This is a guest post from EmergencyLand.com founder Susan Tellem about promoting your organization’s EMS Week activities. If you want to guest post or review on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Every day in the US, there are hundreds of special events and occasions that are promoted through the press and social media. While all may not be considered noteworthy or as important as EMS Week – American Idol Dolly Parton Week or National Clean off Your Desk Day, for example – the prize goes to the group that does the best promoting in a strategic way. You don’t have to have a lot of money to gain exposure, just some clever ways to create buzz for your special week.

We have worked on major projects like the Pope’s visit toLos Angelesand the Michael Jackson molestation trial. But we have also directed many tiny projects that no one would have heard about had the organizers not thought about expanding their reach through PR and social media. While we helped these small clients garner some great buzz, you can do the same yourself by following these 10 simple steps.

1. Draft a press release. Stick to one page, space and a half, following the who, what, where, why and how rule. There are sample press releases all over the net – Google the word press release and copy the style, but make sure you have someone proof it so that typos and incorrect grammar are fixed. And please – drop that “For Immediate Release” forever.
2. If you are doing an media event, write a media advisory – same rules as a press release, but add, date, time, special guests, location, parking, contacts and “visuals” (like an ambulance, patient drills, etc.), especially if you want TV to show up,
3. Create a media list. Most PR agencies subscribe to expensive media lists, but you don’t have to. Call your chamber of commerce or your city government offices and ask them for a list. You can also Google your city and “newspapers,” etc. Watch local TV to find reporters that you think might like the story and listen to local radio to do the same.
4. Send media information about EMS week in advance – usually 6 – 8 weeks in advance for newspapers, three months for magazines and 1-2 weeks for TV and radio.
5. Set up a Facebook page just for the event and start asking friends and family to “like it.” Facebook also has a “causes” section for nonprofits.
6. Ask local politicians to attend your event or to support it with a commendation.
7. If you have a blog, be sure to start talking up your plans with ways that people can participate. Write a “Ten Tips” blog on how to observe the week or ways to stay safe.
8. If you have a local celebrity – this can be anyone from a real celebrity who grew up in your town to a sports star from the local college – ask them to help promote the week by speaking to local media or making guest appearances at events around town handing out materials about the week.
9. Draft a fact sheet about what EMS week means and why people should care. Put it at city hall and the library – places where people converge.
10. Set up a table or get a booth at a local farmer’s market, church, shopping mall or wherever crowds gather and tell people about the week and what they can do o help. Make sure that you have someone take a photo of you and your team at the event or distributing flyers so that you can send it to the local newspaper to get some coverage about the importance of EMS week.

Susan M. Tellem, APR, RN is a partner with Tellem Grody Public Relations, Inc. (www.tellemgrodypr.com), a public relations, marketing and social media agency. Tellem is a registered nurse (retired); Los Angeles Police Department Reserve Officer Specialist (retired); a member of Malibu’s Community Emergency Response Team; and Malibu Public Safety Commissioner. With public safety as a major avocation, Tellem launched www.emergencyland.com in 2010 to act as a clearinghouse for the public and first responders of timely public health and safety information. Follow her on Twitter @susantellem and @emergencyland.

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Google+ is Google’s foray into social networking and how to use it for business is the topic of Google+ for Business by marketing expert and social media evangelist Chris Brogan. In the book, which I read on my Kindle Fire, Chris overviews Google+ with a focus on business. Considering the challenge of writing a book during the infancy of the social network I thought the book capably reviewed the features of Google+ while teaching principles that are applicable to any social network.

Be Friendly

Chris writes, “People do business with people they like.” To succeed with social network it is paramount to be friendly, personable, and share content that matters to your audience. Finding the right mix of business and personal probably depends a lot on the industry, audience, and product.

Key Points

The points that Chris reinforced with examples and interviews throughout the book were:

• Share links, videos, articles, and updates that are interesting and relevant to your audience
• Listen to the conversation about your market and product
• Add value to the conversation with insights and expertise

Have a Set of Rules of Engagement

Chris advocates for a set of rules of engagement for employees that are going to be using Google+ and other social networks for business. “Rules of

Engagement” is another way of having a policy. I recently wrote on the whether the rules of engagement should permit fire and EMS personnel to post photos in uniform or with department vehicles or equipment.

The rules of engagement will vary for your industry or organization and should trend towards sharing, connecting, and focusing efforts. I am regularly fine tuning my personal rules of engagement for social media usage. After reading I have renewed focus for my online activities. I want to ensure my online identity matches with my self-identity. I see myself as a content creator, educator, paramedic, and marathon runner. I want to ensure that is the identity my online connections are seeing as well.

Are you on Google+? I would be glad to add you to my EMS Circle. 

Links

• Greg Friese on Google+
• Chris Brogan Google Plus
• More books for the Everyday EMS Reader

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Are you ready for 2012? In this month’s edition of posts outside the service area I share some of my favorite posts from the month and resolutions associated with the post. Enjoy and Happy New Year!

EMS Blog Resolution: Jim Hoffman, the EMS Professional, loves EMS bloggers. He shares some of his favorite EMS blogs and also lets you in on a 12 lead ECG secret. Jim regularly shares tips, resources, links, and products that help him as a paramedic and I am sure you will find helpful as well.

2012 Resolution: Share your favorite tips, resources, products, study aids, and more with other EMS students and professionals. You can share on your blog (or as a guest blogger), share with your social networks, share with your colleagues in a simple poster in the break room, or share in a conference presentation.

Celebrate and Encourage Resolution: One of the risks of being a content creator is feedback from readers/viewers. In the age of the internet I am perplexed why readers/viewers would bother reading all the way to the end of an article to write a comment that they didn’t like the article. Over at Looking through the Handle of a Pair of Pink Trauma shears the blogger/paramedic shares a quick story about a bad review comment she received on an EMS World Article.

2012 Resolution: Celebrate and encourage your colleagues that take the risk to share their knowledge, experience, skills, and time in print or video.

Social Media Resolution: I am fond of saying social media is a tool for good and not necessarily a nefarious tool for evil. Dave Konig, the Social Medic, shares how EMS professionals are using social media as a tool for good to help other social media professionals in need. Serving our communities and our colleagues speaks to the greatest potential for social media, to give back.

2012 Resolution: Use social media for a tool for good. Share with your community the events and causes that you support.

EMS Education Resolution: Dan Limmer shares an idea to take new students to an assisted level facility to do a series of vital sign checks and patient histories. Repetition is clearly important to skill proficiency and getting lots of reps in a short time is even better.

2012 Resolution: Create opportunities for your EMT and Paramedic students to assess lots and lots of patients that are as close to “real” patients as possible.

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News video of paramedics in Texas that responded to a school shooting.

A few thoughts:

1. After a high profile incident does your service issue a statement to local media about the EMS response?

2. Do you contact local media and invite them to interview responders?

3. Use social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to engage with local media.

4. Train with local law enforcement and school officials on shootings at schools.

5. Pre-plan a television interview location, props, and staff attire. I like the set-up in the video. High visibility of the service with a clean ambulance and well dressed and sharp looking paramedics.

6. Make sure to link to videos from your department Facebook page and embed in the agency blog.

Anything else come to mind for you after watching?

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I have been reading some great content about social media and emergency responder organizations.

Social Media Discipline During Firefighter Injury or Line of Duty Death
Many of us share the highs and lows of life through Facebook. Last week after making phone calls and private emails to my closest friends and family I shared on Facebook the passing of my beloved yellow lab. It seemed natural for me to share this down moment with the broader community that knew me and also knew that being a dog owner is a part of my self-identity.

Because Facebook has become so ingrained in our daily lives it is a natural place for us to share tragedy, ask for prayers, and solicit for additional information. The Fire Critic has written an excellent post about Social Media Discipline. Ask your crews or companies to read this post and then discuss how you will honor one another and the chain of command by using social media discipline should a colleague become seriously injured or killed in the line of duty.

Also every organization should have a LODD standard operating guidelines, policy or checklist. And just like any other significant incident that might befall your organization practice the LODD SOG. In the tabletop exercise make sure to include:

• Use of checklists
• Notification of next of kin
• Notification of on-duty crews
• Moving up resources
• Preparation of a statement for the local media
• Implementation of any occupational health procedures like drug testing
• Activation of counseling services
• Posting updates to the organization blog and Facebook page
• Directions to all staff on social network sharing

This is just a partial list for the first few hours. What else would you add to a line of duty death tabletop exercise?

Also check out this interview with Tonya Silloway about the LODD Handbook for EMS on the Medical Author Chat podcast.

2012 Social Media Predictions for Emergency Responder Agencies

Dave Konig, co-founder of PIOSocialMediaTraining.com, looks into his crystal ball and makes some very astute predictions for Social Media for Emergency Responder Agencies in 2012. If your agency is still on the fence about social media I agree with Dave that it is not a passing fad that you will be able to simply wait out. It is hear to stay.

I have noticed the changing tone within EMS about social media based on the speaking requests I am getting for 2012. In the past requests were typically “how can our agency stop social media usage?” or “how do I control the message?” Now conference organizers are telling me, our constituents have to get involved in social media. They ask, “How can they do it effectively and communicate value to their community.”

Is your agency changing its tone about social media usage? 

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At the PIO Social Media Training blog I wrote about how to resolve or end a Facebook Rant or Complaint with a terminal comment with the goal of resolving the complaint and ending comments with out deleting the comment or blocking the user.

Fortunately at the Everyday EMS Tips blog I rarely have complaints or negative comments, but I know that EMS agencies Facebook pages can receive comments from disappointed visitors.

How do you resolve complaints on your social media accounts? 

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I had a tip published at EMS1.com a few weeks ago, Patient Assessment is a Non-Linear Process. Check it out and share your thoughts.

Facebook Comments on EMS1.com

I also wanted to highlight that EMS1.com has implemented the Facebook comments plug-in. Their previous comment system was pretty clunky and not always browser friendly. With the Facebook system my Facebook profile is shown as the comment source and I receive notifications of new comments in Facebook. I like the fact that identities of comment writers are more obvious. I am not a big fan of comments from handles like EMT9756 or BloodStainedMedic. I think we should all own our words with our own identity. This system also keeps writers from hiding behind “anonymous.”

On the flip side this will probably increase my Facebook friend requests and make it more important than ever for me to assign Facebook “friends” to lists.

What do you think of the Facebook comment system? 

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A few weeks ago I received my evaluations from participants in my two sessions at EMS World Expo 2011. I presented two sessions:

• Trends in Online Emergency Responder Education (view the slides)
• Using Social Media to Market your EMS Agency (view the slides)

EMS World Expo 2011

The evaluation scores and comments are about what I expected. I thought I would share the responses to the question “Are there any sessions or topics you would like to see added for for future events?” as this might inspire you to submit for EMS World Expo 2012 in New Orleans, LA.

Trends in Online Emergency Responder Education attendees wrote:

• Is online training good for your department?
• How to develop an online training session (framework)
• Would like to see a session that actually teaches you/works with student on how to use technology of online EMS education. Tools, tricks, etc.
• More classes on e-learning (all aspects: CE, initial, etc.)
• More EMS Leadership training
• Empact provider course

Using Social Media to Market your EMS Agency attendees wrote:

• How to build your social media presence from scratch
• Hands-on class about how to set up, upload and tag photos
• More social media sessions
• More social media usage topics

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I am convinced that in the workplace any incident of wrong doing – cheating, stealing, etc. – is always witnessed or realized by a co-worker. The part I have never understood is the lengths individuals will go to either pretend what they know is happening is not happening or protect someone that is clearly violating rules, ethics, or individuals. I just don’t get it.

Paramedic Bob Sullivan, at the EMS Patient Perspective, reminded us early in the month about how important it is to Do the Right Thing.

Brandon Otto shared a great set of notes and observations from the Western Massachusetts EMS Conference. As a speaker I would be thrilled to see if an attendees notes matched the key points I was trying to make.

The Rogue Medic uses his impressive skills in medical illustration to explain Why CPR Doesn’t Work for Trauma.

Jamie Davis, the Podmedic, interviews author Sandra Crowe about her book, Since Strangling is Not an Option. Oddly the holidays often remind us and lead to encounters with the most difficult people in our life. Get some tips from Jamie and Sandra.

David Konig, the Social Medic, shares 6 tips for EMS coverage at special events. I want to know if the wrestlers are really hurt of if that is part of the act. Do you know?

BetsyDuck at the Rescue Digest Blog explains how Keynote presentations at EMS conferences helps us know who we are and know about the group we belong to.

Do you know what you want to do after being a paramedic? This EMS1.com article shares 9 Reasons Why Nursing Should be Your Next Career Move.

Remember one of the best places to find blogs by paramedics is Paramedic.Alltop.com.

What were your favorite blog posts from November? What would you like to read more about? 

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Blog.CentreLearn.com – My day job is being the Director of Education for CentreLearn Solutions. I add about two posts a week to the CentreLearn blog and manage our social media accounts.

Top Questions about CL Courses for Firefighters, Paramedics, and EMTs

Build your own Online Training Content

FDA Drug Safety Communication on Zofran – this article was contributed by paramedic Steve Cole. It is packed with information.

Medical Author Chat – on the EMSBlogs.com network I host the Medical Author Chat podcasts. Episodes are infrequent. When I can I also add posts related to my enjoyment of reading and writing.

Interview with Dr. Benjamin Luft about We’re Not Leaving about the initial and long-term response at the World Trade Center on 9/11.

My review of We’re Not Leaving.

Recent reads and news will bring you up to speed on my late summer and early fall reading list. I also announce taking the tablet plunge and pre-ordering an Amazon Kindle Fire.

EMS1.com

How are you doing in EMT Class? Use the ideas in this article to assess your progress. Self Assessment: Tracking Your Progress in EMT Class.

A new Everyday EMS Tip at EMS1.com on using Slideshare for EMS.

EMSEduCast

Rob Theriault and I helped Bill Toon by presenting at workshop for Kansas EMS educators. The workshop was repeated on three consecutive days. Rob recorded our 3rd session which was about teaching EMS and technology. You can view our recorded presentation.

PIOSocialMediaTraining.com

Some ideas on how a public safety agency can use an auto responder email campaign.

Loving the Run Blog

I shared my tips for running while on business or leisure travel at the Loving the Run Blog.

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