With the one-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy just days away, millions of New Jersey and New York residents are reflecting back on the horrific events of October 29 and 30, 2012. When the sun rose on that fateful Tuesday morning, we were witness to scenes of destruction that most of us had only seen in movies.
In the immediate aftermath of Sandy, NJSCPA staff learned two lessons: communication with staff and members was paramount, and we couldn’t count on traditional communications systems to help us meet our needs.
Sandy knocked out power in Roseland, shutting down the Society’s servers and leaving us without a working website or email communication. We were cut off from our members – or so we initially thought. We quickly jumped on our smartphones and tablets and turned to the only communications mediums still available to us – social media and texting. Our first updates went out via our Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages. Smartphones were the lifelines between staff making critical decisions about CPE programming and member updates. All of this was accomplished remotely – from our living rooms, friends’ kitchens or accounting firms with power.
Within a couple of days, thanks to other state CPA societies and several vendors, we were able to piece together a communications plan that enabled us to provide updates via our Connect site and send emails to members. One week after the storm hit we were back in our office and things started to return to normal. But we were all forced to ask ourselves, “How could we prepare better next time?”
For NJSCPA staff, it meant taking a hard look at our own Disaster Recovery Plan and determining what worked and what didn’t. The plan was updated to include provisions for using social media in a crisis, and we set out to train staff and Society members on how to use social media for business or the next time disaster struck.
In February 2013, training was conducted for staff on Connect, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. That internal training series was then turned into a professional social media series for members. And we’ve also developed a weekly video series providing social media tips.
So whether you’re already using social media for business purposes or are ready to get started, we hope these resources will be useful: