Read this presentation to learn: - Role of government agencies and social media - Short-term ways to benefit from social media - Long-term way to get the public to TAKE ACTION - Real-world examples of what did and didn’t work - Key to success with social media

1. Good Social Media
How Government Agencies Can (and Have) Use Social
Media to Get the Public to TAKE ACTION
Presented to CAPCOA by David Libby

2. Agenda
• Role of government agencies and social media
• Short-term ways to benefit from social media
• Long-term way to get the public to TAKE ACTION
• Real-world examples of what did and didn’t work
• Key to success with social media
Good Social Media

3. The Role of Government with Social
Media• Informative – Announce
improvements, news on projects
• Educative – Teach parents &
children, support gay rights
• Helpful – Fix infrastructure
• Preventive – Guide on ways to
stay healthy, carpool, walk, bike
• Entertaining – Promote events,
give-away items
• Community Building – Bring
people together to support issues,
team-up on emergency response
Good Social Media

4. Short-Term Ways to Benefit from Social
Media
• Alert Systems – “Spare the Air” days
are promoted on Twitter, Facebook,
IMs
• Fun, Interactive Content – Photos,
videos, polls, surveys
• Contests, Sweepstakes – Give-aways,
share with friends, edutainment
• News, Information – Posts, online
video, podcasts, livestreams
• Partnerships – Between agencies or
with private sector
Good Social Media

5. Outcomes from Short-Term Use of Social
Media
• Increased interactions on social
media channels
• Helps identify most influential
and engaged fans, followers
• Builds momentum for the social
media channel
• Extends the awareness of the
content to the friends of the
people who interacted with the
content
• Gives the page a style, flavor,
helps with overall positioning
and branding
Good Social Media

6. TAKE ACTION TO MAKE ACTION – Have
a goal!
• Issue: Η1N1 virus outbreak in April
2009 put the CDC on the frontline
• Solution: CDC built an online
communications infrastructure on
Facebook, e-mail updates, e-cards,
Twitter, RSS feeds, Flickr, podcasts,
online videos, and widgets to
disseminate timely and accurate flu-
related information
• Results: CDC created e-cards were a
hit, 100 free free health e-cards to
send to friends, family, co-workers;
research helped CDC target
communication to at risk families
Good Social Media

7. What Happens When No Action is Taken
•BART disrupted cellphone service
on BART to avoid
a peaceful protest
• A group named “Anonymous”
took action on social media
• Organized the BART website to
come down, used Facebook,
Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube,
distributed digital flyers to various
websites for posting
• Not only did the BART trains
come to a halt, so did their
communications team
• The press coverage online and
on-air swelled and exploded
Good Social Media

8. San Bruno Fire: PG&E and Bay Area
Red Cross Were Not Alone on Social
Media• KGO-TV has a partnership with YouTube for “Citizen video” called
U Report and a number of clips were submitted there – overnight
coverage on Twitter outpaced its broadcast coverage
• SF Chronicle retweeted others and responded to questions –
same is true on SFGate’s Facebook account
• San Mateo Daily updated furiously using Facebook in
an interactive way
• San Bruno’s Patch Blog blogged on
the topic citing lessons learned from
the Oakland firestorm
• Contra Costa Times live blogged for
hours, mixing in Google Maps
Good Social Media

9. Apps for Healthy Kids
• Campaign: The Apps for Healthy
Kids competition is a part of First Lady Michelle
Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign to end
childhood obesity within a generation
• Idea: Apps for Healthy Kids challenges
software developers, game designers,
students, and other innovators to develop fun
and engaging software tools and games that
drive children, especially “tweens” (ages 9-12)
– directly or through their parents – to eat
better and be more physically active
• Results: 59,946 participants; 41,943 adults;
16,003 kids
Good Social Media

10. Citizen Comm with Local Gov
• Campaign: Open 311 is a standard for
citizens to communicate with their local
governments
•Idea: For instance, SeeClickFix integrates with
Open 311 to communicate service requests
directly into a city customer relationship
management (CRM) system by reporting issues
through the Web, widgets or smartphone
applications.
•Results: Developers across the nation can
create applications that will work in any city
that uses Open 311. That means citizens will
be able to tell their governments what’s
happening where they live, participating in
improving their own communities.
Good Social Media

11. Key to Social Media Success
• Do your research
• Find case studies (gov and private
sector)
• Know the social media channels
• Be creative!
• Plan, get agency, Board member
buy-in
• Budget
• Experiment, test
• Learn from your mistakes
• Have fun with it
Good Social Media

12. Discussion
Good Social Media