Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The current manuscript explores Twitter use and content in the precrisis stages of a major weather event in the northeast. A multi-level content analysis of tweets collected in the lead up to landfall suggests that emergency management agencies largely underutilized the medium, and that actionable information was easier to find when searching along localized hashtags. The findings are discussed in terms of the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model of crisis management and implications for emergency management agencies.

As noted by Seeger (2006) the notion of best practices is often use to improve professional practice; to create research and functional recommendations to use in a specific situation. This essay describes best practices in crisis communication specifically through the use of social media. It provides suggestions and approaches for improving the effectiveness of crisis communication and learning with and between organizations, governments and citizens. Seven best practices for effective crisis communication using social media are outlined.