Emerging Media Outlets

Internet

The Internet is proving to be one of the fastest growing mediums for your citizens to seek information. Most departments have access to a county or city web site and permission to develop a page specifically for the department. Many departments also develop stand alone web sites for their organization.

In either situation, one item is a constant: your web site needs constant attention. To ensure your web site always has current and correct information, you must establish a process, procedure or guideline on the management of the site. This critical, but often overlooked, step is essential to ensure your site is utilized by your community as a primary means for getting information about or from your department.

The following items are an excellent foundation of information to include when starting a department web site:

Location of the department
Pictures of facilities
Pictures of apparatus
Services provided
Contact numbers for services, both emergency and non-emergency
Membership requirements and steps
Current events
Fire and life safety tips
Significant incident descriptions
Pictures of incidents (HIPPA Proof)
Mechanism to accept donations
Awards and recognitions received
Links and resources page
E-mail receiving capability
Smoke alarm request form
List server capabilities for sending mass safety information

Fire and life safety tips
Significant incident descriptions
Pictures of incidents (HIPPA Proof)
Mechanism to accept donations
Awards and recognitions received
Links and resources page
E-mail receiving capability
Smoke alarm request form
List server capabilities for sending mass safety information

There are several options for the actual development work needed to establish your department web site, including utilizing active members, hiring an outside professional or reaching out to your community for assistance. Consider meeting with local web developers, information system technology departments of local businesses and local high schools, technical schools and colleges to seek out assistance in your web site development.

Social Media

Social media is the newest medium available for your department to market a smoke alarm installation program or any other public education program available to your community. There are many popular social media sites available, but this publication does not endorse any particular one. We will speak, however, about one of the most popular sites that many nationally recognized fire service organizations use: Facebook. Facebook allows your organization to develop a Page, with no development costs to the department. Your Page can be viewed by anyone, allowing you to share fire safety messages with a wide audience.

Another popular emerging market is the capability of “Tweeting” your customers via Twitter. Twitter is especially helpful for sending your media representatives real-time notifications of emergency incidents, incident updates and traffic information due to emergency incidents. Additionally, public fire safety information and notifications about department events can be sent to anyone who is following your designated department Twitter account.

Like any other department initiatives, programs such as web sites, Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts are only effective if they are constantly managed by a designated individual or team of members. Department leadership always needs to keep this in mind as these programs are being developed to ensure information is both accurate and timely, giving credibility to your organization and providing a wonderful service to your community.

Community Newspapers

Most jurisdictions have a community newspaper. Depending on the population, some larger jurisdictions may have more than one paper. Many communities with extremely large neighborhoods or divese geographic areas have more than one community newspapers. Regardless of the size of your community, these community newspapers are very popular and are an excellent medium to pass on timely and critical department information. Promoting department events, recruiting new members, promoting fund drives and passing on public safety messages are just a few examples of how your department can effectively utilize these valuable publications.