This is a special edition of the Communities That Convert podcast.

We just went through an unbelievable experience. So we decided to record our thoughts and share them with you. We survived Hurricane Harvey and the effects it had on the Houston area.

In this episode, we’d like to share our thoughts on connecting with your community when YOU are in crisis.

Episode Highlights:

• Social media plays an important role during a disaster.
• Understand when to pause your social media. Buffer made it easy for us to pause our accounts during Harvey.
• See article: How to Pause Your Buffer Queue (feature only available on the Awesome and Business plans)
• We both paid close attention to social media and noticed helpful hashtags popping up during Harvey:

#Harvey

#Harvey2017

#HarveyStorm

#HarveyFlood

#HarveyRecovery

#HoustonStrong

• If you’re not in immediate danger, there are ways you can help out others. Kami categorized these into 4 different buckets of response:
• Initiators — People organizing their own outreach efforts: rescues, shelters, housing people.
• Aggregators — People organizing on the fly with Interactive maps of shelters, donation points.
• Amplifiers — People who share what other people have created.
• Participants — People who volunteer when requested. They responded to the initiators, aggregators and amplifiers.
• During a time of crisis, stay tuned to your local media — tv, radio, etc — for the latest updates.
• Use Facebook’s “disaster check-in” to let your friends know that you’re okay.
• Important — Take breaks from your computer and tv. Take a mental break. Clear your mind.

How to Connect with Us:
Go to communitiesthatconvert.com to connect! You can also reach us on Twitter twitter.com/madalynsklarand twitter.com/kamichat.