E D M O N T O N

June 2011

Jason Darrah, Communications

Social Media 101

E D M O N T O N

Social Media:

• Is NOT just a cool trend

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng

E D M O N T O N

What is Social Media 101

• Basic concepts, not the tech or strategies

• Focus: Use for the City, not personal use

• Opportunities and challenges

• Types of social media

E D M O N T O N

Through the Communications lens• Social Media - No experts (or gurus)

• Me: PR, Journalism, Pol. Sci., nerd

• Complementary to IT, Web Office, Marketing Projects, Public Involvement…

• Communications Goals:

– Manage Reputation, Brand, Image (of City/city)

– Inform/increase awareness

– Change/create behaviour • Stimulate 2-way communication

E D M O N T O N

Scope of Social Media

use by City to

collaborate within City

use by City employees for personal use

use by City to connect with citizens (people

outside City org.)

Enormous Potential. Contact Communications Guidelines

developed with Web Office,

Office of Public Involvement, IT,

HR for CLT

Being developed in Collaboration Strategy

Use by councillors

E D M O N T O N

Personal use

• Employee Code of Conduct;

• Media Relations Management Guidelines;

• and Acceptable Use of Communications Technology

• If you can be identified as a City employee, you must ensure comments or opinions expressed publicly are aligned with those of the City organization

– Don’t do anything publicly that could embarrass you or City

– eCity – search “Social Media”

• Access to SM sites: OK by Comms and IT; up to supervisor to request to Inside Information

E D M O N T O N

City use:• RSS feeds

• Connect 2 Edmonton Forum / community

• Podcasts - weekly

• Twitter – City microblog

• Facebook (Fan page)

• YouTube

• Blog - Transforming Edmonton

• Google docs

• Flickr site

• Program Twitter feeds

• EdmontonStories.com

• Program Facebook groups

• Library Twitter, Facebook

• EEDC Twitter, Photo Gallery

• Public input forums, surveys, etc (ETS – Airport)

• LinkedIn (recruiting)

• Community partnerships and data Mashups

• More weekly!

www.edmonton.ca/SocialMedia

E D M O N T O N

“Social Media”

• “Media” – the channel – web-enabled technology that fosters interaction, rather than just passive viewing

– Not extension of “mainstream mass news media”

• “Social” = Socializing in a channel with potential to reach a mass audience

• a.k.a. Web 2.0

E D M O N T O N

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0

• Eyeballs

• Content management systems

• Directories

• Controlled source of credible, trusted information

• One-way conversation

• Participants

• Wikis, widgets, user ratings, commenting

• Profiles

• Platforms for user-organized information, sharing and co-creating

• Two-way and multi-way conversation

E D M O N T O N

Social Media is

• NOT about the technologies

• ALL about the Relationships and Conversations or Interactions

E D M O N T O N

Is seeking “relationships” and conversations new?

• Bus drivers

• Rec centre staff

• Fort Edmonton characters

• CRC interactions

• 311 staff

• Public meetings

E D M O N T O N

What is new?

• Relinquish CONTROL of the message

• People CONTRIBUTE to your info… comments, photos

• Enhanced SHARING potential of ideas/info and meaning – bigger scale of viral capacity

• IMMEDIACY – need to be agile/nimble in participating

• CONNECT directly with people, rather than through mediated relationships

• MOBILE access to web enabled

• TWO-WAY Public conversations that persist

E D M O N T O N

http://theconversationprism.com/

New tools and sites daily…

Many different uses…

but the new paradigm of connections and interactions is here to stay

E D M O N T O N

Social Media: Web 2.0 participants

• “Digital Divide” has two sides to the coin

• Different demographics have different needs, and different tools provide different benefits

E D M O N T O N

How people use different social media

1. People create content – Blogs, Twitter, YouTube

2. People collect to content – consumption– RSS, aggregators

3. People react to/critique – ratings, reviews– TripAdvisor, media polls

4. People connect/join - social networks, virtual groups– Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn

5. People collaborate – wikis, open source– Wikipedia, Linux, Firefox

6. People organize content – Tags, Del.icious, Digg

E D M O N T O N

Different tools, different demographics

Click below (in slide mode)

E D M O N T O N

Why should gov’t be interested?

• ROI 1 = Risk of Ignoring is too great

• ROI 2 = Return on Investment

E D M O N T O N

ROI 1 = Risk of Ignoring

• staff lapse in judgment (bus driver to council)

• KikkiPlanet: In 40 mins the #CoE workers putting in sidewalk in front of my house have stopped to smoke THREE times. Un-EFFIN-believable #yeg 11:20am, Jun 07 from Twitter

E D M O N T O N

ROI 2 = Return on Investment

• What is best use of tax dollar$ to meet need/demand by citizens for information, interaction, involvement, overcome “voter apathy”…

• Governance is inherently social and we need to go where are people socializing

• Must have good case for use of tax$ for any project, clear objectives

– Business metrics, not media metrics

E D M O N T O N

Social media can help answer:

• How do we get info to people fast and help them spread the news?

• How do we get people to pay attention to our issues and recognize them as important?

• How do we communicate in a way that will resonate?

• How do we build lasting relationships with citizens, that translate into good community partners?

• How do we get civil servants answering fewer 1-on-1 email and phone calls?

• How do we get meaningful input from residents?

E D M O N T O N

ROI: Opportunities of Frequency

• Several cross-connected channels to connect with people (e.g. Twitter, blog, YouTube…)

• Increases opportunity for immediacy of posting, improving relevance

• Low dollar cost for ongoing implementation

• Viral information spread = greater repetition and reach

E D M O N T O N

Opportunities of Reach• new tools communicate to many rather than 1x1

• lines of communication that grow exponentially with size of group (network spread)

2 5 20 100 10 000

Size of Group

1 25 200 5000 50 000 000

Lines of Communication

E D M O N T O N

Opportunities of Yield (return)• Engagement on issues, Create understanding

• Humanize the City organization, Showcase expertise, transparency– enhance credibility = trust

• Demonstrate listening and responsiveness

• Establish presence as recognized source of info, beneficial for crises / need for unfiltered messages

• Measure interest, support, Learn what people are saying and what’s going on (informal surveys, online focus groups, monitoring)

• Deliver information as a service

• Build relationships for future opportunities / communities of support

E D M O N T O N

Challenges with social media

• Privacy (personal perspective)

• Relinquishing “control of the message”

• Risk of online criticism

• Unbridled discussion can distort focus of your efforts

– create potential for storm/crisis

• Are we committing to doing something when people suggest it in online conversation?

• Standards and guidelines; governance, comment policy

• Infrastructure for Security – data sharing in Gov2.0

E D M O N T O N

More challenges

• Need to keep it fresh – need for frequency of posting

• risks of being open to the world and providing a record that will last and last and last…

• Can diminish credibility – blog “ghostwriters”

• Time to manage, staff resources, comment moderation and guidelines

E D M O N T O N

Is it Free?

• Free and easy for users, not for gov’t

• Staff, time, technology

• What can you afford to reallocate?

Limited value?

• Public involvement

• Media relations

• Community engagement

• Customer service

E D M O N T O N

First step for any project

• Understand who you are trying to reach

• Ask why – why are we trying to reach these individuals and what is the value that we bring to them… and they bring to us?

E D M O N T O N

Communicate to audiences where they want to interact

Go where your target is

Transportation

ETS

Roads

LRT

Sushi

Jobs?

Get others in an online community to answer questions for us

E D M O N T O N

Social Media Fit

• Different tools/sites enable different types of interactions

• Different tools/sites fit different needs and business objectives

• Different tools/sites have different demographics

• Social Media complements other strategies

• Different tools/sites have different resource needs

E D M O N T O N

Hierarchy of needs – for Citizens

• Safety and security

• Access to essential services

• Additional civic services

• Information about services

• Information as service

• Input on policy and engagement

• Responsiveness

• Transparency, trust and confidence

• Humanizing government

One objective trumps others based on the tool…

E D M O N T O N

Social Media examples

E D M O N T O N

How people use different social media

1. People create content – Blogs (weblog), microblogs (Twitter), YouTube

2. People collect/subscribe to content – consumption– RSS, sportsfield notices, garbage alerts, QR codes

3. People react to/critique others – ratings, reviews– TripAdvisor, media polls, C2E, FB surveys

4. People connect/join - social networks, virtual groups– Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn; Second Life

5. People collaborate – wikis, open source– Wikipedia, Quora, Linux, Firefox, WiserPath.org

6. People organize content – Tags, http://paper.li, Digg, Flickr

E D M O N T O N

• Blogs (web log), microblogs, YouTube

Creating, sharing content

E D M O N T O N

Creating, sharing, rating content

E D M O N T O N

Transforming Edmonton Blog Goals:

• Demonstrate day-to-day activity contributes to citizen priorities

• Demonstrate Listening to Edmontonians

• Establishes relationships directly with people

• Humanizes the organization through real people with expertise, professionalism

• Context on issues we want to convey, issues we want to engage citizens on

• Avoids silos of information

E D M O N T O N

Blog with Bob

Dawson Bridge hassle

45 minutes av time!

E D M O N T O NAdditional info (not in presentation):Key attributes of TE blog• Author is identified

• Conversational style that adds more “colour” or context to other information

• “Fresh” updates that are timely and relevant

• Ability for people to comment on blog posts

• Archive of all posts

• Tags for each post make it very searchable, self-organizing for popular posts

E D M O N T O NAdditional info (not in presentation):

“Bringing Our City Vision To Life”• First tangible representation of transforming

Edmonton – conversations about reaching goals give meaning to

“a document about our vision”

• Complement other TE campaigns

• Highly flexible to add, change as we go

• Avoids silos of information

• Learn from pilot

E D M O N T O NAdditional info (not in presentation):Managing the blog• Project managers as identified authors

• Avoids proliferation of projects with distinct web presence and fragmentation of vision

• One blog with multiple streams “keeps it fresh”

• Searchable by niche topics while cross-promoting

• Clear comment policy

• Monitoring of comments by project teams– Supported by Communications’ reputation management

monitoring – like media monitoring

– Supported by Social Media Advisory Committee – advice, collaboration, etc

E D M O N T O N

Edmonton.ca

Static, one-way information, mainly consistent over time, City organization, formal

Transforming Edmonton

Frequent updates, archival, tags, conversational, interactive, informal, sharing, rich links

Complementary tools

E D M O N T O N

Creating, sharing, rating content

E D M O N T O N

Create content - Users generate content

E D M O N T O N Create Content – Twitter micro blog

• road/transit disruptions,

•response to queries/ complaints

•snow ruts and Terwillegar

• Good Neighbour Awards

•Fire alerts, flooding

•Micro posts

•Links

•Followers

•Conversations

•Search tags

•ReTweets

E D M O N T O N

Why City is on Twitter• Establishes presence for

credibility, connections– Crises; unfiltered thru media

• Allows listening / informing

• Complements other tools

• Assists transparency

• Information as service

• Engages citizens

• Builds champions

• Informs City, enables response

• Quasi focus groups

Posts:

– News releases

– Answer questions

– Job opportunities

– Major traffic disruptions

– Upcoming council meetings or events the mayor is attending

– Alerts about other public consultation activity

– Contests

– Informal “focus groups”

– Receive alerts on burnt lights, etc.

E D M O N T O NAdditional info (not in presentation):One Twitter feed or many• Humanize vs represent the voice of the org

• Build many followers and unified representation of the organization

• Resist temptation to have separate feeds for each silo – take advantage of existing, known and followed feed

• Create separate feeds for distinct objectives with clear niche separate from the organization, eg fire, transit

E D M O N T O N

Vital for allowing “pull” of our

information and helping viral

sharing

Content collectors – RSS feed aggregators

E D M O N T O N

Accessing Content remotely

E D M O N T O N

Delivering content remotely

E D M O N T O N

E D M O N T O NPeople connecting – Social Networking Sites

•Contests (Zoo logo)

•15 to Clean challenge

• event promo

•Issue/service awareness

•(Fan) Page

•Group

•Comments

•Closed/open

E D M O N T O N

E D M O N T O N

Second life

• Another online community

• Advanced users

• Experiential

• For Edmonton –potential benefit for people imagining new development, such as new bridge, building, etc

• Potential for interactions – job training, virtual conferences, connect real life and online tools

E D M O N T O N

People connecting – Social Networking Sites

E D M O N T O N

People reacting/critique – forums, ratings

City makes first decision to relinquish control of the message in online community

Objective: link Edmontonians around globe

Positive unintended consequences

E D M O N T O N

E D M O N T O N

Public input – forums, surveys, etc

E D M O N T O N

People creating (& collaborating) - wikis

E D M O N T O N

People creating (& collaborating) - maps

•River valley trails

•Windstorm and CN Tower

E D M O N T O N

When to consider using social media

• When you want to build a long-term relationships

• When you want to have a 2-way conversations/interactions

• When you have resources to support a strategy

• When an existing site is a popular place where your target audience segment interacts

• When you want “top-of-mind” feedback

• When you accept the risk of negative public feedback

• When you want to deliver more context on a topic

• When you want to put a human face to the organization or issue

• When you want to share rich multimedia

• When you want to compile input to support decision making as part of a public involvement process

E D M O N T O N

Seek help!

• Communications and Public Involvement will help evaluate IT-approved tools and resources required, that can fit your objectives

• Make sure you commit adequate resources (staff time) before engaging in social media strategy or presence

E D M O N T O N

End Part 1

• Discussion

E D M O N T O N

Contact me

• Jason.darrah@edmonton.ca

• http://twitter.com/jdarrah @jdarrah

• Linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jasdarrah

E D M O N T O N

Additional info (not in presentation):How to do it

E D M O N T O N

Same approach for each project

1. Listen• Monitor, respond

2. Participate• Presence, humanize

the org, transparency

3. Engage• Mobilize, “long tail”

benefit, social change

Consider:

a) People

b) Purpose/ Process

c) Technology

Business units will have specific objectives

E D M O N T O N

Have clear objectives:

• Role of key tools in managing emergency/ addressing crisis

• Role in labour issues

• Role in talent recruitment to City

• Role in labour attraction to city

• Role in building pride

• Role in engaging people for participation in events/activities; for informing people; compiling public input

• Tracking effectiveness of initiatives such as social marketing (behaviour change)

- Complement other tactics - Measurable objectives

E D M O N T O N

Have clear approach per objectives

Emergency/crisis/labour

• Must 1st establish strong presence as source of credible, frequent and reliable information

• Build trust early, grow audience

• When needed, mobilize action to make tools useful, effective

Tracking effectiveness

• Must listen, listen, listen

• Participate and probe on issues or ask questions, then listen, listen, listen…

Role in engaging people

• Must go where people go to connect to recruit, build pride, attract

E D M O N T O N

Always be listening/watching, then…

• Reactive

– gauge health of your brand, online reputation

– Prevent crisis

• Proactive

– Join conversations

– Promote your value

• Set guidelines on when to ignore, when to respond, when to notify bosses, when to notify departments (SM policy if needed)

E D M O N T O N

Listening – tools to track brand, projects• RSS aggregator

– ie Google blog search– ie Google news alerts– Twitter search – est. RSS– Other RSS alerts

• search.twitter.com

• TweetBeep alert

• Twellow – search Twitter location, etc

• Wthashtag.com – what the hashtag

• StartPR

• Backtype

• BlogPulse

• Boardtracker, Boardreader – discussion forums

• PostRank

• Scoutlabs

• Vanno

Measures – rough gauge:

• Twitter measurement: Retweets; share of mentions; tone;

• RTs, links viewed, traffic to blog & followers.

• scoutlabs and twitter search and look and # of followers of original poster and everyone that retweets

•Technorati – blog catalogue, search topics, check traffic on bloggers talking about your org

•Google side wiki – watch for it

•OMGILI

•Social Oomph; Socialtoo

•Facebook search & Facebook Lexicon

•YouTube search

E D M O N T O N

Paid monitoring – if you’ve got $

• BurellesLuce's "iMonitor." Tracks media mentions on the Web based on keywords. This self-guided monitoring service is very clean and easy to navigate. Cost: $3,600

• Cision's "Small Business Edition." Assigns "publicity values" for different stories based on length, media type (print, online, video), estimated number of readers/viewers, tone and reach. Cost: starts at less than $5,000 a year.

• Filtrbox's "G2." The "Click here for Live Chat" button makes trying the site a breeze. Cost: as little as $2,000 a year and includes both traditional and social-media monitoring.

• Meltwater "News and Buzz." Claims to track more than 100,000 media outlets around the globe. Downside: Somewhat hard to choose among the list of features. Cost: starts at $5,000 a year.

• Radian6. tracks media hits online (no print). If buffing your image on social media sites is a top priority, this may be your program. Cost: starting at $7,200 a year.

E D M O N T O NListening – specific measures for brand/project

Element Metric Reveals Tools (e.g.)

Audience •Referrals

•Target demographic

•Who is SM tool attracting •Google Analytics

•Twitter Search

•Facebook profiles

Influence •Time spent on site

•Bounce/exit rate

•Importance of the conversation

•How involved is audience

Google Analytics

Engagement •Viewing of parts (text, tweets, video…)

•Interest value of sites/tools

•Google Analytics

•Trendrr - Twitter

•Board Tracker

Loyalty •# of posts on brand

•Recommendations, RT

Are people supporting or discrediting

•Blogpulse

•Lexicon

Involvement •Time spent on site/tool

•Bounce/exit rate

How involved in material is audience

•Google Analytics

•Blogpulse

•Repeats

Action •Posts, tweets, pass-ons # of times audience performs desired action

•FeedBurner

•News/ ratings

E D M O N T O N

City’s Response strategy

• Follow media relations strategy

• Manage image and reputation

• Adhere to comment policy (posted with blog)

• Correct factual errors

• Always inform identified employees when they are subject of others’ content

• Gauge readership (followers/reach) and tone of commenter (civil vs vitriolic) before entering into public discussion – Balance desire to correct/inform with risk of increasing

attention to errors, negative issues

• Ignore / respond / act

E D M O N T O N

Participate/Engage: Set strategy

• Clearly define objectives of relationship and conversation you want to have

• Identify tools that fit audiences + purpose (Profile audience - i.e. surveys on tool usage)

• Commit to managing tool: set guidelines, prepare team for delivering responses, comment moderation, schedule fresh posts…

• Listen more, respond more, initiate in purpose area (also participate in other forums to drive to your area)

E D M O N T O N

Q to ask when building online community

1. Why are we building an online community?

2. What are people going to do when they get to our online community?

3. Do we need people to login, join?

4. How big could our community be?

5. Who will be our community caretakers?

6. Who will we invite?

7. What are our ground rules?

8. How are we involved?

E D M O N T O N

Recruitment tactics• Use traditional approaches in social

media tools

– Ads in Facebook (targeted)

– Ads on popular sites

– Video on City web site

• Non-traditional approaches

– RSS feeds on job boards

– Job opps promo on Twitter

– Employee videos, go viral

– Staff blogs

“push of info”

“pull of info”or relationshipsabout experience

E D M O N T O N

Where are we going?

• Information and Conversations now

• Respond to reputation issues

• Open up data so users can re-package our data for more accessible use – Gov2.0

– Utility – services

– Transparency of government

• Long tail of public policy developing

– BlogCamp this spring: educate and support the community

• Engagement continuum: now - Forums, surveys for input; Future - Idea Zone 1.0

E D M O N T O N

Government 2.0

City of San Francisco Creates Shared Wiki Resource for Homeless Housing

E D M O N T O N

To be continued…