The scene was described as a “bomb going off on every floor” at Joplin Mercy Hospital as the tornado of May 22, 2011 was described by Barb Meyer, the Vice President of Marketing & Communications for Mercy Health Hospital, at the PIO Conference sponsored by the DC Emergency Health Coalition this past Friday.

I was blessed to hear Barb provide a very compelling presentation this past week which has some lessons learned for all of us.

For some brief background, Joplin Mercy Hospital was acquired in November 2009 by Mercy Hospitals which is the 6th largest Catholic health system in the United States. Barb described the acquisition as a “good fit” both culturally and strategically because it sat surrounded by a network of other Mercy Hospitals.

The tornado itself struck at 5:41 p.m. on May 22, 2011. The impact cut a path of destruction 22-miles long and 1-mile wide. At the time the tornado struck, there were 183 patients, of which 24 were in the ER, 28 were in the ICU and 1 patient was in surgery. There were also 117 workers on-site at the hospital. There were 6 fatalities in this incident of which 5 were ICU patients and 1 was a visitor to the hospital.

With regards to communications, social media served as a significant lifeline to the continuity of their operations.

They found the following to be true:

• Texting Worked: While communications was spotty or non-existent through other means, text messages were found to be most reliable.
• People Craved Information: Because many of the local residents had evacuated to other areas, they were seeking information about whether the hospital would be open to delivery babies, conduct surgery and other medical matters.  And while the internet may have been disrupted locally around Joplin, people who had evacuated to other areas had access to the internet and began asking questions quickly.
• Internal Employee Message was Critical: Even though many questions were being asked by outsiders, the key message that Joplin Mercy would rebuild and keep all of their employees was critical to the success of employees returning and volunteering to help out in many unanticipated ways.
• Creating a “Micro-Site” was Important:  Because there was so much incident-specific information, setting up an incident-specific website really helped them organize pertinent information about the status of the hospital and as a collection point for community donations.
• Response included a mix of traditional and non-traditional media tactics:  For example, with power down in the local area, announcing a press conference required generating a press release in St. Louis, printing it and delivering it by hand to the street full of media-trucks locally.

There were many challenges reported during this communications response which included:

• The sheer volume of media on the ground,
• Spotty telecommunications,
• Exhaustion of public relations staff who felt compelled to stay, but were tired, and
• Dealing with shock both from within the community and within their own staff.

One of the biggest surprises, however? The news media were, for the most part, patient and kind and were cooperative with the hospital.  It was shared that the grounds of the hospital were locked down to many for safety reasons, so when a set of pictures were shared by Mercy on FlicKr, they instantly went viral and continue to be the most popular photos of Joplin Mercy’s tornado devastation to this day.

The lessons learned from this event include the following:

• Have a crisis plan, but be flexible,
• Ensure that you have a coordinated communication/media team.  This helps in bringing resources to bear in large situations,
• Identify and prepare spokespersons, but adapt as necessary,
• Don’t underestimate the importance of celebrating milestones along the way.  For example, the temporary hospital was set up and celebrated one week to the day of the tornado.  Events like this helped their community move forward and illustrated key points of progress,
• Social media has forever changed how we communicate and what is news.  You can only influence, not control it,
• People demand hyper-transparency, and
• Listening, responding, influencing and adapting are very important in a social economy.

The story of Joplin Mercy Hospital reminds us that when traditional communication systems break down, social media can take on a significant role as a lifeline for information.  Don’t wait for your local disaster to learn this lesson.  Take the time to learn from others who know and are actively talking about their experiences.

There is a question that I like to ask agencies who call me asking for social media advice. It tells me a lot about how open they will be to using social media. It is simply this:

What is your risk tolerance?

Put another way, how comfortable are you with failing? If someone tells me that they have “zero tolerance” for failure, I know that they will be extremely nervous about using social media for the following reasons:

1. There haven’t been enough lawsuits yet or recommendations to spell out exactly how to be safe with social media,
2. The processes, policies and procedures have often been in flux for a period of time,
3. Technology evolves at a rate faster than they feel they can adapt to them, and
4. They don’t typically trust, and sometimes train, their employees on agency expectations or processes.

Anytime something is new in the world of emergency management, we should prepare for failure.  Every plan or procedure written must be tested, evaluated and applied under pressure so that its limits can be fully understood.  Social media is no different. As we learn new tools and figure out how to maximize the use of these tools, we must also be prepared to have them underwhelm and fail on us.

Today, we’ll share two small case studies in “tool failure” which have greater lessons.

First off, let’s talk about #SMEMChat archives.  For a number of months, we’ve been using TweetDoc to archive each of our Friday Twitter Chats.  This service has been consistent and an easy way to create archives of our regular chats.  This past week, however, @MaryJoFly and I noticed that all of the hyperlinks to the TweetDoc archives were broken and we hoped that this was a temporary situation.  But as days dragged on, it now appears that Tweetdoc is no longer a service that is alive.  The archives that were saved as .pdf versions or  from Storify are still available on our #SMEMChat webpage, but the Tweetdoc ones have been labeled.

So, we are on the search for anyone else who may have been archiving #SMEMChat.  If you have any Google Doc, Storifies or .pdf versions of the chats that are currently listed with (TweetDoc) on the #SMEMChat page, please let me know and I’ll be happy to swap out transcripts.

The second failure moment I’d like to share has to do with programs that work in the background that you don’t regularly log into or that rely on other accounts, like your Twitter account, for permissions.  I encountered an “ah-ha” moment recently with our paid archiving account.  Because this account runs in the background for my agency, it isn’t something we log into super regularly.  So, when we were checking out our Twitter account permissions to 3rd party applications, we didn’t realize that we had revoked permissions to our archiving agent.  The good news is that we caught this situation pretty quickly and fortunately, it wasn’t because of a public records request for the archives.

Both of these situation provide some basic social media lessons for others:

• Be prepared to adapt to changing technology.  Realize that technical application can go away and you may need to find alternate ways of doing business.
• If the data you are pulling is mission critical, have redundant methods for capturing the data.
• Check your 3rd party permissions regularly, both to catch permissions granted in error AND to be sure that background applications are working as you expect them to.
• Keep an eye on your archiving methods and regularly check them to ensure they are functioning well.

Nothing in an evolving world is going to work 100% of the time.  So, if you have a 0% risk tolerance, realize that you may need to become more comfortable with learning lessons and adapting to failures that are certain in a crisis-mission profession.

Winston Churchill is also credited with saying “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” 

Be comfortable with your failures. Be willing to flexibly find solutions. Share what you know with others. That is how we all learn.

Social media, again, was active with people sharing information about the crises as they unfolded and it continues to be interesting to watch how groups deal with the data available on social media.

The challenge, of course, becomes “how do you pool the available data, filter out the fake information and determine what new information might influence an action taken by a public agency?”

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to hear Emily Rahimi, the one-woman-Twitter-phenom of the @FDNY talk about her experience during Hurricane Sandy and how she gathered tweets from folks who couldn’t reach their local 9-1-1 agencies.  She shared that initially she directed folks to contact 9-1-1 and report their emergencies, but that it became apparently quickly that they had no other way to reach their local 9-1-1 agency.  So, she gathered as much information as she could and delivered it out to the appropriate dispatch centers.  And while Emily would be the first to say that this effort presented a number of challenges, it illustrates that social media is already seeping into our response efforts.

Next Generation 9-1-1 will ultimately draw together data and voice elements, but we are presently stuck in the middle of a transition that causes us to evaluate how we can most efficiently draw informative data into an effective response.

If you aren’t quite sure you see these challenges yet, the Department of Homeland Security’s Virtual Social Media Working Group just released a white paper on the Lessons Learned in Hurricane Sandy which is worth a read.  Three other documents, produced by the VSMWG, are also available within this blog post on the First Responder Communities of Practice.

So, how can you manage this transition time period?

• If you are an Emergency Manager, Public Information Officer, Planning Section Staff, Intel Analyst and/or Staff a Public Inquiry Center, you should get familiar with social media and what type of information exists in various types of platforms.  You should truly understand what it means to “monitor” Social Media.
• If you are an Emergency Manager, you should begin evaluating your local volunteer groups for their digital technology use. You will likely find some social media enthusiasts who could help your agency expand its understanding or serve as volunteers who could help you survey the local social landscape during an emergency.
• Understand the Virtual Operations Support Team (VOST) concepts and determine whether you should develop a similar local capability.
• Determine how different platforms can help demonstrate different messages.  For example, this past weekend, see how the Oklahoma VOST team used Pinterest to aggregate visual images at http://pinterest.com/vost1/okwx-may-31st/
• Consider whether a social filtering technology like Radian 6 and Signal would be useful in your area.  While these technologies require some fiscal investment, they may be useful if you are a large agency, in a large jurisdiction or have a lot of social traffic to filter.

Regardless of how your public safety agencies ultimately moves into using Next Generation 9-1-1 locally, it isn’t going to be an overnight phenomenon. (And if it is, I totally want to hear how your community did it!)  This leaves you several options:

• Ignore the data & messages that are already being shared in your communities,
• Understand the potential and begin networking with those who can help you in times of crisis when the message surge is at its highest,
• Take the time before the emergency to understand the possibilities, network and build capabilities that will help you manage the transition.

The truth is this….you will never know when a bridge will collapse in your local jurisdiction which will thrust you onto that national informational stage. But if you want to read all about what it might feel like, run over to Jim Garrow’s blog at “Face of the Matter” to read all about Marcus Deyerin’s experience with the fall of the Skagit Bridge.

I am super fortunate to know both of these gentlemen in real life, not because we shared cubicles, but because we met over Twitter initially and then, met in person.

The information, the tools and a community, much larger than your jurisdiction, is out there, just waiting for you to be interested in it.  Are you?

@CherylBle & @MaryJoFly meeting up in Los Angeles!

At least once a month, I meet up with folks that I have initially met on social media.

And whenever a person who isn’t familiar with social media overhears me say “I’m heading to a Tweet-Up,” I get some very strange reactions.

I’ve had people express concern for my safety, insist that I “check-in” with them upon arrival or return home, or just outright laugh at the thought of meeting strangers.

Ironically, as an Emergency Manager, I meet strangers all the time and no one expresses similar concerns. In fact, nearly every meeting I attend has people that are initially strangers to me.

So, let’s demystify a Tweet-Up.

It is usually comprised of the following elements:

• Attendees have either followed or befriended each other on social media,
• Typically, people follow or befriend others because they have an interest or communication style in common,
• People meet in an informal environment….usually over a beverage of some sort which differs with the time of day,
• People chat about their common interests or whatever is on their mind,
• And then, they part ways….just like any other networking group.

Sounds pretty normal, right?

There is one difference. Rarely have I found people exchanging business cards.

If they don’t already know each other, they usually trade Twitter handles or friend up on whatever platform the group is active on.  And yes, I’ve sat in Tweet-Ups where people connected on Linked In, Pinterest AND Facebook (and they have still been called Tweet-Ups, go figure).

What I love about tweet-ups is that, thanks to social media, I start the conversations already having connections with fun people which means that when we get to hang out “in real life,” we laugh, make memories and spawn ideas about future projects that get us all excited.

Sometimes, in our professions, we get into ruts and spend time around the same groups of people.

When is the last time you hung out with a fresh set of people?  Are you mixing it up enough to find those fresh ideas that make you excited about what you do?

If not, make it a point to spend some time networking.

Relationships Matter.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have found myself recommending online vacations to people that are so “connected” to breaking news that they are exhibiting signs of stress.

While the existence of social media provides us with faster and more information, it also requires that we be stay particularly in touch with both our own mental health and how it affects those around us. In the emergency response community, we are familiar with something called “Critical Incident Stress Management” which encourages defusing and debriefing people who are rocked by crisis situations.

But no one ever debriefs people who engage with critical incidents online.

So, as the community engages, chats online and supports our local response agencies, public agencies must stay in touch with how online sharing and communicating may result in new types of stress among those interacting with critical incident information.  As members of an online community, people may feel stress from:

• Too much information,
• Being overwhelmed,
• Feeling unable to turn the tide of concern or bad news,
• Dealing with the emotions and reactions of others, and
• Fatigue over time in seeking quality information.

It’s important as we involve ourselves in the world of online communications, we consider the importance of:

• Taking breaks away from the computer and being able to unplug from our devices and identities,
• Getting fresh air regularly,
• Incorporating physical activities like taking walks or being involved in sports,
• Ensuring quality food & water intake,
• Knowing the signs of mental stress, and
• Defusing and debriefing with your support network.

And while it may seem rudimentary to refresh ourselves on the signs and symptoms of stress, it is often hardest to see stress symptoms in our own lives. I work regularly with folks who can easily spot stress in the work of others, but when it comes to reflecting the mirror back on ourselves, it can result in blind spots that we are slow to admit.  And, it can be even harder to admit that online connectedness can result in stress.

While it may seem easy to say, “I saw this crisis situation and I AM STRESSED”….but it sounds different to say “I saw this crisis situation unfold on Twitter and it STRESSED me out” especially when hundreds of people may have seen the same information and not have the same stress reaction.

So, simple question…..do any of these symptoms of stress sound familiar when you engage online?

• Memory problems
• Inability to concentrate
• Paralysis in decision-making
• Seeing only negatives
• Anxiety
• Moodiness
• Irritability & agitation
• Overwhelmed
• Aches & pains
• Sleeping problems
• Procrastination
• Nervous habits
• Using alcohol & drugs to relax

If you are feeling any of these symptoms, know that you can and should reach out to people you trust to talk about these feelings.  It is okay to seek out professional help. Healthy emergency responders know that it takes a strong network to support the calling of helping others.  Because social media now truly involves the whole community, it is imperative that we all help each other as a community.  Stress is real and your virtual world can influence it.  Ensure that you break away to stay refreshed.

I had a fun conversation this past week with a friend of mine who is campaigning for public office. She said, “Hey, Cheryl, I’m finally using Twitter and I promise I’ll never tweet my lunch.”

To which I replied, “I think that’s a mistake.” She stopped, looked at me quizzically and said “Wait, what? Are you serious?” And I was.

Now before you comment and tell me I’m off my proverbial rocker, let me tell you what I told her.

People connect with all of us for various reasons on social media, right? Sometimes the reason people start conversations with us is because of the grand importance of the topic we are tweeting about, but for most conversations, they start with something even more basic: a human connection that catches our eye.

When people interact with you on social media, it is because something caught their eye within the 5 seconds their eye ran over your post (whether it be on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or something else). It might even be less than 5 seconds. We probably don’t really want to know how few seconds we have to connect with people before they move onto something more fun or visual.

The reason that food catches people is because we ALL eat, right? It isn’t that complicated really. Food is something that is apolitical, requires no belief, and resonates on an instinctual level. When you see a food picture at 1100 or 1600 hours (no matter what your timezone), you may actually salivate.

Food isn’t the only connector on social media, but it is one of the most popular with cute cats being a close second.

Now, if you are not a restaurant, I’m not suggesting that you focus on getting food pictures into your social media streams. What I want you to think about is “how do I connect with my target audience if my mission-focused posts aren’t catching their attention?”

Here are some thoughts for you to consider:

• When is the last time you shared a non-mission-specific post?
• What is the last FUN thing you shared?
• Are you sharing the content of others?
• Are there topics that are tangentially related to your mission that are fun?
• What do people really want to hear from your agency?  (Hint: Have you asked anyone recently what they would hope that your agency would share on its social sites?)

If you are sharing only “official” information, does it excite you?  Because if your content doesn’t resonate with others, it will never catch the eye of your audience.  It is not a terrible thing to share your lunch if it engages other people.

Once upon a time, I tweeted out a picture of a red stapler while we were cleaning out our offices.  It got more people talking on Twitter than any of my agency’s official messages.  My initial reaction was to tell my boss that I wanted to quit because I share emergency preparedness messaging all day long and no one really cares. But a picture of a red office stapler, which was also a pop-culture reference to the movie “Office Space” immediately resonated with people, tweeting from their offices.  It wasn’t emergency preparedness, but a whole group of new folks connected with our agency on Twitter because we shared something that caught their eye.

The small things can be important. Pay attention to what connects others with your agency. You might be surprised at what those things are.

Credited to the New York Times

This past week was historic for the use of social media in crisis.

And while many articles have already been written about the use of social media in the Boston Marathon bombing and the fertilizer explosion in West, Texas, I want to focus on the role for the rest of us.

If you are in a jurisdiction that is dealing with an incident of national significance, you are busy learning the following lessons:

• The world is watching and wants to help,
• Rumors will run rampant because people try to live-tweet scanners and news broadcasts in crisis events,
• Images and videos, no matter how graphic, will surface, and
• The amount of information available will become a sifting and sorting nightmare, but
• There is now little dispute that the use of social media can rapidly allow agencies to share information and employ the public as additional eyes and ears during significant events.

So, what should the rest of us, as fellow public safety agencies, do?

If you were outside of the immediate impact area, were you quiet on social media this past week or did you seek every opportunity to connect with your local community?

It is important to realize that despite geographic distance from these tragic events, they affect all of us.

Our local community members, no matter where they lived….

• Had loved ones in the local area that they were worried about.
• Tried to find any and all evidence that their loved ones were safe.
• Felt glued to the television or social media seeking the “latest” key information.
• Wondered what they would do if a bomb went off near them locally.
• Would like to know if there are emergency plans in place to deal with a similar situation locally.
• Weren’t sure how to report suspicious behaviors to local authorities. Do you call 9-1-1, FBI or file an online report with a Fusion Center?
• Heard the term “shelter-in-place” for the first time and didn’t know what that really meant.
• Wanted to know how they would be contacted by emergency responders and given critical information.
• Were feeling the weight of the crisis events and some may have felt emotionally fatigued, and
• Wanted to help others.

Granted not every community member falls into each of these categories, but the existence of social media now gives everyone the opportunity to share information, render emotional first aid and react to the world around them.

If you are a public safety agency who is involved in social media, this past week was an opportune time to show empathy, answer questions and provoke discussions around some of these key topics.

Here are some key thoughts:

• Acknowledging the crisis event, in some way, shows that your agency is tuned in and aware of national events.
• Empathetic statements can open up a community dialogue.
• It is always wise to provide reminders about not overloading phone lines, using text messages and use of the Red Cross Safe & Well Reporting website.
• Sharing information about your emergency plans or local resources are much more relevant during a time of crisis (and that window of opportunity evaporates quickly).
• You have a unique & local perspective.  Always be thinking, “what might be most interesting to my community right now?”
• If you pre-schedule any of your social media content, turn it off during an active crisis.  Nothing looks more insensitive than sending out irrelevant content.  Be authentic with your audience.

And, if you aren’t affiliated with a public safety agency, it’s good to revisit “How to Help When Disaster Strikes” to evaluate what is most helpful during crisis.

Crisis events show no prejudice and can affect all of us.  Whether it happens in front of us on the streets or breaks out online while we are watching, consider how you can be of value to those around you.  Like CPR/First Aid, being ready to effectively share on social media requires an understanding of how you can help and a willingness to do it.  Be willing.

This coming Tuesday, April 23rd, from 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. PDT, I will be speaking more about social media content development both in crisis and during peacetime.

• We are aiming to stream this session via USTREAM.TV although as technology goes, I always figure that the odds are about 50/50 that something could go wrong, but keep your fingers crossed (and accept my early apologies if it fails to be perfect).
• The hashtag for this event will be #smPDX so feel free to follow along on Twitter.
• If you live near Portland, Oregon, you can attend this event in person by registering at this location  http://regionalpio.eventbrite.com/

This morning, I finished an 8K run/walk called the “Bridge to Brews.” This race takes you over the tallest bridge in Portland called the Fremont Bridge (pictured above) and back over the Broadway Bridge (which is the first bridge in the picture).

Now, if you know me, I’m the most unlikely of athletes. I have short legs and am severely overweight which makes me one of the slowest people in any race. Over the past couple of years, I’ve entered 3-4 races a year, including my first half marathon last December.

Race experiences fascinate me as a sociologist. Every runner and walker is different, but they are all on their own individual journeys. And, while it may seem easy for some, races are primarily mental games. Whether you are trying to beat your personal record or just find the motivation to finish each race, you must jump a number of mental hurdles.

Those hurdles can include:

• Not feeling ready (a person can always work out more to prepare themselves, right?),
• Tough weather (last night, the wind gusted locally to 60 miles per hour and rain was scheduled to pour all day today….this was a tough hurdle for this “fair weather walker”),
• Hitting a wall (getting to a point where you aren’t sure you can continue on due to pain, past injuries, or finding a hill that just seems too steep),
• Falling behind the pack (being discouraged at the possibility of being last….while I’m totally comfortable going at my own pace, I watched several talk themselves out of continuing before they finished their 2nd mile), or….
• Feeling comfortable not being challenged (many people never even enter a race because they’d rather do something else, right?)

I’m not saying that everyone should race, but as I pushed through each of these hurdles today, it struck me that these challenges are so similar to what many agencies face as they seek to implement social media.  The exact excuses I see, hear and try to use about racing are the same excuses that so many in leadership use to avoid supporting or committing to use of social media.

Even in some of the best “user” agencies of social media, I see leaders give tacit support to 1 or 2 people using social media, but don’t actively support it.  While 1-2 champions of social media in an agency can work magic, an agency culture will change significantly and become more open when the leadership actively supports its use and development.

If you sit in a leadership position, you should work to actively engage with your social media champions. You may never feel completely “ready” for the journey of social media and you may find it challenging to stay motivated, but find a rhythm to your learning and engagement.  Even if you never use social media as an individual, learn about how to use it. Actively talk about how and what to share with your constituents. Reflect often on what key messages the public should be hearing from your agency regularly.

I grow concerned when I hear that the only time some public safety agencies share information with the public is during an emergency.  While communicating in crisis is important, building relationships with your community is always better done when stuff isn’t hitting the fan. Trade those business cards AND Twitter handles before disaster strikes and become passionate about communicating with your public.

The starting horn has already sounded and racers are running to keep up with the pace of technology. Are you still sleeping or are you wearing a race bib, looking at the next mile marker?

And while a number of great links and sample policies were shared, I thought it might be of value to talk about some of the key components you might want to consider if you happen to be tasked with drafting such a policy for a public agency.

First of all, know the difference between a policy and a procedure.

A “policy” or ”directive” governs agency behavior at a relatively strategic level.  You may already have some policies and directives in your agency that simply should be amended to include social media forms of communication.  Keep these as open-ended and non-tech specific as possible.  In order to keep your policies relevant and flexible, identify the type of sharing generically with words like ”messaging”, “social networking”, “picture-based platforms” and “video-based platforms”.

For example, in my agency, we reviewed both our “Electronic Communications” and our “Privacy/Confidentiality” directives.  Both of these policies already outlined expectations for employee conduct, information-sharing and privacy expectations among personnel.

A “procedure” covers the “how we do social media” more specifically.  Procedures or protocols can identify platforms specifically. Though, the more specific you are, the more regularly your procedure will need to be review to ensure it continues to be relevant.

Procedures should identify:

• The parameters of social media use among employees (which should directly relate to your agency’s goals or purpose in using social media),
• Who speaks on behalf of the agency,
• When messages require additional approval or review,
• What is considered “confidential information” that should not be shared (this may include HIPPA issues, identity-based information or other products created in your work environment)
• Your agency’s methods for archiving and ensuring social records are available for public discloure,
• Your agency’s “take-down” criteria for removing or deletion of social content.

There were some policy samples shared during Friday’s chat which include:

• The International Association of Police Chief’s Model Social Media Policy
• Fire/EMS Social Media Policy
• 10 guidelines for Social Media Policies

Also, on the “Getting Started” page of this blog, you’ll find 3 wiki’s that have many different social media policy samples for many different types of organizations.  Find one you like and use it as a base for your agency.

After you get your social media policy and/or procedures developed, there are few other things to consider in their implementation:

• Train your employees.  Not just once, but over and over again.  In fact, the more conversations you have about your social media policies, the more your agency will ensure that it stays relevant to the behaviors and ways employees might be interacting with social media.
• Be clear about how to report emergencies.  If you are an emergency response agency, ensure that all of your social sites clearly identify how your residents can report emergencies.  Because you’ll never want to give the impression that your sites are monitored 24/7 unless your social sites truly are monitored around the clock and information is shared with response personnel.
• Plan to review your social media policies regularly.  I would recommend reviewing these policies annually to see if your goals, behaviors and/or social media expectations have changed.  It is not uncommon for agencies to begin rather restrictively and then become more flexible as their comfort level improves with social sharing.

If, however, you want to jump right into the world of social media with a very open-minded policy, read through two of my favorites: The Navy and the Air Force Social Media Handbooks.

Remember, you aren’t the first person to be tasked with writing a social media policy.  And, just like the world of technology, your agency policies and procedures will be very dynamic. Think about how you want personnel and volunteers to represent the values and mission of your agency in social spheres.  Your reputation is worth it.