crisis response. So this is the episode to learn how to use Social media during an emergency. If you work in a business where you provide a service to your customers, your consumers and your they rely on your service, then you should have social media at your disposal to be able to communicate with them. Especially in a time of emergency or a disaster. You want to be ready for any disaster scenario that happens. Because social media is going to be, believe it or not, your primary source of communications. Fact during Disaster Social media provides access to relevant and timely information for all stakeholders and public. Social media has completely changed how information is disseminated during a disaster or emergency. Social media provides tracking information for your stakeholders and your leadership during a disaster. It goes both ways customers track posted information from you and you can track their responses and feedback in return. Social media is often the most reliable communication channel during a disaster due to real time reporting. News media vets information through you. Now you can reach stakeholders directly and quickly through social media. Fact Social media allows organizations to self regulate misinformation. Rumors can be quashed before they spread and caused damage. So during a natural disaster, an event of significance, social media is going to provide access to relevant and timely information to your consumers, but also from both official and non official sources. It facilitates a feeling of connectedness and it's that connectedness that can make or break you as a leader. Here are three takeaways that I learned last week while watching and working with clients who were managing the outcomes from the storms, particularly in Texas. So number one, you want to pick your platform. Social media is a must. It really is. But which platform is best for your organization? Social media tools, especially Facebook and Twitter are the two key channels for disaster response. So here's your cheat sheet. Facebook. Now that's where you're guaranteed to find your customer. And if you have a customer who isn't on Facebook or they don't have access to Facebook due to power, then someone is going to tell them information that they found on Facebook. It's that powerful word of mouth. With over 2 billion people using Facebook, there's a very good chance your customer is using it as well. Now Twitter, that's for your true external stakeholders. Industry, Federal, State, local think government, state agencies, federal agencies. But most important, the press. Breaking news happens from all news sources on Twitter, whether it's local or national. Also, state and federal agencies are frequently sending media statements on Twitter. I work with a network news producer in some of my trainings, so she is giving me lots of information on news media and how they're using it. And we talk about media relations and press relations all the time. I'm told time and time again the press, they use Twitter, that's where they want to go. They don't want to follow a number of different sources. They don't want to have to chase down information at websites. They just want to go to Twitter for a one stop shop. Other than Facebook and Twitter, I personally don't believe you need to spend any more time on social. You want to go where people are during that event of significance. Takeaway Number two Post frequently with social media when you work for an agency, a utility, or provide a service people rely on during severe weather. Think of your communications department as a newsroom. If you are the head of communications, even if you're a specialist, if you are the one person running communications, then your new role is that of a news director. Just like in local television, you are responsible for overseeing the content that goes quote, on air or on social. In larger organizations, you might have an additional staff there to help you. But if you're that one person's comm shop, then you are also working as the reporter. Your leaders, senior management, think of them as on air talent, perhaps not trained talent. If you're worried about rolling out some on camera challenged leader, you know, someone who doesn't really perform their best online, now's the time to do it anyway because in many cases, the more raw and untrained, the better. All right, I have to add this caveat. You don't want them to create a crisis by saying something wrong online, especially if you're going live. But don't let the need for perfection or your boss saying, I'm not media trained. I don't know how to do it. I don't feel comfortable doing it. Don't let that get in the way. Now here's an example. All right, here is audio tape that I'll play of a CEO of an electric cooperative in Oklahoma. He's updating his members on the status of the rolling blackouts caused by the electric grid overwhelm in Texas. So what was happening north of Texas is a lot of electric utilities were dealing with rolling blackouts because they had to conserve energy. The status wasn't as bad and as dire as it was in Texas, but people still needed their power. And when you turn power off, it wreaks a lot of havoc. So CEO Zach Perkins, he went on the air at his electric cooperative on Facebook Live because he wanted to update the members. He's wearing a black hoodie with winter storm Jupiter. I think that's what was on there. Logo from January of 2017. Also, Zach looked like he learned of this energy alert while he was asleep the night before. In other words, it gives the appearance that he just rolled out of bed to give an update to his members. But just listen for a moment here.

Oh, we're on. I guess that's what the red light means. Hello, everybody. My name is Zach Perkins. I am the CEO here at tcec. We wanted to go live this afternoon. This may be one of multiple live events today and tomorrow to try to explain in a little bit more detail what's going on with the electric grid.

All right, get the idea of that video. It seems a little rough right out of the gate, however, it's perfect. Keep listening.

As you guys have probably noticed, you've.

Seen.

Notices going out that the Southwest Power Pool, SPP is what I'll call them from here on out, has issued notice of a eea, an electrical emergency alert, level three. And what that means essentially is that the Southwest Power Pool, which you can see right here above my right shoulder, is they are the regional transmission organization. They are the grid operator for those 14 states. They transmit the power and they dispatch all the generation. They are seeing unprecedented demand for electricity. Obviously, if you've stepped outside or even looked outside, you know why they're experiencing this. It's extremely cold.

Now, for additional reference here, when Zach mentioned you heard him pointing over his shoulder, the graphic was actually on the other side of his shoulder. So the video was not perfect at all. It was far from it, but it was perfect in its imperfection. The reason why I watched this video is because I was working with another electric cooperative at that time, working on Facebook posts on messaging, when Zach's Facebook Live video popped up on my screen. Here's a reason for Facebook Live video. If your customer, if your members already follow you on Facebook or they like their page, if they're on their computer and Facebook is open, that Facebook Live video is going to pop on their screen. That notification is going to be right in the face of the person who you are trying to reach. I stopped what I was doing and I was drawn to right in to Zach's video. And when I mentioned that he looked like he rolled out of bed, he didn't actually look like he rolled out of bed, but what he looked like was a CEO who looked like he had been up all night. He looked exhausted. So in other words, the optics on this video was absolutely perfect. In other words, his staff, who you could hear in the background, they weren't going to waste their time on having a perfectly produced video. That wasn't the importance of the video. The intention of that video was to get out the information to their members as soon as possible. Because when the power goes down, people need to plan. And when I'm on the back end of a Facebook admin page, I can see the comments and what people are worried about. So when the. When the comments started coming in with my clients and they were worried about rolling blackouts, it's not just people sitting at home watching television thinking, oh, I'm not going to have power. I mean, that's certainly part of it. But some of the comments were, I have newborn puppies under a Heat lamp. I have pigs using a heater. And we're away from the farm right now. I need to know if I have to go back. There was one woman who had some disease where she couldn't feel her feet. There was a family who had a member of their family on oxygen. There are real critical reasons why people need power and they need to understand and plan. So it's all about managing expectations. That is the beauty of using multimedia with social media, particularly Facebook. Now, why is multimedia so effective? Well, of course, all those reasons that I just mentioned, you are getting directly to your member and you're getting to the information there quickly. What are some of the multimedia ideas? Okay, so certainly there's Facebook Live, but again, there is a risk in Facebook Live. Everything is live. Every mistake you make is going to be live. And not only does it stay live, that video archives, unless you want to delete it, which is a good thing so people can continue to watch it. Also, the CEO is on Facebook Live. The clip that I just presented was the CEO. It is the top of the chain. You want to get people who are as high up the chain of command as you can get because their words are going to have more impact and more credibility to your stakeholders. You can hear it in some of the clips with Zach Perkins. The staff is in the background. You can kind of hear them chattering with them. They're reading off questions that members are submitting on Facebook Live, and Zach is answering the questions. It's so helpful to hear that your member, your consumer, your stakeholders are going to see the effort that your team is putting in to make sure that they have all the information that they need. Another benefit for multimedia. When Zach was speaking, he was thanking people in his community. He took a moment to thank the local schools for going virtual that day to help conserve energy. So not only was the message about what was happening with the electric grid, why they were rolling blackouts, how you can conserve energy, but what that video was, even though primarily it was to educate the members, the consumers, but what he was really doing is his electric cooperative, that team, they were using multimedia as a public relations tool. That's how I view Facebook when I work with my clients. We don't just look at Facebook as a marketing tool. Oh, let's put out this infographic. Let's put out this information. Let's put out nice pictures. That's all fine and good, and that's a very critical, important element of Facebook. But when I use Facebook, it's a public relations tool. It is a Way to increase messaging, to have messaging, not static, to be very direct messaging. It's also a way to predict incoming problems, emerging issues that you know are down the pike. So you can slowly start to roll out information to prepare people. For example, one of the issues happening right now, so at the time of this recording last week is when we had all the storms. You started seeing the stories now in the press about the high bills that are coming in for electricity. So there were a lot of headlines. You could see it in Twitter. Now people are getting electric bills for $20,000. This isn't just in Texas. This is going to be for all the utilities, all of them that are dealing with fluctuations in rates. So the next messaging that you need to do there is talk about the payment. That's how I use Facebook, and that's how I use it with my clients. And using multimedia makes that message stick. Okay, now again, you're that communicator. You're listening to me saying, all right, I'm all in. We can do this. I know we can do this. But I have a CEO who probably isn't that good on social media. I'm gonna struggle with them. They really, really don't want to go online. So if you are thinking that your communicator, if you're a communicator, and you're thinking, my CEO, my GM would never go for this, okay, it's common. Many people think that way. But so did this CEO when he sent off this video to post on Facebook to give his members up to date information on rolling blackouts in his state. This time, it's Kansas. Now, does this sound like a CEO who is not made for video? We've recently been notified that there's going to be starting to have some load shedding going on in our regions. So what to expect is anywhere from about 30 to 60 minutes worth of an outage until they're able to roll into a new area. Please be patient as we're experiencing this and we'll keep you updated as we get in. That was one of the first of several video updates from CEO Mark Scheibe from Heartland Rural Electric Cooperative in Kansas. So he's an engineer by background and by mindset, but when it comes to communications, Mark understands the importance of it. And he is a shining example of someone who uses multimedia to educate stakeholders during an emergency situation. All it took on that audio clip was less than 20 seconds to offer a critical update to his members who needed information about the possibility of blackouts and power interruptions. So Here's a CEO with a phone standing in his office in front of an office window, which normally you would never film standing in front of a window. But he had a covering, a little bit of a shade that cut down on the light, but you could see all the snow and the inclement weather behind him as a backdrop. Again, imperfect perfection. That video recording has over nearly 10,000 views and well over 200 shares. Most of the people who are watching that video and sharing that video are people in the community. So I'm not suggesting seat of the pants communications here at all. Preparation is required. Of course, if you're a communicator, you want to prepare, help prepare talking points. You don't want people to go off script unless it's a very short statement in a capsule. But again, never let perfection get in the way of completion. People don't need perfection, they need information. So for video, you can use it by putting up a phone and just post it directly to Facebook. So film the scene and then you can edit it for posting. Be mindful of the backdrop. Where is the action? Are you in your office doing something in your office? Are you in front of a window? Are you outside? If you work for a business and you want to get of situational awareness to your customers about what's going on, film a video so you can see it. If you work for a utility, so whether it's water or power or broadband, do a video with the crews behind you, with the people helping out and working overtime. You can also use Facebook Live. You could call it a special report or you could call it a town hall. The benefit. Again, as I mentioned earlier, Facebook Live is a way to reach your stakeholders immediately and it sends a lot of goodwill your way because you are being open and vulnerable enough to show this raw video. I mean, you're not a trained news organization, so it's understandable. And don't let that fear get in the way of actually doing the Facebook Live because people will give you space. People will give you all the space you need to make mistakes, to. To not have perfect messaging, to maybe stumble over your words. You know, it's understandable. The goal of that Facebook Live is fast information and accurate information. And it's firsthand information. It's not coming out through media statement or a press release or going through a news outlet. It's coming directly from you. There's also YouTube Live if you want to use YouTube. YouTube doesn't play as nicely with Facebook. They don't own each other. So Facebook is not Going to give a YouTube live video, you know, or a YouTube video as much reach as it would if it were an organic Facebook video. But you can certainly utilize that as well. So multimedia, do as much as you can. Anything that grabs the attention of your customer. These are posts, these are infographics, these are videos, these are live videos. Anything that puts the information out there. One other tip for these multimedia videos, make sure you timestamp them so it shows exactly when you are stating that information. There will be a timestamp from social media so you can see what time someone sent a post. But you want to cut down on the work. You don't want your stakeholders to burn calories trying to figure out, well, what time is this? Because news feeds are different for every single person who goes to Facebook and uses Facebook, they might just be looking at the most relevant posts. The AI behind Facebook, the algorithms are different for everyone. So not everyone is going to see it at the same time when you're going to get this information. So if you're giving breaking news information or the status is frequently changing on an emergency or a disaster, make sure you add your own timestamp to it. You can even add emojis if you'd like. And also, when the information is dated and old, you may want to go back and write the word out of date and make it known that it's out of date. Or you can say expired information, but people still will see the value in the message. So even if you're at an energy alert level three and you're explaining what it is, when you're at a zero alert status, people are still going to see that, but they're going to be reminded of what happened, where they were, and they're still going to get information, but they'll also be reminded about how effective you were as a leader. All right, the number three takeaway, it's all in the response. How to create the right message at the right time and use it in the right place. So step one is creating a response to help you decide the outcome that you want. This is a template that I use. It's like a boilerplate that I use when I write. Well, not only these podcasts, but when I write statements for my clients, this is what I tell them to do to yourself. So if you're the communicator writing for your CEO, or even if you're a. If you're the head of an organization and you're writing it yourself, here's the boilerplate. The purpose of this response is to Blank. So that. Blank. Okay, so the purpose of this response is to what? So that what? And then the final sentence is then because. All right, so follow along here. If you want to do a Facebook Live, you are saying to yourself, the purpose of this response on Facebook Live is to get the latest information out about power outages to our customers so that they don't think we are not doing our best to restore power. Because if we fall short, then they will complain online and create more havoc. Because people who complain online on mass create a groundswell that can be negative. Because negative groundswells can turn into another crisis. Because the press is always looking for stories on Facebook and on social media and if they find out that members are upset or customers are upset, then it will create more work and a crisis costs money because we then have to use more of our resources to fight misinformation and people who are upset about us online. See how that works? So that's how you create a reason for why you want to do it. Like the intention behind what you're going to do. You can use the same statement for when you're writing your official media statement. The purpose of me speaking to you today on Facebook Live is to get the latest information to you about our outages that are happening in our area right now so that you can plan and prepare for the possibility of rolling blackouts and interruptions of service. Because we want to provide safe and reliable power to you, our customer, our members. And if there are rolling blackouts, we can't do that. Because when people don't have power, they can't work, they can't live. And sometimes lives can be in danger because power is so important. Do you see where I'm going there? That's how you write a statement. It doesn't have to be the perfect response. Sometimes the perfection is just in the intention. So if you lack the confidence to write and you never know where to start, that's where you can start. Now, you've heard me talk about my PR crisis framework on the podcast before. The framework I just gave you is one to help messaging in more of a proactive way. You need to get the message out to people. It's that boilerplate for sitting down and putting out information for the first time. But now I also have the crisis response framework, which you're familiar with that as well, that PR crisis response frameworks helps you when you're in a crisis or when you need to answer to your role in that crisis, or if you're not thinking in the language of a crisis yet, and someone needs an answer to something specific, and they need it from you. So you've heard me talk about it before. Step one, you own it. This is where you acknowledge, you accept, you apologize. It's all about, this is what it sounds like. Here's Steve Adler. He's the mayor of Austin, Texas, and he was on the Today show discussing the ongoing crisis in Texas brought on by the brutal winter weather. Listen for step one. Own it. I just have to ask you, how did it come to this? I'm sure you're asking yourself this. I mean, it granted a brutal cold snap, not something Texas is used to, but for it to have resulted in this unfolding disaster, whereas you say five, six days later, there are people who still don't have power. How do you explain it? I don't think you can explain it in a way that anybody can understand. Obviously, we were just not prepared for those cold temperatures. We're gonna see those cold temperatures more and more. I've already. This is the third time that I've seen it. After he made step one, he went. Went on to step two. In the interview, he explained it. He put the story into context. So that's explaining the how and the why, using the who, what, why, where, and when. And step three is promise it. What's next. This is the last step in the framework, and it is your chance to move the story away from the problem and move it forward to let people know what is happening. Now, this framework you can still use even if you don't have to answer to someone, like, even though you have no responsibility in it at all, but you can still use the framework. And in the case of last week, you didn't need to be deep in the heart of Texas to worry about creating the right response. So here's a case where a CEO of another electric cooperative was getting inundated with press requests and had to sit down. In addition to all the interviews he had to do, he had to sit down with his state representative in Montana. Oh, did I mention he was in Montana? He was nowhere near Texas, but he was inundated with press and he knew that he needed to come up with an answer. So listen to what C E O Michael Hoy did when he was explaining the situation to his representative. There's a regional group called Southwest Power Pool, okay, that serves the grid from Canada to the north side of Texas, okay? With the polar vortex down south, the need for energy, for heating the house is typically is electric, okay, that overloaded the generators and in Order to get the grid to be stable, they asked that we start shutting. Shutting off loads. All right. Nothing fancy, just two people sitting in two chairs filming a conversation from a phone. CEO Michael Hoy speaking with Representative Matt Rosendale. They were reaching all of their constituents. And here's the thing. I'm sure you could hear what he was explaining. A step by step description and message for what happened with the rolling blackouts. Now, full disclosure, full disclosure. All of the examples that I gave you earlier are people who I have worked with or I have trained them. Zach Perkins. The reason why he was comfortable speaking on air and going on Facebook Live is because that's just his nature. He is very, very comfortable speaking directly to people. He's a straight shooter. He was in a course of mine a couple years ago and he said, I think I want to do this at my cooperative. I want to get more digital. So we worked on a plan to create a digital framework for how they could reach their members better via social media and via digital communications. They've done an amazing job. And I mean amazing. When I checked in on them last week, Zach Perkins and his team, I mean, they are at the top. I mean, really, I thought this is perfection. You heard the CEO in Kansas, Mark Scheibe. You heard Michael Hoy. These are all people who I'm familiar and working with. And Michael Hoy, I have to say, I haven't worked with him directly, but he was in a training and he was kind enough just to share with me that he used that framework based on listening to a podcast in one of my episodes about using the crisis PR framework. And it helped him put his information together. And I was so grateful that he shared that with me, that it helped him. And that's why I hope that all of this helps you. Because this isn't just my opinion, it's proven. It actually works. Leaders and managers who are used to the one sided dissemination of information to the public, you have to shift to multi channel communications. Yes. You are exposed to huge amounts of information today when everything is online, so are your customers. They have information, but they also have misinformation at their fingertips. Do whatever you can do to make sure that you can get your messaging in front of them where they are, which is online. Can it feel overwhelming? Yes. But can you cover a lot of ground optimizing it? Yes. Leaders, make sure your communicators have the budget to help them communicate your emergency response plans. It's important that you give them a seat at the table when there's major planning going on. When there's a management planning, any emergency management planning going on, make sure your communicator is there. They are the ones, they're on the front lines for you. Between the response of your organization and your stakeholders. They deserve a seat at the table. Listen to their advice, their suggestions, their feedback. Because after all they are reading all the comments. They are responding to your customers. They're going to tell you exactly what you you need to do based on what your customers are asking you to do. Provide your communicators with the tools they need to provide you with peace of mind. That's all today for this episode about response. So speaking of coming soon, my team has been working and tweaking and working on our amazing response offering. It's going to help you find the right response at the right time and deliver it in the right place. We have been keeping up with all the changes that have happened in the past year. In fact, we started it last year and you've heard me talk about it. I had a COVID 19 communications kit that we rolled out in April of last year for Covid and we were able to provide a lot of communication resources and tools out there. And ever since then we have been working on a product to help elevate customer's response, to help them with their immediate response. Because I know it's not easy. Not everyone can have a consultant sitting in their back pocket helping them and giving them the advice from outside the bubble. But that's what this product is. It's your response kit. It's like adding another member to your communications team with up to date resources. So keep listening for upcoming episodes for more information. Thanks everyone for listening. Communicators, leaders out there who've been struggling this past week trying to keep up with all the information. The struggle is real, but the struggle is strength. It's going to strengthen your communications, it's going to strengthen your operations and it's going to strengthen the relationship you have with your stakeholders. I promise you. Bye for now. Now.