Six top online and social sources for Top End cyclone information

By Tracy Jones

With the cyclone season now upon us, all of us in the Top End need to be prepared. With your cyclone kit packed, your insurance updated and your family emergency plan updated, you need to think about how you will access the information you need to get through.

Our research at Creative Territory has shown us that up to 90 per cent of Top Enders are now using the web and social media to find out what is going on. The problem is, the social media space is now so overcrowded with “experts” it is hard to know who to trust.

Here’s our advice on where to go, depending on the type of information you are looking for:

1.       For official weather information go to www.bom.gov.au The Bureau of Meteorology issues all official cyclone watches and warnings. It is also the place to watch the latest radar information. You can also see radar images by downloading the Rain? app on your mobile phone or tablet device.

2.       For official updates on government information and services, go to www.secureNT.nt.gov.au This site aggregates information from all NT Government agencies in one place. It also includes useful tips to help you get ready for the season. You can also like secureNT on Facebook (www.facebook.com/secureNT) or follow them on Twitter (www.twitter.com/@secureterritory). This is a trusted source for official information.

3.       If you are looking for more colour and interest but still want to have a reasonable level of trust in the information, use local traditional media outlets. ABC regularly updates its website with the latest information. ABC Darwin, The NT News and Nine News Darwin have very active social media channels through both Facebook and Twitter.

4.       A number of websites provide great professional and para-professional commentary on weather conditions as they change. Try www.northauschasers.com , the Weather Channel or Weather Zone.

5.       In Twitter, do a search for hashtags that will help you sift through information. For example, in the Top End, search for #topend which is used by many locals to help index their Tweets. Once a cyclone is declared, many Tweets will use the appropriate hashtag – for example, during Cyclone Carlos in Darwin many people used #Carlos or #TCCarlos  Just be aware that not all this information can be trusted – not because people are trying to fool you, but because not everyone has accurate information.

6.       Watch out for what your friends are saying and see what people you follow are saying. They’ll provide you with a very local weather forecast right from their own home.

Share your cyclone experience with us

How do people access information during severe weather events in the Top End? And has this changed since Cyclone Carlos last year? We’re trying to find out.

Creative Territory is encouraging people to tell us about their experiences during the recent cyclone and floods so we can find the best ways to communicate in the future.

This survey follows a similar one undertaken after Cyclone Carlos battered Darwin in February 2011, flooding properties and bringing down thousands of trees. That survey showed a growing reliance on the internet and social media as a means of accessing information. (You can see the results from that survey here)

This survey will help us understand if the trend has continued.

You can access this new survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z9DQN7Z

We will publish the results of the survey along with an analysis of how information access has changed since Cyclone Carlos in February 2011 based on the survey we conducted then.

NT Facebook membership up 20% in six months

Facebook membership across the Territory has grown by more than 20 per cent over the past six months, according to the latest statistics compiled by Creative Territory.

There are now almost 85,000 Facebook users who list the Territory as their home, including 64,860 in Darwin and 12,920 in Alice Springs.

The raw data, drawn from Facebook’s advertising tool, shows more substantial increases in smaller centres such as Nhulunbuy and Tennant Creek. However, this is likely to be the result of more accurate data collection as the number of Territorians listed in “unknown” towns as dropped considerably since Creative Territory first started collating this data.

Facebook membership	Jun 11	Sept 11	Dec 11	Six-month Growth %
Total NT	69,620	72,420	84,580	21.49
Darwin	50,240	52,020	64,860	29.10
Alice Springs	10,060	10,260	12,920	28.43
Katherine	2,640	2,780	3,360	27.27
Nhulunbuy	1,280	1,380	1,960	53.13
Tennant Creek	780	880	1,160	48.72

Facebook usage is highest among Territorians in their 20s with almost 30,000 members. But don’t think that Facebook is not an effective means to reach older Territorians – there are still more than 10,000 Territorian members aged over 50.

While both men and women use Facebook at around the same rate while they are younger, women are more likely to be members as they age.

While LinkedIn continues to enjoy stronger growth than Facebook in the Territory, it has a long way to go before it catches up. At 31 December it boasted 11,091 Territorian members, about one-eighth the following.

LinkedIn Membership	Jun 11	Sep 11	Dec 11	Six-month Growth %
All major centres	8,177	9,494	11,091	35.64
Darwin	6,219	7,214	8,254	32.72
Alice Springs	1,344	1617	1845	37.28
Katherine	252	308	367	45.63
Nhulunbuy	462	555	625	35.28

5 ways to improve your Twittercue to get your message out

By Tracy Jones

Since I wrote about the Twittercue back in April, we’ve seen an amazing take-up of this idea by social media-savvy PR professionals. (read the original post)

A Google search of the term “twittercue” pulls down more than 2400 results, a far cry from the first time we searched the term and got just 12. Our blog posts have been tweeted hundreds of times by converts and about 10 other blogs have carried posts on the topic.

Thanks everyone for spreading the word, although we’re still working on getting Wikipedia to accept Twittercue as a new term.

From watching the words spread, we’ve picked up a few more suggestions on how to make a Twittercue work better for you:

1. Tweet your own Twittercue. PRs who do are more likely to see their post retweeted, sometimes hundreds of times.
2. Keep your Twittercue to 120 characters or less, otherwise Tweeps have to edit your original post before retweeting. Remember: you want them to Tweet your exact words.
3. Make sure you have a link back to your online media release so people can get the full story.
4. If you are writing a Twittercue in an emergency situation, make sure your tweet is self-explanatory. People don’t always switch between Twitter and a web page if they are on their smart phone in the aftermath of an earthquake.
5. Add appropriate hashtags.

We’d love to hear about your experience with Twittercues and find out if they have been successful for you, so please post your comments to allow us to pass your success on to others.


Twittercue: 5 ways to improve your Twittercue to get your message out #PRtips #socialmedia http://tiny.cc/e1csq 

5 steps to engagement through social media

By Tracy Jones

If you’re thinking about getting into social media, you need to employ the principle of MATES – Monitor, Act, Talk, Engage and Sustain.

We’ve coined the term MATES because it emphasises what communicators know to be the most powerful aspect of social media – its ability to engage in meaningful conversations rather than just mindless promotion.

These five steps will help you get started.

MONITOR: Start your social media journey by looking at what others are already saying and doing in the social media sphere. Google like crazy. Do some searches in Twitter. You may be surprised what others are already saying about you, your brand, your products and your competitors.

ACT: Take the plunge and set up some accounts. Start with Facebook and Twitter then add to your armory as you get more comfortable.

TALK: Now it’s time to say something. Start small by retweeting or sharing what others are saying. You’ll get bolder as you go along by adding your own original content and thoughts. Share your knowledge and expertise with your friends and followers. The most influential participants give something of themselves to their audiences.

ENGAGE: Now it’s time to become a real participant. Comment on other people’s posts. Reply to people who talk to you or about you. Say thanks to those who pass your posts along.

SUSTAIN: Now you’re in the space you need to participate at a sustainable level. Have a strategy for how often and when you will be posting and commenting. Dedicate resources to the task. Make it part of your job, not just a tack-on at the end of the day that is quickly forgotten when things get busy.

Creative Territory offers a mentoring package to help executives get social online. The package includes an analysis of your business and personal needs, setting up your accounts, three hours of coaching at your desk and three months of ongoing support and mentoring. Contact tracy@creativeterritory.com to find out more.

Twittercue: 5 steps to engagement through social media. #PR #socialmedia http://tiny.cc/esguk

7 tips for communicating when the electricity goes out

By Tracy Jones 

Anyone who has ever been through a natural disaster will tell you that one of the first things to go is the electricity. 

While mobile phone towers amazingly kept working following recent cyclones, floods, earthquakes and tsunamis across the world, power went out for prolonged periods.

For communicators used to having all the latest tools at our disposal, planning for how to get messages across in a blackout is critical.

Here are 7 tips to help:

1.      Rely on radio.

Even if people don’t have battery-powered radios, the one in their car probably still works. Use radio stations to get important messages out.

2.      Make every message self-contained.

People relying on their mobile phone for the internet don’t switch between Twitter, Facebook and the web during a crisis. They tend to stick with one application. There’s nothing worse than a Tweet that only tells you to “check our website for the latest update”. See our post on Twittercues for some hints on better tweeting. 

3.      Stay charged

Always keep your mobile and your laptop fully charged.

4.      Host your website in another city.

Or at least make sure your local provider is really, really ready for any risk.

5.      Use blogs and twitter to feed your content.

You can use blogs and twitter to feed content onto your website and facebook accounts. That way if everything else fails you can easily upload content via your mobile phone.

6.      Have a back-up email account

If your own business server goes down, a back up Gmail or hotmail account will see you through a crisis. 

7.      Remember the old tools

Once upon a time we relied on pen and paper and talking to each other. They still work. 

Twittercue: 7 tips for  communicating when the electricity goes out. #prtips #crisiscomms http://tiny.cc/7tipspower

Is your media release Twitter ready?

If you’ve ever played Telephone, you know how easy it is for a simple message to lose its meaning.

Sending out a media release is like playing this childhood game. Very few journalists will ever replay it the way you want and the essential message can be lost as people reword and rework your beautifully crafted prose into just a few short sentences.

That’s just the name of the game in public relations, but the advent of social media has made the job even harder. Thousands of citizen journalists are now reinterpreting your media release into less than 140 characters.

A recent example was an announcement from the Northern Territory Government in Australia during Cyclone Carlos allowing non-essential public servants with child-caring responsibilities to take personal leave if they could not get alternate care arrangements for their children. Employees should check with their supervisor if they were not sure if they were regarded as “essential”.

The tweets from those spreading the word looked something like this:

Non-essential public servants urged to stay at home due to #TCcarlos

The result? Hundreds of public servants with and without children stayed at home without ever contacting their supervisor.

It’s hardly the fault of the multitudes who retweeted this message, but it is a great example of how a message can lose its full meaning very quickly.

At Creative Territory, we’ve seen hundreds of original media releases, stories and blogs get mangled as well-meaning tweeters try to make sense of what the writer was trying to say and rebroadcast it in a tiny package.

So what can PR professionals do to make it easier for others to pass their message on?

We’ve recently created the “Twittercue”– the practice of adding a set of words to the bottom of media releases that enable tweeters to pass on your message without distorting the meaning.

So if I was writing a media release for the situation above, I would add the following to the bottom of the release:

Twittercue: NTG non-essent staff who need 2 care 4 kids may take prsnl leave. Chck with supervisor #TCcarlos http://tiny.cc/3pdeaz

Some tips for writing a great Twittercue:

• Forget the flowery language – concentrate on the facts
• Use an appropriate hashtag
• Include a url pointing to the full copy of the media release
• Keep it to 120 characters in total to allow for unedited retweeting
• Don’t be afraid to use abbreviations – speak the language of your Tweeps.

Twittercue for this release: Is your media release Twitter ready? http://tiny.cc/twittercue #PR #SM #twitter