Social Media and Local Government
Prepared by:
Daniel Ortiz-Hernandez & Samuel Feldman
Alliance for Innovation Research Assistants
Marvin Andrews Fellows at ASU School of Public Affairs
Summary
The development and popularity of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter has expanded the traditional methods of networking and connections people share. More and more people are relying on the internet and social media to stay informed on matters of importance to them. While local governments continue to make every effort to involve citizens in the governance process, it has been faced with an increased demand to evolve and adapt to social and technological changes in society. Gone might be the days when city newsletters where stacked on library counters, government offices, or recreation centers. Today, the preferred method of staying informed is technology reliant generations such as email, text messaging, instant messaging, internet blogs, and tweets.
This document provides information on social media and its applicability in local government. It begins by looking at some news media sources on social media and its uses relevant to governments. Second, the document provides links to sources that offer information on the applicability, implementation, and uses of social media.
It starts with an article by Bill Schrier, City of Seattle Director and Chief Technology Officer. In it he addresses the question of his title “Twitter, Facebook not ready for Government 2.0?” and points out some issues with governments using social media, such as having too large a group of followers to adequately respond to. The section goes on to include sources ranging from “10 Local Government Social Media Myths” and “5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence” to “Local Government Social Media and Lessons Learnt” and “Government Policy on the Use of Social Media”.
The final portion of the document includes responses from Alliance members on how they have utilized social media and what internal controls they have put in place if any.
While this document is meant to provide you with information on social media and its uses in local government, it is only an overview. Local governments differ in terms of population, density, diversity, other social factors, and government structure which places different demands and expectations on each for its use.
Putting Twitter’s World to Use
By Claire C. Miller
Published: April 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/technology/internet/14twitter.html?_r=1
Government 2.0 Meets Catch 22
By Saul Hansell
March 17, 2009
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/government-20-meets-catch-22/
Twitter Used as Latest Police Tool
By AP / Carrie Antlfinger
Monday, Apr. 13, 2009
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1891061,00.html
City twitters for quick communication
By Julie Clements
El Dorado Times
Thursday, Apr 02, 2009,
http://www.eldoradotimes.com/news/x1525910911/City-twitters-for-quick-communication
St. Charles enters the world of Twitter: St. Charles moving forward on tech front
March 16, 2009
By Dan Campana
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/1478502,2_1_AU16_CITYTECH_S1.article
City of Winston-Salem, NC - City joins Facebook, Twitter social networking Web sites
http://www.cityofws.org/Home/Nlnn/Newsletters/CityEdition
Utah and Virginian Beach, VA., Provide 24/7 Online Support for Citizens
By Chad Vander Veen, Associate Editor of GovTech Magazine & Speaker at the 2009 Website Management Conference
http://www.civicplus.com/index.aspx?NID=276
Twitter, Facebook not ready for Government 2.0?
Bill Schrier, Director and Chief Technology Officer
City of Seattle -
http://www.digitalcommunitiesblogs.com/CCIO/2009/03/twitter-facebook-not-ready-for.php
Social Networking: Not Just Web Toys, But an e-Government Tool?
By Cole H. Cheever, e-Gov Gateway Managing Editor
http://www.civicplus.com/index.aspx?NID=277
Governments use Twitter for Emergency Alerts, Traffic Notices and More
Jan 7, 2009, By Matt Williams, Assistant Editor
http://www.govtech.com/gt/579338
Local Government Social Media and Lessons Learnt
Simon Wakeman – Public Sector Communication, Marketing and Public Relations
http://www.simonwakeman.com/2009/02/05/local-government-social-media-and-lessons-learnt/
Potential Applications of Social Media and Social Networking in Local Disaster Response
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. > Alexandria, Virginia, USA
Email:
Web: http://www.ddmcd.com
http://www.ddmcd.com/potential_applications.pdf
Adults & Social Networking
By: Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist
Pew Internet & Life Project - January 14, 2009
http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/PIP_Adult_social_networking_data_memo_FINAL.pdf.pdf
Government Policy on the Use of Social Media
http://www.inqbation.com/blog/government-policy-on-the-use-of-social-media/
The Collaboration Project
By National Academy for Public Administration
http://www.collaborationproject.org/label/facebook
10 Local Government Social Media Myths
Posted by Ingrid Koehler
February 17, 2009
http://ideapolicy.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/10-local-government-social-media-myths/
Status of UK Local Councils Facebook Fan Pages and Groups
January 16, 2009
http://www.lgeoresearch.com/status-of-uk-local-councils-facebook-fan-pages-and-groups-as-of-16th-january-2009/
Gov Web2.0 showcase
Showcasing Government sites in the Web2.0 age
http://gov2.info/social-media-strategy-and-social-media-policy-in-government/
On the TREC Blog Track
Iadh Ounis, Craig Macdonald and Ian Soboroff
University of Glasgow and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
UK and USA
{ounis,craigm}@dcs.gla.ac.uk and
Abstract:
The rise of blogging as a new grassroots publishing medium and the many interesting peculiarities that characterise blogs compared to other genres of documents opened up several new interesting research areas in the information retrieval field. The Blog track was introduced in 2006 as part of the renowned Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) evaluation forum, to drive research on the blogosphere and to facilitate experimentation and evaluation of blog search techniques. This paper reports on two years of the Blog track at TREC. We describe the blog search tasks investigated at TREC, and discuss the main lessons we learnt from the track. We conclude the paper with discussions of the broader implications of the Blog track lessons and possible directions for the future, with the aim to uncover and explore the richness of information available in the blogosphere.
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~craigm/publications/ounis08trecblog.pdf
Social Media and Web 2.0 in Government
http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/technology/other_tech.shtml
5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence
By: Darren Rowse
May 8th, 2008 at 12:05 am
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/05/08/5-tips-to-grow-your-twitter-presence/
City of Boynton Beach, FL
http://www.boynton-beach.org/government/departments/public_affairs/social_media/index.html
One KC Voice:
Citizen Engagement for Greater Kansas City
http://www.onekcvoice.org/
Arlington County, VA
Arlington County helped visitors to the Inauguration move around the area using social networking technologies (Twitter). Visit www.commuterpage.com. Link to
http://www.commuterpage.com/cnews/inauguration2009.cfm to learn more about CarFreeJan20 Twitter Feed.
Chris Hamilton
Commuter Services Program
Chesapeake, VA
How is it used?
Right now we are using Twitter for travel advisories.
What policies or ordinances do you have in place regarding its use, especially internal policies?
We started with a few low-risk projects just to help us better understand the tools. A revision of our existing internet policy is in our City Manager's Office now for approval.
Who has access?
Right now just the webmaster and me, but we see that expanding.
How often is it used? And what notable benefits has your city seen since it first started using?
We just started, so we're not ready to measure. You can check the site to see how many followers we have. Lots of them are other cities/counties.
Lizz Gunnufsen - 757-382-6241
Public Communications Coordinator
City of Chesapeake
Chico, CA
The City of Chico prohibits the use of these types of "services", "tools", etc. as they frequently infect workstations with all kinds of ad-ware, spy-ware, mal-ware, etc. It creates a LOT of work for our IS department staff to keep this stuff cleaned off. For all intents and purposes, there is no reason a government should "need" these sites. We do provide access on special systems for our Police Department to try track down certain types of criminals.
Lynn McEnespy
Information Systems Director
City of Chico
Coconut Creek, FL
Press Release: Coconut Creek is Tweeting
February 11, 2009
Coconut Creek, FL- Coconut Creek is now Tweeting. That is the language of Twitter, a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS, or through applications such as TwitterMobile, Tweetie, Twinkle, Twitterrific, Feedalizr, Facebook, and Twidget, a widget application.
“We are exploring many options in which to reach our residents, educators and business owners,” stated Yvonne Lopez, Community Relations Manager. “This technology is quick and simple and we encourage anyone who is interested in receiving updates from the City of Coconut Creek to sign-up”.
So far, the city has close to 20 followers and has posted three messages; two on School Board boundaries meetings and one on an antiques & collectible show.
To follow Coconut Creek, sign-up at www.twitter.com/ylopez or search “coconut creek” on www.twitter.com.
Yvonne Lopez
954.973.6722
Durham, NC
We are just starting a pilot social networking project using SharePoint to link young professionals in our organization. See below:
Purpose for pilot wiki:
To identify unique needs, opportunities and interests of younger employees with the City of Durham. To encourage information sharing and relationship building across department among this group. To provide support for career development and retention.
Durham, NC – continued
Disclaimer - Employees who use this site are expected to be professional in their posts. The site is primarily for younger employees to communicate with each other. It will also be used by the Office of Strategic Initiatives to identify trends, problems, and opportunities to be addressed for employees and for the organization.
Ideas for posting
§ Personal information
§ Name, work responsibilities, photo, hobbies/interests
o Future career aspirations
§ Networking
o Interest in connecting with other employees – lunch, after work
§ Sharing
o Tips and success stories for other employees
o Requests for information, ideas, help
Vickie Atkinson
City of Durham
Manager, Organizational Development
City Manager's Office
101 City Hall Plaza
Durham, NC 27701
919-560-4222 x 225
Fairfax County, VA
We use Facebook and Twitter. Also, the County has a RSS feed, e-newsletters, etc... Here is the link: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/opa/getfairfax/
Sarah Bagley,
Fairfax County
Glendale, AZ
How is it used?
The initial priority was for us to have a presence within both Twitter and Facebook. Our pages have some general information that directs people back to our city site for visitor, business, neighborhood, parks and recreation essentials, etc. Additionally, on Facebook we created the Glendale, AZ group and provide a variety of photos to give the Facebook audience and group members a visual sense of the city’s many offerings. We have also made great use of the video capability of Facebook and provide Glendale 11 (our city’s cable station) shows for people to view – show topics include everything from highly produced looks at the city gearing up to host the NFC Championship Game for the Cardinals to teasers for festival shows and other popular programming. We also use Facebook’s event and messaging tool to keep those who sign up to be a part of the group in the loop on exciting announcements and events in the city. This tool has also been used to let people know about important traffic announcements regarding the city’s major sporting events (such as Spring Training baseball traffic and our recent NCAA playoff games). As for Twitter, we have used this tool as a messaging device as well, letting those who have elected to follow us know about major events, program dates, tourism offers, etc.
Glendale, AZ – continued
What policies or ordinances do you have in place regarding its use?
The city’s official Twitter and Facebook pages are managed and operated by the Web Division, which is part of Marketing/Communications. The Web Division will work with other city departments to get information out to the public through these tools, but all information must flow to and through the Web Division. Our policies follow our city’s Web site policies, which require all sites, site content and site creation to go through the Web Division.
Who has access?
Only the Web Division, which consists of two Webmasters, has access to update and post to the Facebook and Twitter pages. The pages can be viewed by the public, but interaction tools are turned off (meaning posts from other people, forum tools, commenting options, etc. are not available. This ensures that information posted to our sites is only from the city and is always appropriate.)
How often is it used?
Weekly at the least, and at times daily for busy event seasons.
And what notable benefits has your city seen since it first started using?
Additional Web presence allows us to reach out to a new type of audience that is searching for social media content. This also gives us free tools to provide video, text and photographic content to potential visitors, partners and residents as well as message people about important news and events.
Ginger S. Eiden
Web Content Manager
City of Glendale, Marketing and Communications
623.930.3036
Follow the City of Glendale, AZ on Twitter!
http://www.glendaleaz.com/news/Twitter031109.cfm
Marana, AZ
Recently, the town signed up to Twitter and we send out weekly announcements. The city has sent out a note about our offices being closed on Presidents’ Day and another note encouraging “twitter followers” to read more about the Accenture MatchPlay!
Rebecca M. Kunsberg
Town Management Fellow
11555 West Civic Center Drive
Marana, Arizona 85653
Office: (520)-382-1984; Fax (520)-382-1901
Mesa, AZ
Yes our office uses the social media of "twitter,” it has been very well received and we have many followers. Hope this helps you!
Shelly Allen
City of Mesa
Office of Economic Development
(480) 644-2773 phone
Olathe, KS
The Olathe Kansas Parks and Recreation Department has recently started using both Facebook and MySpace. The MySpace page is strictly devoted to our summer concert series. It allows us to link to all of our scheduled bands' MySpace pages as well. It is a wonderful way for fans of the band to find our links for the summer concert series, possibly leading to attendance increases. The Facebook page is geared more for general parks and recreation information. It has been a wonderful method for interacting with our community - even our mayor is a "fan".
We have both links available on our website at http://www.olatheks.org/ParksRec.
Paul Krueger
Park Services Manager,
(913) 971-6626
Scottsdale, AZ – Police Department
Currently we use Twitter the way it is listed in your second paragraph.
At this time only the PIO's update information on behalf of the Police Department.
We utilize it on an as needed basis which may be once every two weeks to multiple times a day. Each situation is different. It is difficult to state what the benefits are. They are not easy to measure other than the fact that we have nearly 700 people following us. That includes members of the media as well as the general public. When we post something it will be widely distributed.