Fire Times August/September 2010

The way people get their news, find informationand interact has changed. Social networking makescommunicating instant, accessible and –importantly – free.

There’s potentially an unlimited audience ofpeople who have all opted in to receive informationfrom you, simply by following you on Facebook orTwitter. The big question is, is your fire and rescueservice part of the conversation?

Earlier this year when Merseyside started itsFacebook page, I did a survey among fire andrescue services to find out who had a Facebookprofile. Of the 30+ responses, 11 replied no andeight were considering it. But a trawl of Facebookrevealed there were already pages or groups set upfor seven of those – they had been set up by staff,former staff or just local residents but the publicdoesn’t know that.

“Social networking makescommunicating instant,

accessible and –importantly – free.”

Last week I checked again on Facebook. Nowevery fire and rescue service in the UK has a pagerepresenting them, with information drawn in fromWikipedia and people’s comments. It appears thedebate about whether to have your service on FB isalready over, the question now is whether you aregoing to join the conversation.

Developing a followingHampshire Fire and Rescue has over 8000

followers on Facebook and Charlotte Woodward,Marketing and Communications Manager, says therehas been a snowball effect. “The more followers youhave, the more people see it on their friends’ newsstream and it attracts even more people to yourprofile,” she says. “We know that being more activeattracts more people, so we are focusing ondeveloping this, as it also shows we care enough tomake time to have conversations with people.”

Hampshire has also found that Facebook is agreat way of connecting with local groups andorganisations. By putting a link to theseorganisations on their Facebook site, they haveattracted new audiences.

Charlotte added, “Having a bigger following givesus a better chance of engaging with hard to reachgroups.

“Within the first few days of launching ourFacebook page in early 2009 we were contacted bya female who wanted to join the fire service. This isjust one example of engaging with target groups.We’ve had people with hearing impairments askingwhat they should do about smoke alarms, peoplewith mobility issues asking for information.

“If it wasn’t for the fact that we were on Facebook,which is so readily available at people’s fingertips,these people may not have got in touch.”

Interaction is importantMuch of your news can be automatically

published on Facebook, as soon as it’s published onyour corporate site, without any additional work byusing feeds or Yahoo! Pipes, an informationaggregator. Your Facebook page can be that simple.But to get the best out of the site, you have tointeract with your audience.

North Wales Fire and Rescue Service regularlyputs information on its Facebook page about itsinteractive bus, events, and the location of itsSubaru or fire bike. It has helped to generate a newwave of interaction with the community, who nowregularly post messages about where they have seenthe vehicles.

Perhaps their biggest success in reaching a hardto reach group has been an initiative with thestudent population.

Bethan Millington, Deputy CorporateCommunications Manager, said, “We ran a studentcompetition on the site to come up with a sloganfor a new campaign highlighting the dangers ofdrinking and cooking. A lot of people joined ourpage to take part and try and win a Nintendo DSi.We posted the best five and asked people to vote fortheir favourite – 10% of our fans took part in thevoting.”

The campaign worked so well in attracting

students to its Facebook page, that this year NorthWales’ promotional materials such as pens willhave the Facebook web link rather than the usualcorporate website address.

Bethan said, “We are hoping to run anothercompetition now where a student will win an iPad,which hopefully will attract a lot more fans.”

Targeted campaignsFacebook’s profiling data means that you can get

detailed insight into your followers – from age,ethnicity, location to how active they are onFacebook.

This creates big opportunities for targetedmarketing, as Kent Fire and Rescue have beendiscovering. They have started using paid-forFacebook adverts, initially to raise awarenessamong young adults about a road safety event.Mark Roberts, Online Communications and StudioManager, said, “We were able to really target theaudience we wanted to young people aged 16-24living within a 10-mile radius of Canterbury.

“We paid £50 for four days for an advert thatwent at the side of people’s profiles. If they clickedon it, it took them to a web page about an event wewere hosting. We got 185,000 impressions onFacebook profiles over four days. Some of thoseadverts would have been seen by the same personon multiple occasions but we were really pleasedwith the response.

“Interaction with people on social media is givingus an easy way of communicating our messages.We are looking at how we can use it for consultingwith people about our IRMP and for doing surveys.We are just getting social media buttons for oursite, such as ‘I like this and want to share it withfriends’ that can help us spread the messagefurther. It takes 5-10 minutes of my time a day andwe get a message to 1500 people, who each havearound 100 friends who they might share it with –that’s a big reach.”

Never before has our community been betterinformed and connected through the use of ‘new’media. This is a golden age of opportunity forcommunications to share developments from everycorner of the organisation – before someone elsedoes!Reader Reply No.40

www.mmcpubl icat ions.co.uk SOCIAL MEDIA | 33

999 Social Media – join the conversationPicture a focus group permanently on tap offering invaluable advice on how your service could better address the needs

of the community it serves. To talk directly to your local population, spark transformative ideas and create

unprecedented levels of success for your safety campaigns. A few years ago these innovations would have carried a

huge price tag. Today, it costs nothing more than a few hours’ work to start a conversation with thousands of local

people who can help mould and shape the future of your organisation.

Author: Sam Thomas is Communi-cations Manager at Merseyside Fireand Rescue Service. She’s passionateabout helping fire and rescue ser-vices talk and listen more effectivelywith their communities using thepower of social networking.

See us on Stand F4 & 557

12.5 Fire Times_– 03/09/2010 13:01 Page 33