With so many disasters going on like hurricanes in Florida and the Caribbean, wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, and an earthquake in Mexico the Facebook Crisis Response (formerly known as Safety Check) has become even more important.

So what is the Facebook Crisis Response?

It is a feature on Facebook that allows you to communicate to family and friends that you are safe during a crisis or disaster in your region. It also allows you to see if your family and friends are safe.

The way it works is if Facebook sees people posting about an incident in a certain region they will activate the Crisis Response feature. If you are in this area, you’ll receive a prompt to go to Crisis Response to notify friends you are safe. You can also see if friends have marked themselves as safe and can invite friends to go to Crisis Response. You can also offer help to those in need.

Now here’s how to find it:

Desktop

From the main page, look at the left hand column of options. Select See More. From there scroll down to Crisis Response and select it.

Mobile App

Click on the Menu which is at the top on the right side (it is represented by three horizontal lines). Scroll down to Crisis Response and select it.

If you are in an affected area, Twitter is another social media channel you can use to stay updated.  This is because so many people, agencies and organizations see and use Twitter as an “in the moment” type platform. This has made Twitter a great resource to get news and updates of what’s happening.

It’s important to follow certain organizations that would be able to provide meaningful updates in a time of crisis. Here are a few that could help:

• RCMP
• Public Safety Canada
• Local authorities: Police, Fire, Premier’s Office, Mayor’s Office, Provincial and Local agencies tasked with handling the emergency
• Local utilities
• National and local news agencies

Be sure to find these organizations on Twitter and Facebook and follow them. I’ve gone a step further and created a Twitter list called Emergency News. It has all the local authorities relevant to my city.

Conclusion

My hope is you never ever have to use the information in this article but if you do find yourself in a crisis, first get yourself to a physical safe area before updating your social media channels. Stay safe, friends.

This article was updated on September 27, 2017 to reflect the name change from Safety Check to Crisis Response.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Trites is a Social Media Consultant and Owner of Knockout Social Media