A Contextual Impact of Social Media

I have chosen to do my analysis on the integration of social media and the Colorado flooding of 2013 that started during the week of September 9th.  The TV is normally a big source for finding out what is happening in big news events, but with the flooding social media played a big role during the floods reaching out to more people in ways that television could not.

Social media helps to make information accessible to almost anyone who wants to become involved with it.  With the Colorado flooding Social media helped a wide range of people connect and locate their loved ones and thousands of people were able to take pictures and video of the flooding and damage and post them on Twitter or Instagram. With technology, coverage of disasters have evolved quickly.

Throughout the disaster, the hashtags #COfloodrelief  and #COflood were created to help spread the word and to raise funds for those in need.  This really let people get involved in what was happening. It is also a great two way communication model and is a more intimate way for everyone to be involved. 

The #COFloodRelief campaign actively helped users to to get included with the disaster and also let twitter followers reach out to their followers by Re-Tweeting any messages.  Letting users pass on any important messages helps them stay involved since most people are wanting to help in some way.

The psychological content, what everyone thinks about what is happening, helps everyone to develop their own opinion about the disaster.  They can discuss over Facebook posts, tweets and online discussions.  Social media helps to create a somewhat virtual world for people, so they can become more involved with the disaster.  This can help people from all over to start thinking critically and help with problem solving. 


A local Colorado news organization even had a interactive web site that helped to connect everything that was going on.  From the site people were able to get updates, death tolls, rescue updates, flooding areas, alerts, shelter information and more.

I think all the different social media outlets really helped spread the word about the Colorado flooding.  It helped people reconnect with others and spread awareness about it.

Sustainability

City: Richmond, VA

https://www.facebook.com/RVAStreetFoodies

Richmond has a great food truck idea that is circulating around fairly well.  They do have a Facebook page for it and a website.  They update the website with information about what vendors will be out certain nights.  Great idea.  Though they do need to work on updating their Facebook page.  They have only done 2 posts in the past 3 months.  I think if they update their Facebook page a few times a week they could drive more people out to the food trucks.


http://www.timesdispatch.com/entertainment-life/food-dining/

They also have a city wide website that they update with all kinds of different information.   They have dining out reviews, meal plans, recipes and a Tweet of the week.  The Tweet of the week is all about recent food reviews from Richmond restaurants.

Richmond also has a few Twitter accounts:

https://twitter.com/VisitRichmond
https://twitter.com/CityRichmondVA
https://twitter.com/SlowFoodRVA


Only one of them is updated regularly.  They could definitely use some improvement with their Twitter accounts.  Tweeting about what food they have to offer and local restaurants would help their social media presence.