effectively utilizing a government social media presence

Effectively Utilizing a Effectively Utilizing a Government Government

Social Media PresenceSocial Media Presence

Carol A Spencer

June 23, 2014Digital & Social Media Manager

Police Studies InstituteCounty of Morris NJ

College of St. Elizabeth

We’re social.We’re mobile.

We’re SocialPercent of online adults who use:• Facebook: 71%

– 1.26 Billion users worldwide– 128 Million visit daily (in the US alone)– Fairly gender neutral

• LinkedIn: 22%– 227+ Million users

• Pinterest: 21%– 70+ Million users– 80% women

• Twitter: 18%– 645 Million users– 243 Million monthly active users

• Instagram: 17%– 150+ Million users

Source: www.expandedramblings.com

We’re Mobile• Smartphone growth has been in double digit

percentages for several years. Anticipate single digit in ‘14.– 55% of US citizens have a smartphone– 42% of US citizens have a tablet– 189 Million Facebook users are mobile only

• Tablet growth, year over year, 2012-13 was 87.1%• Yankee Group predicts 1 billion tablets to ship in

2017.

Source: www.expandedramblings.com and www.pewinternet.org/three-technology-revolutions/

Age Impact• Gen-X (in 2014, age 38-48)

– Best educated: 29% have college degrees– 41+- million

• Millennials (in 2014, age 20-32)– Digital natives: never lived w/o techology– 71+- million

• Gen-X and Millennials don’t read email. They text and chat online.

• Fastest growing demographics– Age 55-64 on Twitter– Age 45-55 on Facebook and Google+

Source: http://www.socialmarketing.org/newsletter/features/generation3.htm

How do you get started?

• Plan

• Implement

• Monitor

General Challenges– Commenting Policies:

• What others can say on your sites• What you can say and how to say it on

your own sites• What your representatives can / should

say on other sites• See Facebook.com/MorrisCountyNJ for

our Commenting Policy

– Terms of Service Agreements– Copyright Infringement – Credit Cards / Purchasing

Develop, Draw & Write a Plan• Is Social Media in your plan (ESF #15)• Discuss & Decide

– Where the information will originate– Who may speak for your agency – Which social channels you will use– How many pages to have on Facebook– What will be the process, the flow– What your policies will include – How social media will be marketed– How you will engage visitors– Will you post other than government information– Employee use; Content; Commenting– Archiving (Backupify, Archive Social, Frostbox, etc)

Publishing Productively

• Use a dashboardSocialMedia.biz 2013 top dashboardshttp://socialmedia.biz/2013/07/11/top-social-media-dashboards-for-small-business/

Hootsuite.com• Free for one user; Pro plan (2 users) • One-click messaging to multiple channels• Schedule messages• Connect to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,

Instagram, Flickr and many more social channels and apps

• Hootsuite University for training

The Dashboard: Everything in one place

Monitor your social channels• The public expects to be heard on social media.• Using a dashboard makes monitoring easy. • Watch mentions, private messages.• Social media is not a “push” technology. It’s a

conversation.• Not monitoring your channels is talking at your

constituents, not talking with them.• Respond as quickly as possible. If you’re researching

an answer, let people know that.• People know there’s a real person posting and are

quite understanding of silly slips.• Be honest. Social media is about trust.

Morris County’s Shared, Multi-jurisdictional Emergency Information Network

What it is. How it works.

• An application that utilizes the power of social media to share official emergency information during an emergency with multi-jurisdictional impact.

• Led by Morris County’s Office of Emergency Management, MCUrgent allows all 39 towns to post to a single Twitter feed and Facebook page.

• Via a Twitter widget (a small piece of code your web person can grab and use), MCUrgent can be put on any web page.

• Individual town emergency notices can be posted to a town’s website, Twitter feed or Facebook page at the same time.

What is MCUrgent?

Towns create a post using Hootsuite

Twitter(MCUrgent)

Facebook(MorrisCountyNJ)

Twitter(MorrisCountyNJ)

Facebook(Town page)

Twitter(Town feed)

Morris Twp

Parsippany

Denville

Riverdale

Dover

Facebook(MCUrgent)

How MCUrgent WorksParsippany: Rt 46 WB between New Rd & Rt 202/Parsippany Rd flooded. All lanes closed. 6:37 AM Mar 15th via Twitter

Twitter(MCUrgent)

Facebook(MorrisCountyNJ)

Twitter(MorrisCountyNJ)

Facebook(Town page)

Twitter(Town feed)

Facebook(MCUrgent)

3,714

8,022

6,234

2,176

857

1,079

22,082 people could get the message with just 1 click of

the mouse.

Twitter “Fast Follow” users are

not included here so the number

contacted is higher.

The Message Spreads Quickly

During Declared Emergencies

• Social media is now part of the EOC

• Social media is included in ESF #15 for Morris County.

• Using Hootsuite.com, we post to Facebook & Twitter on MCUrgent, MorrisCountyNJ, and often our other channels

• We have one blog for road closure updates

• We have a separate “Public Information” blog for shelter, ice, water, recharging stations, rumors

• We utilize our web feedback form for people to send us anything that includes personally identifiable information

• We post information that comes into the EOC from towns

• We monitor our social media for questions

• We monitor town websites & FB, Twitter, Nixle accounts; We repost town emergency-related messages

•Why use social mediaBecause citizens live in this space

•Know your audienceCommunicate by age groupBe everywhere: newspaper, web, email,

Facebook, Twitter

•What should be postedOfficial government information: FACTS

•Plan. Plan. Plan.Design, staff, training, voice, policies

•Implement. Post. Monitor. Reply.

In Summary

Is it worth the work?

The Public’s OpinionThe Public’s Opinion

Contact Information

Morris County OEMWebsite MorrisOEM.org

Twitter @MCUrgent

Facebook Facebook.com/MCUrgent

Carol A SpencerWebsite About.me/CarolSpencerNJ

County Email CSpencer@co.morris.nj.us

Personal Email CarolSpencerNJ@gmail.com

National Association of Gov’t Web Professionals

Website NAGW.org

Email FinanceDirector@nagw.org

Morris County Internal Social Media Management Policy