Andrea Di MaioIn order to prepare an inquiry with a city government that was interested in defining policies to regulate the use of social media, I did a little survey of what some major cities in North America are doing on this. Interestingly what I found was not different from what I found a bit less than a year ago when I did so for state governments and some of the federal agencies
Few have a “social media page” (or something equivalent) that points to where the city and some of its departments are present in Facebook etc. Many actually have a presence in Facebook and – to a lesser extent – on Twitter, and the purpose is to communicate news about the city or the department. There is very little in terms of actually engaging people, although I’d like to point out what San Francisco is doing by integrating Twitter as part of their 311 service.
Also attitudes to allowing / moderating comments vary a lot. In some cases, once you become “fan” of a particular city or part of a “group” created by the city, you can post pretty much anything. In other cases (and blogs are probably the best example), you cannot even post comments. For instance, the IT dashboard blog from Vivek Kundra, the federal CIO and one of the most ardent proponents of openness and transparency is one where you cannot post comments: but you can do so on his Facebook page.
My point in many of these conversations is that government folks should care less about policies to prevent inappropriate behaviors and care more about how to make their organization’s presence on these media of any relevance.
Just take a look at how many fans, friends or supporters most official pages from cities, state departments, or federal agencies have: in many cases, these are very small numbers.
But also for those with large numbers, try to figure out how many are really engaging people in any sort of effective two-way communication, rather than just using Facebook or Twitter as an additional, just more fashionable, one-way channel.
Category: social networks in government Tags: 311, Facebook, Twitter
5 responses so far ↓
1 SmithWill July 17, 2009 at 8:18 am
The notion of government presenting a social media face is disgusting. Most bureaucracies have become so overbearing and impersonal to warrant overthrow. Social media simply puts an electronic smiley face on the beast.
Social media oversight? For crying out loud, most IT departments and executive management can’t even get their arms around basic IT management processes let alone try to govern social media use and content. All one need to do to verify this claim is examine a DLP implementation. If “well-defined confidential data is tough to coral then the social media crowd are absolutely impossible.
Lastly, the idea of social media in government at it’s core is corrupt. Working versus play doesn’t seem to enter into this silly smedia discussion. It’s all about all the fuzzy benefits and whatnot. The analysts should start looking at the productivity-killing implications before advocating that governments embrace social media. If you think services are poor and taxes are too high now, just wait until they start issuing their tax increases and fines via Twitter.
2 Linda Cureton July 17, 2009 at 8:41 am
Relevance is the keyword. For example, I found this post very relevant to my duties as a CIO and saw the link on my Facebook page.
People play games on personal computers, but that does not mean that personal computers have no relevance in the workplace or in government. Nevertheless, getting a personal computer just to get one, is irrelevant.
Similarly, agencies who use social media just for the sake of, say, having a Twitter presence, should strive to see how the particular Web 2.0 technology can be applied to help them perform their mission in unique or innovative ways (e.g. SF’s 311 service).
3 Andrea Di Maio July 17, 2009 at 8:50 am
@Linda
This is exactly what I’d like most our clients to think. Often the problem is that interest in Web 2.0 is somewhat accelerated or even skewed by elected officials who have been using this for campaigning (which is a very different game, pretty much like marketing and sales differ from service delivery and support).
I made similar points many years ago about government web sites and portals, inviting people to think twice before spending money on those (I mean, the web 1.0 ones) before having a clear purpose in mind. Of course reality is that you need to have a web site as part of your brand identity, and the same applies to those “official” pages on Facebook etc. What’s important is to set expectations (low enough) on how much they’ll help engage people.
And thanks for proving my point that blurring personal and professional networks is where we all find most value.
4 Sandor Zans July 18, 2009 at 9:28 am
Relevance is indeed the word: but the question is also how can public administrations capture the sense of joy and fun that bring people to facebook and twitter. If governments and agencies shouldn’t approach social networking sites for the sake of it (or, as you say, for the sake of branding), they shouldn’t expect neither that people participate in their relevant 2.0 endeavours for the sake of it. Having clear objectives is not enough: there must be something else, a change of philosophy that combines ‘relevance’ joyful incentives for participation.
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