Social Media & Digital Marketing in Singapore

Twitter And The Singapore “Earthquake”

Today at around 6:30pm I felt like my computer screen was swaying in front of my eyes and attributed it fatigue. Until my colleague across the table asked if I felt a tremor.

For a second I wondered if it was just my building, then I glanced at my Tweetdeck and realised people all over Singapore were feeling it too. Many were asking if they were the only ones who felt it, what happened and the like.

So I followed up with a few tweets to connect the information:

I think it helped people to know it wasn’t just their area that was affected, but that it was pretty much an island-wide event. I know I certainly felt like I had access to knowledge of what was happening, although the source of the tremors (later revealed to be an earthquake in Indonesia) was not known yet.

After that I tweeted this:

I think the power today came not in accuracy or “reporting” the facts, but in connecting people with information to let them know what’s happening. It wasn’t so much to know the “facts” but to verify that you/we/us were not experiencing it as an isolated incident and other people, fellow citizens, are experiencing it too.

You think about other emergencies as big as last year’s Mumbai attacks or something as small as a fire in a school and how these technologies really help put people – in some cases total strangers – in contact with each other and the impact can really be felt.

How did you hear about the tremors? Did being connected (or not connected) help?