effectively utilizing a government social media presence
DESCRIPTION
This presentation covers the reasons that local government public safety agencies should use social media, what they need to know to get started, what should be included in a social media plan, and posting topics.TRANSCRIPT
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 [email protected]
Personal Email [email protected]
National Association of Gov’t Web Professionals
Website NAGW.org
Email [email protected]
Morris County Internal Social Media Management Policy
