Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
I have been using some sort of social media for years. I haven’t always used social media for firefighting, EMS, Networking though. I originally started out on myspace and have since discontinued the use of myspace for what I think is a more professional and all around better choice of the two.
My post today is about utilizing social media to learn, network, and grow as a Firefighter, EMT, or First Responder.
In my opinion, there aren’t nearly enough of us using social media to its fullest. If you look at the traffic of blogs, followers of some of the best Fire/EMS Twitter users, message boards…Whatever you use to measure the amount of users there is a lot of room for improvement in numbers!
This includes
- blogs
- facebook, myspace, FirefighterNation, JEMS Connect, linkedin, twitter, youtube, flickr, etc.
- forums/message boards
I would imagine most firefighters can direct you to Firehouse.com. It was the first and I am sure it remains the most popular.
But how many can direct you to great daily reads like FireGeezer.com or STATer911.com. I realize those are just two great Fire Blogs and there are so many other great ones.
How many EMT/Paramedics know about Mediccast or TheEMTSpot? How many visit regularly to read the great content?
How many have harnessed the capability of Twitter? How many people realize that they can follow their favorite blogs on Twitter and pick and chose what they want to read by title.
Many of the Fire/EMS Bloggers feed their RSS feed directly to their Twitter account. This means that every time they post a new entry on their blog, the title and url (link directly to the post) are posted to their twitter account.
I have tried (as others have too) to provide a decent explanation of what Twitter is and how you can use it to benefit you the firefighter and/or EMT.
This is a list of just some Fire/EMS Bloggers who you can also follow on Twitter (Blog url – Twitter User url).
- The Happy Medic – @TheHappyMedic
- Inspector911.com – @Inspector911
- EMSEdUCast.com – @EMSEducast
- PIOSocialMediaTraining.com – @PIOSMTraining
- EPS411.com – @gfriese
- VAFireNews.com, VAEMSNews.com, VirginiaFireEMSJobs.com – @FireFleitz
- STATter911.com – @Statter
- FireNews.net – @FireNews
- Mediccast.com – @PodMedic
- FireDaily.com – @FireDaily
- FireGroundVideo.com – @FireGroundVideo
- FirefighterCloseCalls.com – @TheSecretList
- HoopieWorld.com – @HoopieWorld
- EverydayEMStips – @everydayemstips
I follow these guys and I suggest you should too. If you don’t have a twitter account, set one up at twitter.com and start following these guys immediately. You will be amazed at the amount of information that is communicated on Twitter. Just another way of staying in touch with the ever changing Fire/EMS Service!
As I said, these are just some examples. Feel free to add yours in the comments section!
