What is important to measure when adopting social media in emergency management?

Engagement insights on your posts are critical in emergency management as they indicate how effectively your messages resonate with the audience and foster community interaction. High engagement levels, such as likes, shares, comments, and retweets, reflect that your content is not only reaching people but also prompting them to interact with it. This interaction can be crucial during emergencies, as it helps gauge public sentiment, spread vital information rapidly, and mobilize community support.

In contrast, while follower count can be a metric of popularity, it does not necessarily correlate with the effectiveness of communication during a crisis. Ad impressions and reach are useful for understanding how far content travels but do not measure the quality of that interaction. Content variety can enhance engagement but is not itself a measure of effectiveness. Therefore, measuring engagement provides actionable insights that help refine communication strategies to ensure that messages are impactful and reach the intended audience during emergencies.