This week i went to Auckland for the New Zealand Social Media Forum, Hoping to get some new and exciting ideas and improve how we currently use Social Media at GeoNet to get our information to you.
Having great snacks was a great start!
A wee bit on how we started out in Social Media
We started out using Twitter and Facebook in early 2010 to ask for photos and experiences following the 2010 Chile tsunami, and added automatic earthquake information. Then September 4th happened!
GeoNet quickly became a household name and our followers on social media began to grow. At this time i noticed that people had started asking questions on FaceBook - which at the time it was just running itself and no one was actually monitoring it. So I took this to my managers and they let me take it over!
This turned out to be a lot harder than I ever imagined but looking back I'm glad that I took it on.
Now
our Facebook and Twitter accounts are still running strong and we have videos on YouTube, photos on Flickr and of course blogs :-) 
And today i have set up an account on Instagram so look for 'GeoNetNZ' and tag #GeoNet on your hazard photos 
Why share with us
Getting photos and videos and observations from the public during large events allows us to better understand the effects across the nation. With tsunami, the knowledge of what they have done to New Zealand in the past helps to verify the computer simulations we are now able to perform. As there is not a lot of historical data, recent tsunami are opportunities for us to add to that long-term knowledge. When the volcanoes erupt we can get great photos from the public, last year we even had a few that let the volcanologists to see new features that they hadn't seen yet. It's also a great way to see exactly how far ash has spread.
Future
We are still working on improving our GeoNetQuake App, developing a Volcano App and we look forward to adding intensity picture-based 'felt it' reporting to our app later in the year, instead of completing a form you will be able to click on a picture!
I will also be keeping an eye on other social media platforms out there, and maybe joining GeoNet up. And let me know of other places you would like to see us!
