Social media in government
Craig ThomlerManaging Director
Delib Australia18 March 2013
What issocial media?
About.com – Media is an instrument on communication, like a newspaper or a radio, so social media would be a social instrument of communication
Affilorama - Social media is content created and shared by individuals on the web using freely available websites that allow users to create and post their own images, video and text information and then share that with either the entire internet or just a select group of friends
BlackBox Social Media – Social media is any online media platform that provides content for users and also allows users to participate in the creation or development of the content in some way
CubixDev - Social Media is the new term for socialising online. It allows people to freely interact with each other online where-ever they are and whenever they want
Fresh Networks – Social media is people having conversations online. These conversations can take a variety of forms; for example, blogs and comments or photo sharing
Health is Social – Social Media is the meeting place between people and technology
Get a Social Boost – Digital word of mouth
Michelle Digital – Social media is life online
Optimize Your Web Presence – Social media are online venues, such as social networking sites, blogs and wikis that enable people to store and share information called content, such as text, pictures, video and links
ProPR – Social media are online communications in which individuals shift fluidly and flexibly between the role of audience and author. To do this, they use social software that enables anyone without knowledge of coding, to post, comment on, share or mash up content and to form communities around shared interests
Relationship Economy – Social media is communications
The Financial Brand – Social media isn’t about the media, it’s about being social
Webgeekly - Social Media is generally any website or service that uses Web 2.0 techniques and concepts
Wikipedia - Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques
Many definitions for social media…
Facilitates user-generated content Facilitated by social connections Distribution is zero or low cost Supports flowing discussions (low barriers to
participation) Allows the community to ‘do’ for themselves Use open frameworks that support integration &
extension
Social media has in common…
Blogs (Over 50 government blogs at Govspace)
Groups and Forums (Whirlpool, Google Groups)
Wikis (Wikipedia, Wikispaces)
Social networking (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google+)
Social bookmarking (Delicious)
Social news (Digg, Reddit)
Micro-blogs (Twitter, Yammer)
Community Q&A (Yahoo Answers)
Multimedia sharing (YouTube, Slideshare, Scribd)
Ideas markets (Dialogue App, Ideascale, GetSuggestion)
Collaborative budgeting (Budget Simulator)
Product and service reviews (Epinions, Yelp)
Emerging tools (Group buying, Pinterest, Crowd funding)
Each has different uses
Social media includes…
Just for teenagers and young adults 50+ age group is the fastest growing on Facebook and Twitter 30% of Facebook users are aged 35-49 Average age of Twitter users is 31, of LinkedIn users 39 years old.
All low quality content An independent study in 2005 by Nature Magazine found Wikipedia and
Encyclopedia Britannica had about the same rate of errors Since then, reviews in 2007, 2008 & 2012 have found Wikipedia is at least as,
if not more, reliable than commercial encyclopedias in a range of topics.
Unproductive “People who surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of
less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t”. Dr Brent Coker, Dept of Management & Marketing, University of Melbourne
Going away
What social media is not…
What about Australia?
Source: Sensis Social Media Report May 2012
NSW
65+ yrs
50-64yrs
40-49yrs
14-39yrs
Female
Male
Total
0.98
0.93
0.99
0.99
1
0.97
0.99
0.98
Australia’s internet use
Source: Sensis Social Media Report May 2012
Australia’s social media use
Never
Use social media
38%
62%
38%
62%
2011 2012
Source: Sensis Social Media Report May 2012
Australia’s social media use
Never
Less than weekly
Weekly
Everyday
38%
6%
19%
36%
38%
9%
24%
30%
2011 2012
Source: Facebook March 2013 / ABS Census 2012
Facebook in NSWBased on residents aged 15+
NSW
Sydney
2,109,315
1,020,701
3,599,380
2,620,620
Use Facebook Don't use Facebook
(72%)
(63%)
What about Australian governments?
In mid-2012:
73% of Australian Government agencies reported using social media for official purposes
The social media majority
What the Australian Government is using social media for..Answer choice Response Share
For stakeholder engagement or collaboration 32 54.24%
Operating an information campaign 25 42.37%
Responding to customer enquiries/comments/complaints 25 42.37%
For engaging with journalists and media outlets 24 40.68%
For engagement or collaboration with other government agencies
24 40.68%
Monitoring citizen, stakeholder and/or lobbyist views and activities
17 28.81%
For a public consultation process 16 27.12%
For a stakeholder or other restricted access consultation 13 22.03%
Other type of activity (i.e. recruitment, crowdsourcing, staff) 11 18.64%
For policy or services co-design 7 11.86%
At least:
• 173 Twitter accounts
• 75 Facebook pages
• 50 YouTube accounts
• 21 Flickr accounts
• 9 Google+ accounts
NSW government has…
Selecting the right tools for the job
Rule 1: Don’t start with the tools!
People
Objectives
Strategy
Technology
Start with - POST
Inform
Consult
Involve
Collaborate
Empower
Source: IAP2.org
What are you trying to achieve?
Announce
Inform
ConsultInvolv
eCollaborate Empower
Information dissemination tools
Basic website
Document sharing
Online video
Podcasts
Presentations
Photo sharing
Key:
Online engagement spectrum
Optional Recommended Essential
Announce
Inform
ConsultInvolv
eCollaborate Empower
Information collection tools
Feedback form
Polls
Surveys
Events planning
Feedback form
Key:
Online engagement spectrum
Optional Recommended Essential
Announce
Inform
ConsultInvolv
eCollaborate Empower
Interaction tools
Blogs
Forum
Document editing/annotation
Wikis
Social networks
Geospatial location
Mashups
Key:
Online engagement spectrum
Optional Recommended Essential
Announce
Inform
ConsultInvolv
eCollaborate Empower
Announcement tools
Email newsletters
Micro-blogs
Newsfeeds
Widgets
Key:
Online engagement spectrum
Optional Recommended Essential
Announce
Inform
ConsultInvolv
eCollaborate Empower
Engagement in 3rd party online properties
Blogs
Forums
Newsletters
Social networks
Websites
Key:
Online engagement spectrum
Optional Recommended Essential
Building a future-proof social media structure
Don’t build on feet of clay
Engagement/project practice
Guidance and training
Strategy and framework
Social media policy
Agency instructions and policies
Government policies and guidelines
Legislation and international agreements
Online infrastructure
Engagement/project practice
Guidance and training
Strategy and framework
Social media policy
Agency instructions and policies
Government policies and guidelines
Legislation and international agreements
Whole of
agency
Branch/Team
Whole of Government
Online infrastructure
Your website
Forums
Outreach activities
Groups
Blogs
Engagement hub
Blogs Forum
Idea market
Polls
Groups
Monitoring suiteWeb reporting
Social media monitoring
Archiving
Social media publishing
URL shortener
File transfer
Survey
Enabling services
Mapping Apps
Storage (image, video, docs)
Social media presenceFacebook Twitter YouTube
LinkedIn FoursquareYammer
Groups
Forums
Support systems
Managing risks…
We’ve considered every potential risk except the risks of avoiding all
risks.”
Social media risk
What’s the risk to your organisation of NOT engaging via social media?
Social media risk
The biggest risk for agencies assessing social media risks is when the people assessing the risks don’t understand and/or use the social mediums involved.
Awareness threshold or risk level?
Avoid confusing awareness with risk.
Becoming aware of something doesn’t necessarily mean the level of risk associated with it has increased.
Aware
Unaware
Top areas of social media risk
Recommend: http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/pdfs/vmia-risk-insight-12-11-2010.pdf
• Conversational – what people say
• Reputational – how agency is seen
• Privacy/security – what information exposed
• Administrative – How policies are followed
• Technological – how systems operate
Risks should be ‘owned’ by the business owner with advice and support with Communication, Legal & IT groups – depending on approach.
Risk varies by audience, goals and content
Risk area Likelihood Consequence
Conversational High - very high Low - very high
Reputational Low – very high Low - very high
Privacy/Security Low – very high Low - very high
Administrative Low – high Low – very high
Technological Low – very high Low – very high
There’s no standard risk level – plus levels vary as an online channel matures
For example….an online community
Time
Size/engagement
Reputational
Technological
Conversational
Administrative
Technological
Conversational
Security
Privacy
Technological
Reputational
So how to mitigate?• Assess versus comparable existing social media
channels
• Have risk assessments done by people who understand the social mediums AND organisational context
• Review risk plan regularly over time and when environment/context changes
• Develop agency and project social media guidance documents and review them regularly as well!
• Test your risk mitigation strategies
Social media strategy – how your organisation will use social media to help it meet its goals (including risk mitigation)
Social media guidelines/policy – how your staff are expected to engage officially via social media and advice for personal use to help staff avoid issues
Escalation plan – How you will escalate incidents, including decision trees
Moderation policy – how you will moderate user comments via appropriate social media
Key documents to develop
Source: http://www.intel.com.au/content/www/us/en/legal/intel-social-media-guidelines.html
Intel’s social media guidelines:
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43118383@N00/4668895145/sizes/l/in/photostream/
YMCA Chicago escalation plan
Areas to pay attention to• Negative comments & misinformation
(workflow, context, moderate, engage)
• Inappropriate comments(set context, limit rich content, moderate, block & report)
• Overwhelming level of responses(employ management tools, resourcing, broaden responses)
• Hacking & spamming(integrate spam control, complex passwords, moderate)
• Privacy (users AND staff)(Strong policies and clear guidelines to users, test tools first)
• Inappropriate use by staff(social media guidance and training)
Such as: Twitter (for real-time news distribution)
Blog hosted externally (for long-form updates)
Facebook page (for community building)
Flickr group (for photo capture)
Ushahidi instance (for geomapped incident reports)
Youtube (for video footage and reports)
Provide context and user guidance for all, set right settings per channel (ie: no commenting on YouTube)
Prepare your social media channels before you need them
Such as: Hootsuite/Measured Voice
(for social channel management, approvals and auditing)
Backupify (for archival/storage)
A social media monitoring service (for tracking externally reported incidents/issues/sentiment)
Use appropriate social media management tools
Best practice examples
Inform http://www.police.act.gov.au/crime-and-safety/crime-statistics.aspx
Inform https://www.facebook.com/theline
Consult http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/spend_spendingchallenge.htm
Collaborate http://transcribe.naa.gov.au/
Empower http://stjornlagarad.is/english/
100% correct information delivered too late or in the wrong context is worthless(and causes more issues!)