Post Westgate lessons from Kenya Red Cross: Responding effectively via social media

Of the organisations that responded to the horrific attack on the Westgate Mall in September, one stands head and shoulders above the rest.

The Kenya Red Cross Society was among the first responders at the scene — arriving 15 minutes after the first shots were fired in the mall, with 12 ambulances and a crew of almost 100 staff and volunteers. Its Twitter account (@kenyaredcross) served as the unofficial-official replacement for a non-existent 911 emergency service. KRCS used Twitter to communicate directly with hostages, coordinate efforts with the police, help the public trace loved ones held in the mall, initiate a blood drive, and raise substantial funds for survivors, victims and their families.

During the crisis, impact analysis showed that the KRCS twitter account reached 50 million people worldwide.

Nigerian social media expert Deola Kayode spoke to KRCS social media manager Philip Ogola and put together a list of best practices from the organization’s response to the Westgate attack. Below are snippets from Kayode’s article which first appeared on Social Media Week.

Be there before crises -The people stuck inside Westgate Mall readily turned to social media when they needed to call for help. A large number of hostages flooded their personal Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts with updates, images and information calling on people outside for help, relief and support. In a CNN report written by Daudi Khamadi Were of Ushahidi, information about the attack first broke on social media. If there was any up side it was that the Kenyan Red Cross had been preparing for the unpredictable for well over a year. Already monitoring the social web for crises alerts, the social media team at Kenya Red Cross became the go to source for real time updates, quickly alerting volunteers, fire brigades and police to arrive at the venue of the crisis. (…)
Philip Ogola, head of the Kenya Red Cross’ social media command centre. Photo Credit: pri.org
Have a (team and create a comprehensive system to respond to the public) – Using information gathered through tweets, Facebook messages, or text messages, Ogola’s team scans social media platforms for alerts and information about fire, accident or civil unrest and sends that information to first responders. During the Westgate mall attack in September, Phillip Ogola was credited with the tweet that confirmed the attack, a 140 characters of critical information which is said to have reached an estimated 50 million people. Since Kenyans on Twitter have developed a strong enough relationship with the @KenyaRedCross, it was just common sense that people tweeted the organisation (…) where there was no 911. Having a command center to track reports across devices and platforms, KRCS was able to rally support from volunteers and first responders alike. (…)
Event tracking using Hashtags(#)- Hashtags are used to collate keywords and phrases on social media platforms and was very instrumental in rallying conversations during the Westgate attack. Hashtags work by allowing anyone sharing content on a relevant topic to add a #hashtag label to their message thus allowing users to contribute and track conversations around a particular topic…. Hashstags were instrumental in providing minute-by-minute updates from people in the mall, outside, in homes, even with those deploying emergency resources inside and around the crises area. Several hashtags were used especially #GodBlessKenya, #WestgateAttack, ,#WeAreOne, #RedCross, #RedCrossKE even after the crisis period. (…)
#iVolunteers: It pays to build a tribe – #ivolunteers was not an event hashtag, it was used to build a tribe. Way before the Westgate attacks, iVolunteers was the initiative used to raise citizen emergency workers for the Kenya Red Cross. The idea was simple; there was a need to verify who was reporting an event, there was a need to identify if volunteers were around the crises area. A campaign was run earlier to recruit iVolunteers and they became a wonderful resource to pull from especially when there was a need during the crises to create an awareness campaign for blood donation. (…)
Traditional media will “follow” you – for free – The amazing display of online collaboration and comradeship among the digitally empowered Kenyans is a lesson for all. Once social media began buzzing with updates of the events, traditional media could only play catch up, tuning in online for breaking updates. Several news sites all over the world ran stories about the siege and continue to talk about how effectively Kenyans used social media to get word out about the crisis. CNN even featured iReports from citizen journalists highlighting the Kenya Red Cross’ ability to update disaster partners and volunteers about the needs and requirement of those directly affected. (…)