Thanks to my colleague, Chris Syme of CKSyme.org, for allowing us to post her great analysis on Rutgers University’s communications before, during and after Hurricane Sandy’s devastation. I highly encourage you to follow Chris’s blog and learn great social media strategy and tactics from one of the best! Sincerely, TVP
What do you do when an epic storm descends on your region and you have 58,000+ students spread over three campuses that are 88 miles apart? How do you begin to handle the logistics of emergency communications? Just ask Rutgers. During Hurricane Sandy, the Rutgers communications channels efficiently kept all their campuses updated and hooked together with social media and their main website. Let’s take a look at how the communication channels were used during the storm and post-storm.
The Main Hub: the website
The Rutgers website homepage sported a yellow banner throughout the emergency directing people to information on each of their three campuses:
One click on a campus site name took the viewer to a page filled with links and information on the weather, classes, campus closings, emergency protocol, and everything in between. There was a live blog with updates in chronological order with information on dining halls, transportation, class schedules, residence halls, power/water advisories, and a quick blurb on the other two campuses. The screenshot below is from the New Brunswick site. The blog is circled in red and other important related links are circled in blue. Also notice the weather update circled in green:
The Secondary Channels: social media
Rutgers used their vast social media stable to give more real-time and audience-specific information during the crisis. Their Facebook page, which has over 21,000 likes, had timely updates:
Other Rutgers Facebook pages also carried information on the storm to their audiences. Below is a screenshot of the Rutgers Student Life page:
The school hosts several Twitter feeds, many of which were disseminating hurricane information during the storm. The main feed kept people informed on major pieces of information during the crisis. Even though Twitter followers tend to share more than Facebook users, remember their content usually goes out to a much smaller audience. Up until the storm, the main Twitter feed averaged one to two posts a day with a decent sized audience of 12,000 followers. In addition to using Twitter to push information out, it is an effective channel for monitoring an emergency as well. Crisis managers can use it to keep an eye on real-time news in a crisis.
Rutgers also has an informational Twitter feed (@ruinfo) that hosts a variety of sources surrounding the Rutgers community. This feed was actively promoting information from the many campus Twitter channels.
The Chancellor also hosted a live blog during the storm as well:
The Final Analysis: anything missing?
A couple strategic points kept Rutgers from getting an A+. First, there is a lack of links back to the main website in their social media posts. Since the main website is the hub of all information—the only place where all the information resides—there is a need to direct people to that main hub. Employing a URL shortener would have brought their URL to 12 characters. Some Facebook posts had specific links, some did not. It’s important to tag every social media post with a URL of some sort in an emergency. The other issue was the lack of social media promotion on the website during the emergency. It might have been wise to list the feeds of the most active channels on the separate emergency pages for each campus, or right on the yellow banner on the home page. The social media icon links are not readily visible on the home page.
Don’t forget mobile. When power is interrupted, it’s the only access point available. Schools that don’t design for mobile need to make sure their social media channels are populated with links and important information.
Also, important contact information should be up front. The campus announced their main information protocol at the bottom of the live blog. It was the only place I could find the information.
When announcements are made, campus status information will also be available through:
· RU-info Channel on RU-tv 3
· RU-info Call Center at 732-445-INFO (4636)
· Texting “Rutgers” to 66746
It’s obvious by the way Rutgers handled the emergency that they had a plan. Hats off to the New Jersey university for keeping their community in the know during the emergency. Have you seen any other examples of how schools in the east handled communications during the storm?