Analysis of Twitter Users’ Sharing of Official New York Preparedness Messages During a Recent Storm
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Abstract
Background: Twitter has been described as a useful tool for disseminating information to the public, before and during disasters. Advertisers have studied the reach and effectiveness of Twitter messages (“tweetsâ€) and described characteristics that increase the change messages will be shared (“retweetedâ€) by users. But little is known about the effectiveness of tweets from public officials in times of emergency.
Objective: To determine characteristics of New York public official’s most-shared messages surrounding a recent storm.
Methods: After a recent blizzard hit the US East Coast, one week of message text, links, mentions, and retweet counts from five city agencies and officials and one state official were scraped from Twitter.com. Messages were categorized as to whether they were related to the storm, and whether storm messages had actionable information for readers. Retweets from various accounts were normalized to number of tweets and follower counts. Additionally, the most-shared tweets were analyzed and compared to other public official tweets during the storm period.
Results: Of 448 tweets analyzed from six official city and state Twitter accounts from February 5-12, 2013, 271 were related to the storm, and 174 had actionable information for the public, such as train and school cancellations, or instructions for power outages. Actionable storm messages were retweeted 4217 times (approximately 24x per message), compared to 8369 retweets for general storm information (31x per message). Looking at the top ten (normalized for followers) original retweeted messages (approximately 255x per message) from these accounts, seven tweets used hashtags, half had actionable information, and four had links or mentions to other official accounts for further reading. For comparison, in the overall average for storm-related tweets, 56% had hashtags, 64% contained actionable information, and 62% contained links for further reading. These most-shared messages averaged 20.9 words per message, significantly more than the 17.2 words averaged other official tweets that week.
Conclusion: Officials using Twitter conveyed much storm-related information during a recent blizzard, which was shared well beyond existing subscriber bases and potentially improved situational awareness and disaster response. The presence of hashtags and links did not noticeably add to a tweet’s propensity for resharing and the most shared tweets were less likely to contain hashtags or links. Actionable information, such as specific instructions and cancellation notices, was not shared as often as more general warnings and “fun facts.†This may reflect Twitter’s global reach, as people outside of New York may be less likely to care about specific instructions but may want to share general information. An alternative interpretation for city officials is to account for human nature, and mix important instructions with more general news and trivia, as a way of reaching the broadest audience during a disaster.
Objective: To determine characteristics of New York public official’s most-shared messages surrounding a recent storm.
Methods: After a recent blizzard hit the US East Coast, one week of message text, links, mentions, and retweet counts from five city agencies and officials and one state official were scraped from Twitter.com. Messages were categorized as to whether they were related to the storm, and whether storm messages had actionable information for readers. Retweets from various accounts were normalized to number of tweets and follower counts. Additionally, the most-shared tweets were analyzed and compared to other public official tweets during the storm period.
Results: Of 448 tweets analyzed from six official city and state Twitter accounts from February 5-12, 2013, 271 were related to the storm, and 174 had actionable information for the public, such as train and school cancellations, or instructions for power outages. Actionable storm messages were retweeted 4217 times (approximately 24x per message), compared to 8369 retweets for general storm information (31x per message). Looking at the top ten (normalized for followers) original retweeted messages (approximately 255x per message) from these accounts, seven tweets used hashtags, half had actionable information, and four had links or mentions to other official accounts for further reading. For comparison, in the overall average for storm-related tweets, 56% had hashtags, 64% contained actionable information, and 62% contained links for further reading. These most-shared messages averaged 20.9 words per message, significantly more than the 17.2 words averaged other official tweets that week.
Conclusion: Officials using Twitter conveyed much storm-related information during a recent blizzard, which was shared well beyond existing subscriber bases and potentially improved situational awareness and disaster response. The presence of hashtags and links did not noticeably add to a tweet’s propensity for resharing and the most shared tweets were less likely to contain hashtags or links. Actionable information, such as specific instructions and cancellation notices, was not shared as often as more general warnings and “fun facts.†This may reflect Twitter’s global reach, as people outside of New York may be less likely to care about specific instructions but may want to share general information. An alternative interpretation for city officials is to account for human nature, and mix important instructions with more general news and trivia, as a way of reaching the broadest audience during a disaster.
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