Social Media in Public Administration

Social Media in Public AdministrationJames Flick, MPAApril 10th, 2014

www.jamesflick.weebly.com 2

James Flick, MPA

• 2010 Graduate from NKU MPA Program

• Chairman of NKU MPA Alumni Association

• Vice President, Research & Marketing at Cassidy Turley Commercial Real Estate

• Responsible for all research, data analysis and marketing of Cincinnati and Dayton markets including:

• Advertising

• Public relations

• Event planning

• Community outreach

• Marketing strategy development

• Website management/SEO

• Social Media Content

About Me


Social Media TimelineHistory of Social Communication (not to scale)

550 BCEarliest form of

Mail delivery

1792Telegraph

1890’scinematographe

1876Telephone

1936First freely

Programmable Computer

Source: history.com, University of North Carolina at Pembroke

1450Gutenberg’s

printing press

1844Morse sends first telegraph

1901Transistor

radio

1974Personal Computer

1827photography

1877phonograph

1971First email sent

1991World Wide

Web Introduced

1992Mosaic

(Netscape) web

browser

1978Online Bulletin Board Systems

Created

1994Geocities

Yahoo

1985AOL

1997Blogging

AOL Instant MessengerSixdegrees,com

Blackboard

1998Google

2003MySpace

Second LifeLinkedIn

2004FacebookPodcasts

FlickrDigg

2005YouTube

2006Twitter

2009Bing


What is Social Media?

• The use of social networks such as:– Blogs – Microblogging (example: Twitter)– Video Sharing– Photo Sharing – Online Bulletin/Message Boards – Wikis (collaborative Web site comprising the work of many authors)– Social Gaming – Podcasts – RSS feeds

Social Media Marketing is….


Social Media Uses

• Increase Exposure to: – Personal, corporate, or agency brand – Reaching targeted audiences– Increase credibility – Build support for campaigns – Improve organic search engine search results

• Expand Reach to: – Create strategic partnerships – Identify and recruit influencers – Gain intelligence – Gain information – Promote your message to many; FAST


Trends

Social Media is the fastest growing part of the Internet

• Mobile technology has caused the exponential growth of social media

• App use has officially overtaken PC use in America• 93% of marketers use social media for business• 70% of markets have used Facebook to successfully gain

new customers• 34% of marketers have used Twitter to successfully

generate leads


Public Sector Embrace

• 2004: Howard Dean successfully uses MeetUp

• 2008: Then Senator Obama campaign uses social media sites with an unprecedented success rate.

• 2009: During his inauguration President Obama instructs federal executive departments to “harness new technologies”

Significant Public Sector Moments


Government 2.0

• Following initial experimentation with social media gov’t IT pros labeled actions as Government 2.0

• Intended to:– Increase Participation, Transparency, and Interagency

Collaboration

What is it?


Sites Used in Public Sector


Facebook

• 1.3 billion monthly users

• 1 billion of the monthly users use mobile technology to access Facebook (in addition to possible PC access)

• # users increased 22% from 2012-2013

• Total # of minutes spent on Facebook each month 640 million

• Most popular social networking site used by government agencies


Facebook

• To be where people are

• Forum for Pushing News Out

• Informing and Engaging Public

• Posts have potentially unlimited reach

Why Use?


Optimization of Facebook

• 1-2 posts per day sharing frequency

• Use “Facebook Insights” to determine the best time to post to reach your audience

• Wait a minimum of 3 hours between posts

• Use a call to action to prompt audience to click or comment

Best Practices


YouTube

• Video sharing platform• #2 search engine on the web• More than 1 billion unique monthly visitors• 35 million searches per day on “How – To” videos • According to Nielsen – reaches more US adults 18-34 than

any cable channel• 72% of marketers use video to educate views about

products and services.

What is it?


YouTube

• Providing background info about issues• Promotional videos for a community or

organization• Other purpose-driven videos with strong

content that will resonate with viewers • To integrate your video campaign with your

social networks• Drive your viewers to take the next step • Provides an alternate to traditional TV

coverage• Responses to events or press reports• Virtual Town Hall Meetings

How is it being used?


YouTube

• Use “tags” to appropriately categorize videos for search engine optimization purposed

• Organize videos into playlists

Best Practices


Twitter

• Microblogging site – can only use 140 characters per message

• 243 million active monthly users

• Fastest growing demographic is people aged 55-64


Twitter Components

• Follow others to stay informed

• Reply to posts to have conversations

• Re-tweet: forward conversations

• Use Hashtags (#) to categorize tweets

Best Practices


Twitter

• Push out content relevant to agency or community• Spread useful links to external content or drive traffic back

to website• Similar to Facebook the reach of a tweet could be limitless• Improve transparency and accountability• Can lead to increased inclusion of public opinion• Share timely information faster than traditional news

outlets• Personify your brand • Build credibility and influence

Why Use?


Twitter Do’s and Don’ts

• Do’s– Sound Knowledgeable– Be positive– Pose questions– Answers the questions of

others– Announce news and other

updates– Space tweets out throughout

the day– Content variety– 1-4 tweets per hour

• Don’ts– Sound too formal like a press

release– Spam with constant linking to

user websites or other social media sites.


Blogging

• Most blogs are text based content sharing services– Tumblr is predominately an image based blog service

• Why Use?– Offer updates in less rigid way than press releases

– Provide personal connection to agency/community message or content

– Can use both text and visuals to provide information

– Help organic search engine results


Blog Optimization

• Don’t have an overly formal tone – this is not a press release

• Connect personally with content

• Use a combination of text and visual elements

• 1 post per week (or at least every other week) best frequency

• Use “tags” to categorize content for searchability

• Push out blog posts on all other social media channels

Best Practices


Time Commitment

• It takes time– To maximize presence various sources agree takes 1.5 per day

per social media site

• Content• Responses• Staying informed

• It’s at least a part time job– I personally spend (on average) 1-2 hours a day on social media

To Maximize Social Media Presence


Social Media Strategy

• Time to dedicate to social media can be limited

• Tools that can help (and they can be accessed for free)– Schedulers

• Hootsuite• Tweetdeck

– News Aggregators

• The News Funnel• Feedly

Tools to help


Additional Uses of SMM

• Build the presence– Facebook

– Twitter

– Blog

– YouTube

• Presence should accomplish the Government 2.0 mission: – Increase Participation

– Transparency

– Interagency Collaboration

• Having an established presence allows for secondary uses like supporting Economic Development efforts

Harnessing for Economic Development


Economic Development with SMM

• Using reliable data from local, county, or state agencies, regional economic development groups, or other organizations to target

– Example: Using regional transportation data to identify distribution and logistics as target industries

Target an audience



• Once target industry is known a list of companies needs to be compiled– Tools

• Chambers of Commerce• Reference USA (assessable for free through the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Library among other places)

Identifying target companies



• Need a catchy headline that will capture attention of the community

• Logos and graphics to go along with headline

Brand the Social Media Campaign

Budgeting

• Establish budget– Traditional marketing campaign– Web designer (if needed)– Social media expert (if needed)– Photographer/Videographer



• Advertising– Trade Publications

• Distribution • Warehousing• Ecommerce• Logistics

• Site Selection • Area Development • Direct Mailings• Trade Shows

Traditional Marketing Campaign



• The campaign branding is added to the landing page

• Discuss advantages of region for distribution and logistics

• Market characteristics added to web site

• The agency, government, economic development office promotes the campaign in press releases and speaking engagements throughout the community

• Make sure all social media platform buttons are featured on page for ease of access and generating community growth

The Web Page



• The community’s Facebook edited for the branded campaign.– Change cover photo

• Facebook is updated with posts about market competiveness for business – If need be use a scheduler (Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, etc.)

Facebook



• Create/post video about the community

• Link video to the agency/community web page, staff LinkedIn profiles, agency/community Facebook page, and other social media channels

• A link to the video is added to all staff email signatures.

YouTube



• Hashtags are used to find links with distribution/logistics interests

• Create a specific hashtag to brand your campaign

• Contacts are made with key individuals or groups that optimize distribution/logistics connections

• Valuable information about doing business in community is tweeted on a periodic basis

• Tweet significant data from initial research relating to distribution/logistics

Twitter



• Use branding, headline, photos and research to write posts positioning community as hub for distribution and logistics

• Highlight data points from initial research in posts

• Make sure to be more informal in tone then traditional press release

• Distribute posts via other social media channels

Blogs



• Successful example of Economic Development with SSM– Charlotte lured Chiquita partially by

using a Twitter war against Cincinnati http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/chiquitas-new-world-headquarters-in-charlotte-decided-with-help-from-a-twitter-war/2011/11/29/gIQAZ1Vt9N_blog.html

This can’t work…. can it


Measuring Effectiveness

• Monitoring social analytics provides feedback on your marketing activities and brings a higher level of clarity and insight to them – social media monitoring enables

an accelerated response to shifts in the marketplace

– Agency/community can make adjustments

Monitor Feedback


Social Media Do’s and Don’ts

• Do’s– Maintain your accounts. Update daily, if

possible

– Choose a consistent schedule whether that’s once per week or once a day (becomes part of your routine)

– Make sure content is fresh in order to boost your agency/community rankings with search engines

– Remember whom you are "talking" to. Tailor messages to audience

• Facebook is more personal

• Twitter is more public

General Things to Remember

• Don’ts– Forget to proofread content carefully– Wing it without an actual plan– Forget that email is a great marketing tool

and can assist with cross promotion of eblasts with social media


Sources of Information

• Beagle, Kristy D. "Social Media Best Practices." Personal interview. 1 Apr. 2014.

• Lee, Mordecai, and Ethan Lee Elser. "The Nine Commandments of Social Media in Public Administration: A Dual-Generation Perspective." PA TIMES Online. American Society for Public Administration, n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.

• Mergel, Ines. Social Media in the Public Sector: A Guide to Participation, Collaboration, and Transparency in the Networked World. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013. Print.

• Mooney, Jim. Social Media Marketing for Economic Development Professionals. PDF. Washington State Department of Commerce, 05 Mar. 2012. Web. 5 Apr. 2014

• Social Media Icons. N.d. Search Pro Systems. Web. 6 Apr. 2014.

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