We think social media is really important for emergency notification (Hyper-Reach lets you integrate with multiple feeds for both Twitter and Facebook. But social media has its issues. This post was put out by @CambridgeMABuzz, part of the “Breaking News Network” and was based on a page on the city’s website. Why they picked it up today and sent it is a mystery (we’ve asked).
The page on Cambridge’s site had no date, so that’s not helpful.
Lesson learned: If you’re going to put out news on your website, clearly date the post, so if someone picks it up later than is useful, you can at least head off confusion. Better yet, use your Facebook or Twitter feed or blog site to post news stories, then display them on a window on your home page. That way, dates are automatically displayed and you’ll get double coverage (your social media account and your home page) of your news items with a single posting.
