Post by caitlindavis on Sept 30, 2014 13:48:36 GMT -5
Out of the two Google Hangouts, Doctors without Borders visual social media engagement strategy was a true standout to me. Right now this emergency medical aid organization is involved with Ebola. Ebola kills 90 percent of the people who catch it and still the organization has sent over 3,000 members of their staff to West Africa to help with the Ebola outbreak. The organization has also set up Ebola treatment centers and now has become the main organization that has responded to the outbreak. We heard from Nick Owen who works in the digital team in the UK, which is made up for four members including Nick. Each team member works on their own aspect of social media for the organization and Owen is in charge of looking over all of their social media platforms. This is special compared to other organizations we have learned about. For example when we heard from Amber Webb with Smile Train we learned that she works alone and has no team to help with all the different social media tasks.
How they are using social media to get more help with this outbreak is where this organization started to stand out to me. Owen said that what can be done right now with communication efforts can make more of a difference with Ebola at the moment then medical help can. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram play a huge role in this organization because these social media platforms are its way to speak out. Doctors without Borders use all of these social media platforms to call on governments and United Nation to get more involved. They also share the responsibilities of running the organizations Facebook page with all the other English speaking nations’ headquarters. Since this organization deals with emergency media situations it is almost impossible for it to make strategies for all of their social media platforms. Instead Owen goes on each platform every single day and creates new posts every day. This was another area where Doctors without Borders stood out to me because Amber Webb with Smile Train could only spend 10 to 15 percent of her day on social media, so this left her having to set a lot of their posts on timers at the beginning of the month. I think these posts that are set on timers look very generic and do not make people want to become as involved as original, up-to-date posts do.
How they are using social media to get more help with this outbreak is where this organization started to stand out to me. Owen said that what can be done right now with communication efforts can make more of a difference with Ebola at the moment then medical help can. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram play a huge role in this organization because these social media platforms are its way to speak out. Doctors without Borders use all of these social media platforms to call on governments and United Nation to get more involved. They also share the responsibilities of running the organizations Facebook page with all the other English speaking nations’ headquarters. Since this organization deals with emergency media situations it is almost impossible for it to make strategies for all of their social media platforms. Instead Owen goes on each platform every single day and creates new posts every day. This was another area where Doctors without Borders stood out to me because Amber Webb with Smile Train could only spend 10 to 15 percent of her day on social media, so this left her having to set a lot of their posts on timers at the beginning of the month. I think these posts that are set on timers look very generic and do not make people want to become as involved as original, up-to-date posts do.