With the onset of hurricane season, and the first significant storm threat we’ve faced this year, it’s important that you’re ready for the emergency. I don’t mean having plenty of supplies on hand or having lots of meetings. I mean for your web presence — especially that front page of yours. In a big, breaking news emergency, you have to change it.

During the California wildfires in October 2007, KFMB did an outstanding job altering its website to give exclusive coverage to the fires.

This is substantially different from how the other San Diego stations reacted, using their existing templates to provide the usual variety of news. Yes, we still want other stories on our site. But when your city is in flames, that’s really all you care about. cbs8.com did a clever job of building a landing page that appeared “before” its regular site. If you look in the upper right, you will see the link that says “For additional news, go to cbs8.com main site.” That’s all you need.

As you can see, this special page was done up in blog format. This is the way to go for a big story. You can simply add items to the stream of information. People want whatever is latest, and they don’t need us to have a “lead.” The site also had prominent placement for a relief line. People from out of the region could still lend a hand through their donations.

The blog format is absolutely the best choice during weather events. Your team can update constantly, without having to go through the “finished news” process. In a quickly-changing situation like a hurricane, we need minute-by-minute items.

If, for some reason, your site won’t support a new front page — demand your developers provide the service. This is one of the key reasons why you need local control of your site. You want to be able to change, on the fly, the look and presentation of your site.

This is also the perfect time for Twitter. You want to be sending out tweets regularly. We usually suggest offering only one – two tweets per day, but this is an exception. Your other choice (and it’s a perfectly good one) is to set up a special Twitter page just for the storm. In fact, having the name twitter.com/stormname is a great idea, as it will draw attention from around the country. As soon as that tropical depression develops, get that Twitter name just in case.

Keep your updates brief. Let your viewers know, via your on-air broadcast, where to find the updates. Invite them to send their Tweets to you for updates. The best way to spread the word about your pages is via broadcast and “ReTweets.”

Local news has always geared up for storm coverage. The aggressive approach has to be no different online. Social media will improve the coverage as a whole, as you will empower your audience to work with you during the emergency. That’s when Being Social shines.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.