social media for governments and public service providers

THE EFFECTIVE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIAIN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Ayman AlafifiUtah State University

WEAU Mid Year Conference – Salt Lake CityNov. 18, 2014

OUTLINE

This is NOT:

Social Media 101

This is:

Who’s on social media?

Maximize your virtual presence

Social media for service providers

Social media and marketing strategy

What’s working and what’s NOT!

THE MOTIVE

The 2009 White House Open Government

Directive requires all federal government

agencies to “open new forms of

communication between government

and the people.”

WHO’S ON SOCIAL MEDIA

http://govsm.com/w/Federal_Agencies

WHO’S ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Utah ranks 2nd nationwide in e-governance in

2013

VIRTUAL PRESENCE

Social media is step 2!

SEO friendly website

Social media friendly website

Increase discovery, search ability

SOCIAL MEDIA-FRIENDLY WEBSITE

Links to social media hubs

Real-time feeds

Easy to share

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS

It’s not about quantity! Who will answer your social media

phone?

It’s beyond status updates - It’s about people you serve

First impression (profile picture, cover page, contact info)

City of Logan @cityoflogan

GOALS FOR YOUR AUDIENCE: 3E’S

Educate

Entice

Engage

EFFECTIVE?

MARKETING STRATEGY

Having an account is not a strategy!

Know you audience. How?!!

Integrate into your marketing/ PR plan

Who do you need to tag/ follow/ like:

Influencers: popular/ powerful people (e.g. Mayor, State Rep, City

Council)

Advocates: who help you get the message out (e.g. KSL, news

agencies)

Contributors: others who endorse your content (WEAU, WEF)

WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE WANT

Top calls for service

Emails/ Live chat help service

Google Analytics

TWITTER

Short messages (140 characters)

More formal

Link with Facebook!

1

2

3

EXAMPLE

USING HASHTAGS

Do:

One or two hashtags per tweet.

Only hastags that fit the content and used by other users.

Don’ts:

#Do # Not #Hashtag #every #word #in #your #tweet.

Don’t string together as many popular hashtags as possible to receive

attention.

#DontUseMadeUpHashtagsThatMakeNoSense

RIDE THE TRENDS

Search for hashtags and read

feedback

Attention spans are very short! Trends

don’t last very long. Engage quickly.

SET UP ALERTS

Twitter Alerts

OUT OF IDEAS?

Set up Google Alerts:

“Central Weber Sewer

Improvement District”

membranes wastewater,

WEFTEC

OUT OF IDEAS? Cover events live (post tweets, pictures, etc.)

#WEFTEC14

Break down a report (strategic plan) to a list of

tweets/ posts

ONE HUB.. MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

EVEN EASIER

POLICY?

Review existing social media policies

Your page/account = your responsibility!

Monitor for:

Language and tone

Copyright and intellectual property

Privacy control

Protection of proprietary and confidential info

WHAT WORKS? Make it personal! Post questions and illicit responses.

Engagement is KEY

Answer that phone

Use pictures, videos (informative, educational, humorous)

Find trending hastags and USE them

Create Google Alerts and use Twitter Alerts

Run surveys: use crowdsourcing tools to gather market data

Do a G+ hangout with the officials.

THANK YOU(435)881-0541

ayman.alafifi@gmail.co

mfb.com/ayman.afifi

@aymanalafifi

linkedin.com/in/aymanalafifi