Do You Tweet? A Guide to the Benefits and Perils of Social Media For Municipalities
More than 66% of adults use social media. 57% of those have completed some college, and 24% have earned a bachelor’s or master’s degree. 13% of adults who are online use twitter, and 36% of those tweet everyday. LinkedIn has 150 million registered users including 2 million companies, and 3 of 4 use it exclusively for business purposes.
The statistics are overwhelming and social media is here to stay. Still many municipalities are leery of jumping into the world of social media. Those who have done it successfully, have incorporated social media into their overall marketing plan, and have thought through the ramifications of this type of communication. Municipalities can use social media to promote events, wellness programs, community services and benefits, and other programs. Users of social media will gravitate to social media forums for information about travelling to that town, and will consider the information posted when considering whether to travel to or move to that community. Social media can also be a great tool for marketing municipal benefits to residents, as well as familiarize outsiders with a glimpse of the benefits of living in your community.
However, there are significant issues that municipalities must consider before embarking on a social media campaign. Before entering the social media forum, a municipality should first consider who it wants to target, the message it wants to send, how it will be sent and research the benefits of using Facebook, blogs, twitter or an individual website to publicize information. The following is a non-exclusive list of other issues that should be clearly laid out before beginning a social media campaign.
Who sets the agenda?
Decide if the Mayor or City Council are responsible for this aspect. Should employees in appointed positions do so, such as someone from the Parks and Recreation department? Is someone already in charge of media relations or is there already a targeted marketing plan? Each may have a different agenda. The person managing the social media campaign should have a clear directive about the content of the page and who will generate the content.
What content do you want to publicize?
If the page is meant to publicize the municipality, it should avoid political issues, campaign materials, endorsements and hot button issues, and focus on events within the municipality, heighten awareness of the great aspects of your community and avoid divisive issues.
Who is charged with updating the accounts?
Each municipality has to determine who has the authority to speak for the municipality on these pages, and limit that authority so that the message portrayed is consistent and on target. Can this person respond to posts or comments, remove comments, or do they need to direct that decision to another? Further, every municipality should have a social media policy for its employees regarding use while on government time, describing what kind of content can be posted by an employee on their own page concerning their job or the municipality.
Do you want comments?
Inviting comments can come with good and bad results. The municipality can gauge the community’s thoughts about certain events, and get suggestions for improvement. However, as seen all over the internet, not all comments are constructive, or something you want to have associated with your page. Removing posts containing hate speech and obscenity, or removing posts that just don’t paint your community in a good light brings up a whole host of legal issues surrounding censorship. The municipality can block all posts on its pages, but it loses the ability to get the feedback that comes with this type of social media communication.
Municipalities should also consider whether the content is reaching real constituents. For example, the page for “San Francisco, California” has almost 469,000 followers. That would represent more than a third of its population. The fact is, a good portion of those followers “liked” the concept of San Francisco, but are not necessarily the constituents that operators of the page want to reach. However, this page segregates its updates into Events, and Travel advice.
You can also establish a group from the municipality’s followers of actual residents and push certain updates just to those users. Most municipalities have already spent time creating a website with much of the content that would be publicized through social media. It's a good idea to link to the webpage and direct users there for more information.
Social media can be a useful tool for municipalities to spread the word about the great things happening in its community, but a good social media campaign will require some forethought about the structure of the campaign and the ramifications of this type of communication.
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Sources and Works cited:
- http://mashable.com/2012/03/09/social-media-demographics/
- Jones, Bonnie. Social Media as a Tool for Tennessee Municipalities. Dec. 2010 University of Tennessee Municipal Technical Advisory Service.
- Social Media Tips for City Government and Municipalities. www.buzzmaven.com/klc
- Eric Eldon. 10 Ways Facebook Pages Can Help Local Governments Better Serve Their Constituents. Nov. 5, 1999. http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/11/05/10