Back in 2008, I suggested that an eyewitness tag on Twitter, such as #EW, would help people identify relevant material from the vast torrent of tweets that were being posted about Mumbai.
In 2011, Twitter users have taken things beyond my rather simple idea by organising a number of separate hashtags to relay information.
Rather than only using one hashtag (#Mumbai) as many people did three years ago, today the Twitter users of Mumbai have started posting to:
- #mumbaiblasts, for information relevant to the attacks
- #here2help, for people who can offer assistance
- #needhelp, for people who are in need of assistance
- #mumbaitraffic, for updates on the transport situation
This quote, from a FrontLine Club blog post by media researcher Daniel Bennet, explains how users are evolving the extremely simple “hashtag” method, used on Twitter to enable fellow users to search out posts by keyword.
Major disasters, both natural and man-made, have pushed this evolution due to the sheer numbers of people that turn to Twitter for crisis communication. Without these more specific tags, finding relevant information during a major crisis would be a needle-in-haystack exercise.
You can take advantage of these advanced tags for business as well. Try creating one for special events and asking fellow promoters or sponsors to use it on their Twitter feeds. Hopefully this will result in regular users discussing the event picking it up as well, allowing anyone searching for the information to find it with ease.
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/