Rebecca and Genevieve Williams, who started the enormously successful Joplin Tornado Info website, are helping with a new University of Missouri Extension website designed to serve the same purpose after this week's Branson tornado. The following news release is from University of Missouri Extension.
A Universityof Missouri Extension storm recovery resource named “Branson Tornado Info” onFacebook was up and had 14,000 followers just 12 hours after the tornado struckBranson on Feb. 28.
Actually,the page was put in place back January by David Burton, civic communication specialist for MUExtension in southwest Missouri.
“I createdthree new pages on Facebook at that time for Branson, Springfield and GreeneCounty that are modeled after the success we had last year with the JoplinTornado Info and Missouri Flooding Info pages on Facebook,” Burton said. TheJoplin Tornado Info page is still very active, with more than 48,000 fans.
Facebookusers can “like” the Branson Tornado Info pages to find out how to help and tolearn about emergency and cleanup work from the organizations and groups doingthe work.
These pagesare designed to be a collaboration of state, federal and local agencies andorganizations involved in the affected areas. The pages are managed by MUExtension but public information officers from various organizations andcommunity volunteers with media backgrounds can serve as co-administrators,following a model used after the Joplin tornado.
In fact, byMarch 2, the page had 11 volunteer administrators. The two most activevolunteers have been Rebecca and Genevieve Williams, the mother and daughterteam from Neosho, Mo. that were behind the establishment of Joplin TornadoInfo.
Personswilling to help as administrators on these new pages should contact DavidBurton at burtond@missouri.edu afterliking the Branson Tornado Info page. He will then send you the guidelines forthe page and instructions on getting set up as an administrator.
Havingco-administrators who post information and check facts on what others post isimportant and was a key to the success of the Joplin Tornado Info pageaccording to Burton.
“I logged into Facebook at 5 a.m. on Feb. 28 and saw that this page had jumped from twofans to 50 before I even knew there had been a tornado hit Branson,” saidBurton. “I got the word out to the media via email and we got things rolling.Before the end of that first day we were up to 14,000 followers. As we saw inJoplin, social media is a great communication tool during disasters especiallybecause of Smart phones.”
Thegoal of the site administrators is to make sure posts are official in natureand researched. In other words, the official information is unbiased andresearch based, in keeping with MU Extension’s mission.
“OnBranson Tornado Info, we don't collect money for our own efforts and we shyaway from organizations that are merely collecting money. We don't post linksabout fundraisers, or groups selling shirts, trinkets and such. Instead, welink to sites that have collected information in lists, tables or officialsreports and we answer posted questions. We learned in Joplin that if we areposting some new every five minutes the volume of the information will driveaway followers and will unsubscribe. That defeats the purpose,” said Burton.
As of March2, the page has nearly 17,000 followers and 12 administrators who have someclear goals and guidelines.
Burton isalso working with the Williams to write up a formal document of guidelines andthe lessons learned from the Joplin Tornado Info page so future presentationscan be made to community leaders or organizations interested in using socialmedia during natural disasters.
More informationis also available online from MU Extension at http://extension.missouri.edu.
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