Final answer:
Emergency management organizations should engage with the community on social media, maintain a professional image, and share relevant, timely information. It's important to connect regularly, limit self-promotion, and manage the social media presence given its potential influence on reputation.
Step-by-step explanation:
When building social media capabilities, emergency management organizations should engage with the community and share relevant information. This approach fosters a sense of trust and provides a valuable service of keeping the public informed. It's important to maintain a professional image while handling social media, even on less formal platforms, and to keep self-promotion to a minimum. Additionally, organizations should update their profiles often to keep status updates fresh, post relevant articles, best practices, and useful information. Another crucial aspect of utilizing social media effectively is to regularly connect with contacts and provide value, rather than only reaching out when needing something.
Social media's ability to spread information quickly can dramatically transform public engagement, allowing for rapid issue awareness and leadership to emerge through these platforms. With the power of social media comes responsibility; organizations must handle it in a way that reflects a professional image, especially considering that employers and others often assess an individual's or organization's social media presence. It's also vital to project a professional image to help mitigate any potential damage to reputations and to recognize the extent to which information shared on public platforms can become permanent.