When a critical incident occurs, effective communication - both internally and externally - is essential. Public safety is the number one priority and ensuring important information is released in a timely manner must be a priority. The utilization of social media can be the key to successful communication for releasing and receiving information. Each emergency responder in a critical incident must know their role; too many times personnel have too many responsibilities and some things such as PIO roles get overlooked.

Fortunately, my agency has a full time PIO role and during critical incidents our main responsibility is communication. However, other agency PIOs often have command responsibilities during an incident and cannot focus on the communication aspect of the event. It is important to identify a communicator who will bear the responsibility of communication in a critical incident, not just releasing information to the media or public, but to share information internally within their agency or other agencies involved. This session will review these challenges to prepare your agency to handle a critical incident in the most effective way possible.

Takeaways include:

• How to utilize social media during a critical incident
• How to ensure you have a seat at the command table
• Who validates the information you are releasing

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More and more, social media narratives and strategies aim to create discord and encourage people to transition from virtual reality (VR) outrage to real life (RL) action.  In this session, Judy Pal will provide an overview of how malicious actors are using social media to cause discord and division in our communities and what agencies can do to counteract it. She’ll not only cover issues like factions, rumor, weaponizing social media, data deficits, and Doxxing, but will provide options for countering these unscrupulous strategies and highlight some best practices of agencies across the country.

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Collaboration is key when it comes to social media. There are so many elements to deal with on a regular basis. One person alone cannot easily or quickly do all of this work. That is where internal teams come in: primary and secondary teams. Government agencies typically have several decentralized teams with knowledgeable and talented people. Some of these teams may have a communications focus while others fall into the category of subject matter experts. Integration with your customer service group or information center allows you to tap into the top trending topics your audience wants to know about. 

Weekly check-in meetings are a great way to bring everyone together to discuss all things social media. Harnessing the power of these teams in one place at one time can improve your effectiveness as a social media manager. Ultimately, it will help you to ensure consistency and accuracy with content creation, scheduling, community management, engagement, customer service, stakeholder management, and more.

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With limited time and resources, you want to be able to get the most out of what your agency posts on social media. This session will cover the highlights and limitations of each platform and help you decide which platform serves your needs best. Plus, learn how to efficiently optimize your content for different platforms without reinventing the wheel. We'll cover Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and Nextdoor. 

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Today we are being challenged to communicate flawlessly and with agility…and often on the same topic over and over again as we create content for social media platforms as well as other communications.  How can you bring a fresh perspective to your writing that will engage the reader? And how can you change your own way of thinking in order to discover new approaches and angles?

Find out here.

These improvisational-based exercises will help you break through writing blahs…and everyone’s expectations. Whether it’s social media posts, a press release or PowerPoint, this is where the magic starts.

You’ll learn:

• The tenets of improv—stagecraft exercises to help you write better
• How to use the power of “Yes, and…” to push your writing and audiences to new heights
• How to kill your inner editor and get away with it
• Savvy methods to manipulate your “same-old” writing style
• How to inspire your own creative thinking using successful examples and exercises

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