Four years ago today I was travelling with a task force of 10 ambulances to North East Texas for Hurricane Rita relief operations. That experience didn’t solely provide me with an intimate knowledge about what works and doesn’t work in a disaster response, it didn’t just give me new found appreciation for Chef Boyardee, and it didn’t only give me the opportunity to further develop myself as a leader. It also gave me my first experience with the power of Social Media.

The Sabine County Letters

It really started innocently enough. A few e-mails passed back and forth between my company’s senior leadership regarding our progress.

I took the initiative to take those initial emails and provide more in depth narratives as to what was going on. While ideally it would have been a daily occurrence, working in a disaster area does not guarantee that you would have internet access. In the early days of the deployment there were some nights that Doc Croc and I would drive 2 hours to a town with cellular service to send the message from “The Range“. When I would finally get signal, I would also receive emails of encouragement and support from people throughout the company who had been forwarded my emails by others. The act of the creation of that media with the feedback that was therefore fostering a conversation is exactly what Social Media is all about.

In the end it consisted of 15 e-mails over the course of the 25 day deployment. Collectively I refer to them as The Sabine County Letters, but what they really were was my first foray into Social Media and is what I point to as the catalyst to get more involved in the practice.

Taking It To The Next Level

I am unequivocally a Social Media Evangelist. I believe in the power of Social Media to have the power to change people’s individual lives. I also believe that the same power could be utilized by First Responder Agencies to not only improve the preparedness levels and disaster response outcomes in their communities, but to also change the public’s perception of who we are and what we actually do. While I could sit here and pontificate on these points as I already have done, there is a point where we need to evolve and go to the next level.

In order to help Agencies and personally get to the next level I have co-founded PIO Social Media Training in a partnership with acclaimed educator Greg Friese of EPS411. Our mission is simple: empower Agencies to effectively engage in the creation of Social Media to achieve their own unique goals.

We are going to do this through different educational opportunities utilizing the very format that we are promoting. Our educational offerings currently include an email based Social Media Bootcamp for individuals and Agencies to help them get started using Social Media as well as 5 Reasons and Methods For PIOs To Develop and Distribute Social Media Webinars. Future offerings will include a Guide To Social Media Policies For Responder Agencies and The Social Media PIO Handbook.

Since Social Media is about the ability to have conversation, we also will be writing articles on the PIO Social Media Training Blog, you can find us on Twitter @piosmtraining, and also on our PIO Social Media Training Facebook Page.

It’s time for First Responder Agencies to become more involved with their communities effectively. Social Media is a tool that can deliver those results.

Learn how to do it at PIO Social Media Training.

Read the EMS Magazine article on The Role Of Social Media In EMS