Do You Know Social Media Tools Can Save Lives?
Sharmaine Teo
Remember the typhoon that occurred in the Philippines capital of Manila? Typhoon Ondoy caused flooding in many areas leaving at least 50,000 homeless and more than 150 people dead. The numbers could have been worse if not for the onslaught of information, call for help and communication brigade done by Filipinos through the help of social media tools.
So take note of these social media tools as they may garner help in dire times. Keeping it short, I’ll just name 3 that are the most common. So unless you are living under a rock, you should have heard about them.
Twitter takes the win for this.
Tweets can be sent via via the Twitter website, short message service (sms) or external applications. Basically it’s fast and efficient. Furthermore, When everything stopped and relief and rescue operations started, Twitter was still used to spread word on where to drop donations, what relief items were needed. There was a downpour of volunteers and relief supplies, thanks to the barrage of Tweets that spread across the nation. All these were done via their tweeter account.
Aside from Twitter, Facebook is also one of the most used social network by many Filipinos. That day, you might have seen the slewof status updates from these Filipinos pertaining to the incident. They exchanged information, relayed valuable updates and called for help and donation through their Facebook status updates.
YouTube
Lastly would be the all time user-friendly youtube. People uploaded videos of flooded areas. These added to the urgency for a call to action and should the state of despair that all these people were in. If a pictures spoke a thousand words, then videos TALK.
