Follow me on twitter - http://twitter.com/benrmatthews Find out more about FutureGov - http://wearefuturegov.com/ Digital & Social Media Challenges for Local Government. Presented at the Public Policy Exchange, 12th February 2014.

1. Digital Challenges in
Local Government
Ben Matthews, FutureGov
@benrmatthews

3. Badges!

4. 5 Digital Challenges
1. Being Human
2. Engaging with citizens
3. Rise of Mobile
4. Flood of information
5. Keeping up with

5. 1. Being Human

6. A Local Gov Exit Interview

7. Be Warm, Friendly, Human
“A council’s web presence should not purely be a cold,
clinical, homogeneous portal for paying council tax, parking
fines and the like. It should be vibrant, approachable and
engaging collection of spaces where citizens can interact
with their local authority in a variety of ways.”

8. Manchester City Council

9. Manchester City Council

10. Communication & Transaction
“Social media has transformed attitudes and expectations
in relation to digital engagement and most councils have
warmed to the idea of the web being a crucial channel for
communication as well as transaction.”

11. Surrey Council

12. Surrey Council

13. Surrey on Twitter

14. Surrey on Twitter

15. Seek & Share Best Practice
Every local authority is different – demographically,
geographically and politically. There can be no “one-size
fits all” approach.
We’ve definitely got to be better at sharing and seeking
best practice, especially as more and more organisations
wake up to the huge advantages of being truly digital

16. Comms2Point0

17. Guardian Local Leaders

18. Knowledge Hub

19. 2. Engaging With Citizens

20. Involve Your Users
Councils have the wonderful and rare luxury of being in the same place
as the bulk of their website’s target audience. Enlist your citizens to help
you improve your web presence.
Constantly test with real users and make it easy for them to give you their
feedback. Adapt, improve and then test again!
This is especially crucial when designing for users with specific needs,
such as those with disabilities, low literacy or limited experience of using
the web.

21. Camden Digital Strategy

22. Digital Camden on Slideshare

23. Enable Through Constraints

24. Surfacing Comments

25. Open Up Your Organisation
Local government holds some of the most valuable data going – data
which could offer huge benefits to local businesses, citizens and
service delivery.
A lot of councils are talking about Data (Open, Big, Linked etc) but few
truly understand it and even less are really doing it well.
Open Knowledge Foundation has tips on getting started.

26. 4. The Rise of Mobile

27. Digital Grows as a Source for News

28. For Many, Mobile Means More News

29. Size of Social Media Networks

30. Facebook Overtakes Google for Referral Traffic

31. Top Facebook Publishers

32. Shift in Mobile Users - And Advertising Revenue

33. Facebook Adapting to be More News Focussed

34. Go Mobile
It won’t be long before more of your website visitors are
using mobile devices than PCs.
If your web offering isn’t mobile friendly, that’s going to be a
huge problem.
Start thinking mobile now!

35. Responsive Design

36. Consult Your Analytics

37. 4. Flood of Information

38. Case Study: Maidstone Council
Maidstone borough has suffered its worst flooding since 2000, with at
least 36 families being evacuated
On duty looking after our social media feeds, 18 hours a day from
Christmas Day to warn and inform residents
Facilitated a valuable conversation between council and residents to
make people feel less isolated in a difficult situation

39. Maidstone Council Twitter

40. Sending Info Out
Frequent updates and advice with information from the experts
Highlighted the multi-agency response while covering our warning and
informing responsibilities
Worth telling people everything you’re doing. Virtually everything was
retweeted, reassuring thousands about our response.
When updates became less frequent, people were worried that they’d
missed something. Made a point of informing residents about the latest
information, even if those updates offered nothing new.
Also important to remind people what wasn’t affected by flooding.

41. Twitter Updates

42. Bringing Information In
Fed information into the Emergency Centre as it came up, monitoring
search terms and hashtags to capture as much information as possible
Identified through social media serious issues in two streets that they’d
been unaware of, and were able to get help to both areas
Able to suggest the deployment of Incident Liaison Officers to check issues as
they arose, using residents to inform our flood response
Some conversations inevitably needed to be taken offline, so liaised closely
with contact centre and set up a special email address so residents could still
be assured of a quick response to help them through

43. Facebook Updates

44. Results
The rate of increase in followers on Facebook jumped
ten-fold during the floods
Added as many followers on Twitter in two days as
normally would in a month
Received a lot of positive feedback from residents,
who shared updates with their own followers

45. 5. Keeping Up

46. Econsultancy.com

47. Comms2Point0

48. Buffer Blog

49. The Rabbitgram

50. Happy Inbox

51. Inbound.org

52. Thank You
http://bit.ly/benspex
ben@wearefuturegov.com
benrmatthews.com
@benrmatthews
wearefuturegov.com
@futuregov