Government-to-Citizen Communications: Utilising multiple digital channels effectively Liz Azyan investigates how government can better communicate and engage with citizens online with limited resources

Liz Azyan is an independent researcher and blogger

specialising in government communication and

engagement online. For more information, go to

www.lgeoresearch.com

There has been a huge shift in how individuals get their information. The evolution of the Internet and the advent of new communication channels such as text messaging and social media are playing a big role in the daily lives of citizens everywhere. Government Communication Today In order to engage with citizens today, it is important for government to communicate in new ways, keep the message clear, and make information easy to get. However, technology is only an enabler and not the solution. Integration of the various online tools for access to services and information is needed to make the most out of the web. Online tools are an essential precondition for engagement, but quantity does not mean quality. Active promotion and an integrated approach to managing digital channels is key to effective communication and engagement. The rise of the new social web has somewhat overwhelmed web users with information and is changing the way they consume it. Today, citizen engagement calls for a more strategic, simpler and more manageable approach, so that citizens are able to consume and benefit from it. The new socially informed generation also calls for two-way dialogs as governments are shifting their view of citizens as consumers, and allowing citizens to become contributors in the development of government. Why online communication is important in local government.1

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How is government currently engaging with citizens online? Governments are increasingly using multiple digital channels to communicate with citizens. Most of them are either using newsletters via email or RSS feeds. Some might also use tools such as web-based surveys, text messaging and online polls to engage with citizens.

More and more government agencies are taking to social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs and Flickr to communicate with citizens. Later we will explore how the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) uses automated email alerts to advise thousands of subscribers to changing content published on the its website, DirectGov, Twitter and YouTube. This has enabled DSA to reach and engage many more citizens and provide better service as a direct result of better promotion and greater awareness of DSA information sources. While there is an increase in use of social media channels, the most common and visited communication and engagement method is still the government website itself. The challenge remains: how can government use all the various channels effectively?

What are the challenges that government faces when communicating with the public? Managing Message Through Multiple Channels. With greater public sector adoption of the various new and emerging digital channels, government and citizens now face the daunting task of finding and cross-referencing relevant information that is dispersed across the web. This can quickly become an impractical task considering communication now takes place through various methods or

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channels. Government agencies need to ensure each communication can be translated into improved services, completion of transactions and increased satisfaction. Effective communication will lead to better engagement with citizens and eventually increase website usage and demand for other lower cost digital channels. Citizen Expectations are Increasing While Budgets are Decreasing. Tough budgetary conditions during an economic downturn are having a knock on effect on demand for services. Citizens are demanding more services to help them in these tough times, leading to an increase in demand for information. Today’s government should be looking ever more closely at new technologies to reduce costly traditional means of communication such as mail newsletters and face-to-face services as a result of this increased budget pressure. As budget cuts bite, more human resources will need to be pulled out of the equation. Governments will have to do more with less and with fewer people.2

More citizens now are accepting and in many cases prefer email and other electronic means as a form of communication. As a result, government agencies can be more forthcoming with their information.

The Social Media Challenge. Ever since Obama won the US election with the help of social media, governments everywhere have enthusiastically jumped onto the social media bandwagon without realising that running a campaign is different to running government, where the vision for technology must be filtered through legislation, regulations and commonplace bureaucracy.3

The same rule applies for governments everywhere, which means, in order for governments to effectively use social media, they must be more transparent and able to manage multiple channels of communication effectively. The challenge is gathering those channels into one meaningful platform or form of delivery that government will be able to manage easily and citizens will see as seamless, proactive communication. Social media and local governments Video The rise of social media also poses another huge challenge, which is to bridge the gap (social/technical) between ‘digital natives’ and ‘the rest of us’. And the challenge does not stop there. Many web managers don’t have access to social

media tools because of legal, security, privacy, and internal policy concerns. Reasons why public communication must be improved Web 2.0 has changed the government communication landscape Web 2.0 has revolutionised how the web works. Whereas in the past, the web would be a portal of information, web 2.0 has injected interactivity online and changed the way people engage with information. Web 2.0 sees web users demanding relevant and specific information to come to them regularly. It also gives web users the option of receiving that information through multiple channels such as the website, email, text messaging, RSS and social media. Some users prefer one channel over another and others might use multiple channels in multiple locations based on where they are and what technology is available to them. Over the years, eGovernment has shifted from only publishing information to a more transactional platform. But web 2.0 has shifted eGovernment further by allowing citizens to consume official government information where, when and how they want it.4

Government is now a 2-way Street: The “Net Geners” /Gen Y Don Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital goes into great detail in his book on how “net geners” or “Gen Y” citizens are transforming democracy. The $4 million private research study showed that “net geners” have developed new ways of thinking, interacting, working and socialising. All of this entails a whole different way of life, which includes a whole new perspective on how government should work and interact with citizens. “Net geners” are now entering the government workforce and becoming tax-paying citizens. Their expectations are pushing government towards some radical changes in the way they work and deliver services. They expect the government-citizen relationship to be a two-way street and expect to get information on demand. Therefore government best practices must be transparent and up-to-date to ensure the “net geners” citizen satisfaction is achieved.

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Don’t make me think! Government Information at My Fingertips Steve Krug, a web usability guru and author of “Don’t make me think!”5 makes some interesting points about how we should approach users when it comes to the web. Government websites are notoriously known to be one of the most complicated and confusing websites to use or understand.6

In Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, government web professionals think that their websites are organization-centric, confusing, and complicated. UK government websites are "complex to understand and navigate and information useful to citizens is often hard to find amongst large amounts of policy material not relevant to them," according to a report published by the UK National Audit Office in July 2007. So Krug’s principle of “Don’t make me think” speaks volumes when it comes to how government should be communicating with citizens. Governments work on the basis of keeping citizens satisfied by delivering the services and information they need. Failure to understand their needs can lead to dissatisfaction and inability to trust government. So the key to citizen satisfaction through communication should lie in the fact that government communication is delivered through a simple approach that “doesn’t require them to think”. And this can only be achieved through methods of communication and engagement that the majority of average citizens have access to which are, email and text messaging. Benefits for governments and citizens However, looking beyond the challenges, government and citizens stand to reap huge opportunities and benefits from effective utilisation of digital channels. Citizens will be more informed about public services and lead to the betterment of their own life and their community. Governments on the other hand, will be able to target citizens’ specific needs using multiple channels of communication and lowering communication costs significantly.

Avoidable Contact Local Authorities are expected to deliver better services online. If a local authority website fails to provide the service or information citizens will naturally migrate towards higher cost information channels for essential information. Local authorities must ensure that they communicate and engage with citizens effectively through their websites, just as they would do if a citizen were to call or be face-to-face with government officials. SOCITM estimates the transaction costs per channel as follows:

o Face-to-face £8.23 o Telephone £3.21 o Website £0.39

How to reduce avoidable contact Video Go “Green” With the rise in cost of materials and increased budget cuts, government need to find a way to make some big savings. By using more and more digital communication, government will be saving on traditional communication costs such as paper and postage costs. This also benefits governments in their efforts to help support climate change and the green agenda. Encouraging social media uptake Video How will effective communication have an impact on government? Video Finding a simple, low cost solution Many argue that email is old-fashioned, other claim it is already dead and it is not the modern solution to the issues government faces with communicating and engaging with citizens. But, we cannot argue with the facts: • There are 1.4 billion email users. The figure is

predicted to reach 1.9 billion by 2013.7

• The three largest webmail services attract 190 million unique visitors per month in the US alone. Between them, they have over 600 million global users.

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• 57% of adult US Internet users check or send email on a daily basis.

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• In the US over 18.4 million users are subscribed to receive Government email alerts via the GovDelivery service.

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Email is not dead. Email is changing. Many might also argue that email is dying due to the rise of social networking sites. A study by Nielsen revealed that social media use makes people consume email more, not less – particularly for the highest social media users. 10

Another study by The Participatory Marketing Network (PMN) and the Lubin School of Business’ Interactive and Direct Marketing (IDM) Lab at Pace University found that Gen Y would be more reluctant to give up email and text messaging than social networks.11

Why government should use email as their main communication strategy Based on this recent study by Marketing Sherpa, it seems email is not going anywhere. People still prefer to share information using email rather than sharing it through social media sites.

In the chart above, we take one view of how email is used to share information, because this activity is so central to social media sites. Email is dominant, even in this regard. While governments are discovering the benefits of social media and other engagement tools to communicate with citizens, email remains dominant and is the most accessible and widely used way to communicate with citizens. Integrating social media and email into governments’ web communications strategy Another challenge governments face with social media is deciding where the responsibility lies. Often enough, the web team will be initially responsible for creating and dispersing social media content. However this common mistake has lead social media to become a tool instead of a method of communication. Social media best practices will show, in order to effectively communicate and engage with social media, the responsibility must lie within ‘web’ and communications’. This new hybrid is essential because social media is no different to other communication channels like magazines and newsletters, therefore should be regarded as an additional channel for communication and integrated into existing web and communications strategies. However those strategies must adhere to the rules and principles of the web.

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Examples of social media as a web communication tool Coventry City Council Coventry City Council has nearly 12,000 fans on its Facebook fan page. It started to collect a huge number of fans due to the recent snow emergencies, where people needed information quickly about schools closing and opening, grit bins and other weather safety information. Since then, the conversation has continued to develop to other areas of Coventry amongst residents as well as its visitors. This is a great example of how a local authority is successfully using social media to connect with a wide spectrum of users and creating a community of interest around Coventry.

Camden Council Marketing Camden Council has done a great job using its twitter channel to crowd source ideas for its outdoor campaign, which was featured in MarketingWeek.12

The Website Redesign Project Blog Camden Council has also recently launched a blog detailing the progress of their website redesign project. This blog allows readers to ‘retweet’, share and ‘like’ any blog posts on Facebook. It also features pictures from Flickr, videos from YouTube and Vimeo, as well as PDF documents from DocStoc. The use of a blog to provide up-to-date progress for the project has proven to be an effective method of communicating Camden’s project. It is also a great resource for other local authorities to learn from when it comes to website development, with public sector readers coming from all over the world.

Example of Email as an effective web communications tool Driving Standards Agency Driving Standards Agency (DSA) utilises multiple communication channels, including social media to connect with the public. The most effective channel for communication to-date has been email. DSA has almost 13,000 subscribers to their email alerts on

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topics ranging from driving training to the Highway Code.

DSA email alerts serve as a cross-promotion vehicle for connecting readers to DSA content on other websites like DirectGov and DSA’s social media pages. Almost 6,000 subscribers signed up to receive alerts when DSA publishes new content on YouTube. As a result, new DSA videos regularly becomes the most viewed in the YouTube Motoring channel – receiving more hits than the BBC’s popular “Top Gear” programme. Emailed daily digests of DSA twitter updates have 50% more subscribers than DSA have followers directly on Twitter. A recent survey emailed to DSA subscribers received a 27% completion rate. This would have been impossible through any other channel. “The use of email to steer individuals to updated content across our many channels has dramatically increased awareness and usage of important DSA information. This clearly helps us achieve our mission “Safe driving for life.” – John Ploughman Web Manager at DSA An integrated platform for reaching the public more effectively We know email is not dead. We know social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are used widely and are growing in popularity. We know governments face challenges to tie these channels together to ensure a uniform message, and they need to look for ways to reduce costs. They need to do more with less.

What sort of platform will be able to address these issues, reaching the public more effectively than current methods? There are a few criteria’s that need to be fulfilled in order for a digital communications platform to be effective. Proactive public communication systems that provide automated alerts are expected to offer the following functionality:

1. It must allow website visitors to subscribe to information of specific interest to them, creating a personalised portfolio of a government agency’s information.

2. The subscribers information can be anywhere on the web for example, the government website, YouTube, DirectGov, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Blogs etc.

3. Whenever content changes on any of these digital channels, it automatically sends multi-channel messages alerting them of new or updated information, encouraging subscribers back to the updated content.

4. Users should be given options for subscribing to other related government information. Like one-stop shopping, a citizen should be able to easily sign up for additional government information (for example: the Met Office offers topics from the Department of Energy & Climate Change, Highways Agency, and the Driving Standards Agency upon signup).

One solution that is gaining considerable momentum in both the UK and USA is GovDelivery. GovDelivery allows government to efficiently manage multiple communication channels in order to proactively communicate with the public. This is a visualization of how the platform works:

What is GovDelivery? Video

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Where has GovDelivery been successful? Video Example of how it should work Highways Agency uses email and widgets to connect with users In a recent interview with Helen Rix (Deputy Website Manager of Highways Agency (HA) she explains how utilizing an integrated communication platform has allowed them to take public communications to the next level. In addition to offering highly personalised email alerts, HA uses widgets to go one step further by removing the requirement for people to come to the HA website to get the information they need. HA acknowledges the problem that most government websites are rarely a destination site for people in the same way that, say, the BBC website. So with widgets, people never need to visit the HA website at all. They might have just seen the HA widget on a friend’s Facebook profile or on a local newspaper site and “grab and get” the information they need. All the information contained in the widget links back to the HA site generating significantly more website traffic which otherwise would not have been possible. The benefits of using widgets are easy to quantify as they offer targeted communication and creates proactive access for customer to HA’s content. Customers have the ability to “seed” HA’s content across the web, proliferating links back to HA, by using widgets. This particular offering by the HA has become immensely popular and its interest continues to grow daily. Examples of effective communications via email with measurable cost savings and avoidable contact results

1. Oakland County13 has achieved an estimated ROI of more than £172,000 on printing and postage alone.14

2. The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) in the UK has seen an 83% increase in visitors and 163% increase in video views as a direct result of email alerts informing subscribers when new video content is published.

3. Highways Agency leverages social media through dynamic widgets and uses “Share

This” functionality to allow viewers to post and share content to more than 35 social media channels. The agency has delivered nearly 16 million email notifications to almost 60,000 UK residents.

4. Minnesota Department of Health has sent

more than 4.4 million email updates to nearly 20,000 residents. The Facilities Compliance Section alone has seen annual savings of £9,740.

5. Sonoma County has experienced an estimated annual decrease of nearly £26,000 in printing and postage costs alone.

6. The City of Sugar Land, Texas Police Department saves over £15,600 annually on their Crime Prevention print publication since publishing it as an e-newsletter.

The benefits measured within 9 – 12 months

• Channel costs - cost per transaction According to the “Better Connected 2010 Report” survey by SOCITM ; 4.4 million, or 42% of those surveyed, reported that they are not finding, or partly finding the information they are looking for on a council website. This can result in “avoidable contact” as users try other channels to find the information they are seeking. A shift from face-to-face to website transactions can create cost savings of up to 95%.

• Cut Costs. Sending notifications through email saves money on paper (Average single mailing to 3,000 recipients costs £1,693. Same mailing size sent quarterly averages £6,772) and staff time used for traditional direct mailings.

• Go “Green”. Sending communications electronically saves our forests, cuts transportation emissions and CO2.

• Reducing the communication cost. Website content updates trigger the automated creation and delivery of personalized email or wireless alerts to interested citizens.

• Improve Service to Citizens. Give citizens the information they want, when they want it.

• Increase Website Usage. More subscribers amounts to more

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information “pulled” by citizens; this can increase website usage by 20% to 50%.

• Reduce Need for Direct Mail, Phone Calls, and other Administrative Overhead. Sending notifications through email reduces the cost of government by offering a low-cost and scalable means of reaching the public directly.

Communicating with citizens during emergencies There is no doubt that communication becomes vitally important during emergencies. Government agencies must be ready to deliver real-time information to ensure public safety. Here are some best practices:

• During the recent spell of cold weather and snow in the UK, Met Office experienced an 855% increase in subscribers to severe weather warnings.

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) used the H1N1 news widget, which has reached more than 202,000 people from a total of 8,500,000+ views. It has been installed on over 500 individual web pages.

Conclusion By utilising simple and cost effective Web 2.0 methods to communicate and engage with citizens, government are able to not only save money but cultivate better relationships with citizens as a result of more frequent, consistent and measurable communication. Collaborative networks play an important role in how government agencies can work together to deliver better public service and offer greater value to citizens. Overcoming the challenges: proactively engage & re-engage with citizens There are a variety of challenges when it comes to communicating with citizens. Some of these challenges have been illustrated in this paper, these include:

• Multiple digital channels overwhelm or underwhelm citizens with bits or chunks of information dispersed across multiple channels.

• No meaningful or accessible platform to integrate that information in an up-to-date and timely manner.

• Economic downturn causing increased demand of government services and information.

• Reducing budgets mean government must do more with less.

• The changing landscape of government communication due to the emergence of Web 2.0 (keep pace with citizen expectations).

• The way ‘Gen Y’ thinks, works, interacts and socialise is having an impact on democratic participation online, effectively putting more pressure onto government to communicate more effectively online.

• The problem with government websites’ usability making it hard and confusing for citizens to access services and information.

• The social media hype has caused some government agencies to lose sight of why and how they’re using it to communicate and engage with citizens. Uptake is low causing government staff to disengage with citizens and become de-motivated.

In order to overcome these challenges, government must have a proactive public communication, which includes:

• Allowing citizens to customise their information so it is easier to consume and manage.

• Delivering that information in a timely manner to encourage trust and confidence in government.

• Giving citizens the opportunity to share, discuss and collaborate where possible.

1 http://www.govdelivery.com/pdfs/gsa_citizen_engagement_oakland.pdf 2 http://www.youtube.com/user/GovDelivery#p/u/6/czdXtbOfdQs 3 http://fcw.com/Articles/2009/05/18/FEAT-Obama-100-days.aspx 4 http://www.govdelivery.com/portals/oakland_webinar/ 5 http://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html 6 http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2007/nt-2007-10-22-survey-government.htm 7 http://www.radicati.com/?p=3237 8 http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statistics.htm 9 http://www.pewinternet.org/Trend-Data/Online-Activities-Daily.aspx 10 http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/is-social-media-impacting-how-much-we-email/ 11 http://mashable.com/2009/10/20/gen-y/ 12 http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/camden-council-uses-crowd-sourcing/3007271.article 13 http://www.govdelivery.com/pdfs/OaklandCounty_MI_CaseStudy.pdf 14 http://www.govdelivery.com/pdfs/OaklandCounty_UniqueUses.pdf

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