Social Media Monitoring during Humanitarian Crises - Lessons Learned

Author(s)
Lüge, T.
Publication language
English
Pages
15pp
Date published
21 Sep 2015
Type
Lessons papers
Keywords
Accountability and Participation, Participation, Comms, media & information, Disasters, Earthquakes, Complaints and feedback mechanisms
Countries
Nepal
Organisations
Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS)

This document summarises the experiences of the pilot social media monitoring project set up to following the 25 April earthquake in Nepal, and draws out key lessons learned and recommendations. It was informed by a lessons learned workshop in Nepal as well as interviews and email exchanges with members of the project and external recipients of project’s reports.

Carried out in English and Nepali, and operating from 1 June to 27 August, social media monitoring was part of ACAPS support to the Nepal Earthquake Assessment Unit. Insights gained through social media (mainly Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and blogs) and national media monitoring were intended to feed into the “Communication with Communities” (CwC) project.
Issues of main interest were:

  • needs, concerns, developing trends and emerging risks among the affected population; and
  • conversations related to the quality and accessibility of aid.

The ACAPS team in Nepal produced fortnightly monitoring reports, covering the period from 17 June to 14 August. At the request of OCHA, distribution of these documents was limited.