Stewart Davies Regional Communications with Communities OfficerUnited Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

August 2009 to May 2013

3 years 100 Million posts per day537 Million users

March 2006 to July 2012

6 years 50 Million posts per day517 Million users

• Created in 2009• Fastest site in history to break 10 million visitor mark

• 57 million users• 83% of users are female

•People’s platform choices are driven by personal benefits, not by the technology.

•Trends towards images, video, visual presentations growing rapidly.

A disaster management tool

Information consumers to producers

Crowd sourcing

Big, open and accessible data

Resilience through social capital

Users become citizens reporters

Real time

Resilient to infrastructure damage

How social media was usedDisasters

2005 London BombingsBritain

One of the first examples of mass social media use in a disasterMobile phone cameras, photo-sharing sites (Flickr), Wikipedia

2009 Typhoon Ketsana, Philippines

Twitter was newly popular, paypal used for donationsGoogle crisis map created and used by relief workers

2010 Haiti Earthquake Ushahidi crisis map widely used helping to create a hotline serviceTwitter used by survivors telling stories

2010 Yusho EarthquakeChina

Sina-Weibo widely usedLimited to Chinese language

2010 Typhoon Megi, Philippines

Government set up Twitter account just before it hit 28,000 followers) – broadcasted on traditional media (up to 20 typhoons each year)

2011 Hurricane Irene,USA

US Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) encouraged the use of SMS and social networks to prevent networks from jamming

Messages Types

Alerts

Awareness (or help)

Service provision

Self help

Advocacy

Common Messages

“Evacuate to the designated emergency shelter for your area”

“Rising flood waters along the main road reaching 1.5 metres”

“Red Cross is providing food and medical care in village A & B”

“Boil or treat water before you drink it”

“Humanitarian partners desperately need more funding to reach XXX many people”

Behavior Change

Did people move to area due to message?

Did people become aware due to message?

Did people receive aid due to message?

Did people self-treat due to message?

Did agency raise more funding due to message?

The Reality on the ground

Adhoc use of social media as a programme tool

Limited systematic research – lack of research on its usefulness in disasters

Humanitarian responders committing limited resources to use social media

Community capacity constrained (i.e. electricity, connectivity)

Focus on campaigns and advocacy

2010 Haiti Earthquake•Twitter was the primary place people turned to interact with others.

•2.3 million tweets included “Haiti” or the number to text message a donation to the Red Cross between Jan 12 & 14.

•Twitter not used by public to obtain news about the disaster. Public turned to traditional media for disaster information.

•Survivors used social media to tell their story, therefore driving traditional media coverage.

Thailand Floods, 2011

“ThaiFlood” website a collaboration with private sector and volunteers.

Then set up their own “FloodThailand”.

Less trust in Government - information was constantly changing.

People continued to use “ThaiFlood”

@thaiflood versus @floodthailand

#eqnz Christchurch Earthquake 2011

@CEQgovtnz – Official Government (Canterbury Earthquake Authority)

Nearly 2500 tweets during first fortnight after

Mobile operators @TelecomNZ and @vodafonenz posted widely advisories on how to minimise strain on networks

Sharing and discussing informationchanged significantly over time

The Great East Japan Earthquake 2011

Popular hash tags included:

#anpi – finding people#hinan – evac centre information#jishin – earthquake information

Strength of Facebook - filtering personal messages (“We are ok”)

YouTube was also used after the disaster (fundraising appeals and educational videos)

Typhoon Bopha/Pablo, 2012

Digital Humanitarian Network

OCHA activated the DHN on Dec 5th 2012 at 3PM Geneva time.

To collect all relevant social media posts posted on Dec 4-5.

Pictures/videos of damage/flooding.

Volunteers curated some 20,000 social media messages.

Compiling results for Humanitarian partners.

Question?

Did anyone in the room participate in the Typhoon Bopha/Pablo response?

If yes, did anyone see this data/information and subsequent communications products?

Ya’an, China Earthquake, 2013

7 out of the 8 top trending topics on Sina Weibo were on the earthquake

Sina Micro-charity projects raised more than $10,000 in the first 24 hours

The China International Rescue Team asked people to report their locations and damage on social media

More than 36,000 comments were left under that post, which were forwarded more than 400,000 times.

For the field practitioner

Assign people with ownership

Social media training

Two or one-way use

Program regular content

Assess analytics and recalibrate at regular intervals

Don’t be pressured to be on too many platforms

Tell stories graphically

Think mobile

Final messageAs people call out for help on social media rather than directly to aid providers/rescuers –is there a need for

responders to coordinate emerging communication channels to bridge gap between providers and those

seeking assistance?