Social Media

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Whos telling your story?
Engage your citizensusing Social Media
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Issues important to you (govt officials)
Issues important to your citizens

• Recreation
• Events
• Schools (maintenance, levies, staffing)
• Road construction (potholes, orange barrels up
  too long, etc.)
• City-sponsored efforts (recycling, smoke alarm
  day, safety training, CPR training)
• Building codes (direction on installing fences,
  decks, electrical wiring, etc.)
• Traffic updates / road closings
• Emergency updates (snow storms, tornadoes,
  electrical outages, chem spills)
• Policy research (what issues are on upcoming
  ballots?)

• Responsible spending of tax revenue
• Infrastructure
• Planning and development
• Emergency services
• Delivery of basic services
• Disaster planning and recovery
• Crisis management

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Benefits of engaging citizenry

• Quicker and easier adoption of new services,
  policies, etc.
• Community support (advocacy) for new initiatives
• Immediate feedback on issues
• Direction on what issues are most important to
  general population
• Direction on how to promote community/ attract
  future residents and businesses

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What is social media?

• Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and
  discussing information.
• Wikipedia

What is social media to government?

• The use of Internet- and mobile-based tools to
  engage residents, collect consumer data, share
  information and generate awareness
• Social Media is new form of Public Relations

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Reasons for government to use social media

• Alternative to (evolution of) traditional PR
• Increasingly effective and growing
• Multiple lines of communication
• Essential, especially in times of crisis
• Inexpensive
• Reach various demographics
• Increase search engine rankings
• Real time
• Drive citizens to website
• Communicate your message
• Establish representative voice(s) for community
• If you dont establish a voice, someone else
  will!
• Crisis Management tool
• Follow same principles as with traditional media
• Establish intelligent, skilled spokesperson(s)
• Tell your side of the story
• Gain empathy and advocacy
• Never say No Comment

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Types of social media

• Weblogs/BlogsBlog.Wired.com, TwoBitsAndAByte
• MicroblogsTwitter
• News dissemination (Social Media
  Release)PitchEngine.com, Google News, Twitter
• E-Newsletters
• E-mail
• Social media networking sitesFacebook, LinkedIn,
  Google Groups
• AggregatorsPing.fm, FeedBurner, FriendFeed
• WikisTopic-specific Wikipedia pages
• Online photo/video sharing galleriesYouTube,
  Flickr
• Podcasts
• Text messaging
• Internet forums
• Event forumsMeetup.com
• Online surveysSurveyMonkey.com
• Custom ApplicationsTwit2Win

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Important points

• You DO NOT need to be an active blogger
• Leadership should embrace social media, not fear
  it
• Establish social media policy and best practices
• You DO need to communicate your message
• You CAN measure impact of social media
• If you dont establish a representative voice for
  your community, someone else will!
• Dissenting voices can easily become de facto
  voices for your community
• Purpose is not to control message, but to
  guide message and engage citizens in message
• It all starts with your website!

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The tools!

• Website. It all starts here!
• The basis for all PR, branding, social media
• Dynamic, functional, user friendly
• The faceand often first impressionof your
  community
• Content richto drive search engine results
• Social Media Policy
• Establishes best practices and procedures
• Ensures that entire staff is on message
• Empowers staff to be proactive
• Positions social media as means to engage
  rather than distraction
• Encourages citizen participation

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The tools!

• E-newsletter
• Ensures regular contact
• Promotes/strengthens brand
• Delivers timely, relevant content
• Easy to monitor
• Measurable
• Call to action
• Entertains
• Can be self administered
• Inexpensiveno printing, nominal monthly fees to
  manage (e.g., ConstantContact.com)
• Example City of Sharonville (Ohio)
• Implemented Fall 2008 to bridge gab b/t business
  and residential communities
• Partnered with Chamber to get subscribers
• Doubled subscriber list in 6 months
• Receives e-mails thanking them for newsletter

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The tools!

• Blog
• Enable direct communication with and feedback
  from citizenry
• Can be monitored and managed by community staff
• More personal and dynamic than typical website
• Can be separate from or part of community website
• Typically ties into overall marketing/PR strategy
• Can allow comments from visitors can monitor
  comments
• Easy to create using free, downloadable blog
  software
• Best used for sharing information of interest to
  or that specifically benefits targeted users
• Serves as home page for many organizationsgrowing
  trend
• May work best for elected officials, rather than
  appointed/hired staff

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The tools!

• Event Forum
• Set up custom events online
• Choose whom to invite
• Allow others to join
• Specific to topic, location, etc.
• Engages with niche audiences (e.g., dog lovers
  re plans for new dog park bicyclists re
  proposed bike lanes)
• Can host actual events at popular community
  locations

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The tools!

• MicroblogTwitter
• Limited to 140 characters per entry
• Allows people to follow each other in real time
  from any location with Web/mobile access
• Simple to use
• Growing by 900
• Increasing usage among businesses, individuals,
  politicians and PR pros as news dissemination
  device
• Bridging gap between traditional and social media
• Growing number of reporters take story pitches
  from Twitter ONLY

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The tools!

• Podcast
• Free video or audio series downloaded to and
  playable on iPods, computers, TVs, mobile phones,
  or similar mobile media devices
• Enable users to view or listen to preferred
  content almost anywhere at anytime
• Tool for sharing issues discussed at council
  meetings, community forums, etc.

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The tools!

• Social Networking Communities
• What are you doing?
• Who do you know?
• Fan pages
• Groups of common interest

• Photo/Video Sharing Sites
• Personalized albums
• Share via invitation, e-mail
• Showcase events, demonstrations

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The tools!

• Wiki
• Encyclopedic online profile of community
• Anyone can contribute content
• Can be updated in real time
• Is preferred to be objectivenot self promotional

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How not to use social media

• Motrin (Johnson Johnson) (motrin.com)
• Objective
• Sell Motrin
• Social Media Components
• Irreverent video designed to appeal to young
  mothers suffering from back pain associated with
  baby slings/carries
• Posted ad to YouTube and Motrin.com
• Results
• Small of mommy bloggers were offended posted
  scathing remarks on Twitter
• Motrin apologized and pulled ad immediately
• Motrin pulled entire campaign
• Motrin wasted all money spent on campaign
• Later Findings
• Motrin heard from same mommy bloggers that they
  were disappointed video was pulled
• Mommies wanted their concerns addressed, not
  dismissed
• Motrin failed to engage and befriend bloggers
  lost potential customers

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Whats next?

• Google Wave
• Collaborative tool
• Equal parts conversation and document
• People communicate and work together with richly
  formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more
• Evolved from Google Maps
• Create a wave add people
• Users pull text, graphics, widgets, feeds from
  other Web sources
• Concurrent rich-text editing
• Users can see instantly when others are typing
  inside their wave

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What makes social media valuable to you?

• Its the way people of all ages and demographics
  are communicating
• Studies show consumers research products online
  before buying
• True for government, as well
• Why wouldnt you build your online relationship
  with themNOW?
• Its usage is growing rapidly
• Vital part of marketing mix, more search hits
• Natural evolution of marketing and PR
• Builds via word of mouth
• Engages citizens like no other medium
• Allows you to tell your story in your words

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Why social media is relevant

• Facebook.com- Social Network Site 200 Million
  Active Users Fastest growing Demo 30
• Flickr.com-Photo Sharing App hosts more than two
  billion tagged images
• Twitter.com- micro-blogging site 32.1 million
  people answering the question What are you
  doing now? in 140 characters!
• Wikipedia.com- Information Sharing Source 684
  Million visitors/ 9 million named accounts
• Youtube.com- Video Sharing 5 billion online US
  videos 44 share of all online videos
• Digg.com-Social News site 3 referring source of
  traffic to NY Times. 30K visitors/ month
• Nielsen BuzzMetrics created in 2006 by A.C.
  Nielsen to begin measuring social media

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Questions?
Dan OKeeffe OKeeffe Communications dan_at_okeeffeco
m.com 513.221.1526 www.okeeffecom.com