Social media presents both challenges and opportunity for those concerned with getting the word out about disasters and crime. The Emergency Broadcast System, for instance, has recently made the leap into mobile. Now, the latest innovation in crisis communications is the sharing of Amber Alerts on Facebook.
Amber Alert is an international system to broadcast child abduction notices via television, radio, email, mobile and other media. Extending it to the most popular social network in the world makes sense.
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To get Amber Alerts via Facebook, go to the Amber Alert Facebook page and “like” the Alert for your state. It is also available for Puerto Rico, D.C. and the Virgin Islands, as well as the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Ontario and Newfoundland.
Information in an Amber Alert includes descriptions of the victim and, if available, the abductor, description and license plate of vehicle involved, and time and place of abduction.
The penetration of Facebook well past early and even secondary adopters, to your parents and grandparents, make it a powerful tool for such outreach. Almost 28,000 people like the main page but only about 1,500 like the Oregon Amber Alert page, as an example. So it needs to build some to become truly effective.
Amber Alert is named after Amber Hagerman, a Texas girl whose abduction and murder remain unsolved.
Additional sources: Lost Remote
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