socialmedia-egov

Introducing Government Agencies to Web 2.0
WHEN A VISITOR BECOMES A COMMUNITY

Joseph Peters, Ascentum to collaborate with your target communities are
Joe Goldman, AmericaSpeaks endless. The potential to engage those that matter
November 10, 2009 most to your organization is now unparalleled.

The Future is Now What is it?
Picture a Sunday afternoon in October… Social media or Web 2.0 is an evolution in the use
You step inside from a sunny but cooler day - a sign of the internet. Through new tools and technolo-
of things to come. The TV is on and from the gies, users can now have control over the informa-
crowd noise you know it must be a football game. tion or content that they access, share and create.
You only catch a glimpse of the game before a car Currently the most popular forms of social media
commercial comes on. You don’t pay close attention are blogs, wikis, facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and
to it, but look up as the ad closes. The major car Twitter. But social media also includes an array of
company no longer is advertising its website, but other tools that enable users to generate new ideas,
instead encourages viewers to visit its facebook page. deliberate about issues, and take action together.

Is this the future of advertising in America?
What’s all the fuss?
No. This is 2009. That car company is Honda.
Social media shifts the focus from one where people
Social media is here to stay. For corporations, primarily view online content to one where people
political campaigns, nonprofit organizations and create content and engage in it with others. Anyone
government agencies, it is changing the way we can now author, design, produce and distribute online
interact with our clients, stakeholders and the content like blogs, video and photos. At the heart of
public at large. The traditional notion of the target the transformation is the speed at which information
audience is now too limiting a concept. With social (and misinformation) is created and shared through
media we must think beyond target audience and online networks. Information can spread out in
conceive of target communities. The opportunities seconds through mobile phones and
social networking sites, via people’s
personal networks or communities.

What kinds of social media do you
need to know about?
The major distinction within the world of social
media is the difference between a social application
and a social network. A blog is an example of a social
application. Anyone can create a blog and start to
publish content. People may actually read, follow and
comment on the blog once it is created. Facebook is
an example of a social network. People join networks
to share information and create relationships with
other members of the network. Simplistically, you can

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think of social applications as being single purposed Many social networks have also formed around the
and social networks as multi-purposed. sharing of media. Through YouTube, users can easily
Two of the most popular social applications are blogs watch, record and comment on videos about every
and wikis. Blogs or weblogs are the ‘diary of the 21st subject under the sun. Photo-sharing communities like
century’ except that they are intended to be shared, Flickr and Picasa encourage users to post their photos
have the ability to be complemented with multimedia, and join networks of like-minded people.
and can be commented on by readers. Wikis are
collaborative web pages where many people can Why is it important for
co-create and edit content. Comments, additions and government?
revisions are all tracked within a wiki. Social media provides an opportunity for government
Another popular category of social media application agencies to collaborate with citizens and stakeholders,
is known as crowd sourcing. Crowd sourcing allows solicit public input, and build communities of
you to take advantage of the decentralized nature of interested users. By helping government agencies to
the internet to brainstorm ideas and tackle large better understand the needs of the general public,
problems by engaging your user community or true social media enables agencies to refine their programs
believers. For example, the White House and several and address misconceptions. Agencies now can have
federal agencies have asked the public to help generate access to vast amounts of information about the
new policies and programs by communities that they are meant to
brainstorming and ranking ideas. In
relatively short periods of time, crowd
The potential serve and can ask for help from
experts, stakeholders and average
sourcing applications enabled large
groups to sift through hundreds or
to engage citizens to build and deploy new
programs.
thousands of ideas to identify the
most useful or interesting.
those who What have early
Facebook and MySpace are social matter most adopters in government
to your learned so far?
networks. Millions of users visit their
profiles ever day to share information
A tremendous amount has been
with friends, family and colleagues.
These networks also have applications organization learned by government agencies

is now
which have experimented early with
that can be built into them that allow
social media. Taking advantage of
users to share additional information

unparalleled
these learnings will significantly ease
or collaborate together on a common
your organization’s transition to the
project.
new world of Web 2.0.
Twitter is an interesting combination
Lesson One: Begin with your strategic priorities. All
of a social application and network. It is a micro-
too often, agencies conduct social media experiments
blogging application through which users can share
that do not fit well with their organization’s strategic
short 140 character messages or “tweets”. It is a
plans and priorities. The result is often wasted effort
network too, as individuals can interact and follow
with little to show for it. Thinking hard about where
others within the twitter community. Many organiza-
your agency is trying to go and how a deeper
tions and leaders use twitter to update their supporters
relationship with the public will help to get you there
about new developments and insights, but the
will pay off significant dividends in the end.
platform is also becoming a popular way to engage
supporters in conversations about current events.

2


Lesson Two: Let the objective drive the tool. Remember Honda
Sometimes a shiny new tool ends up driving the
design of a program. It is more important to consider You probably still have many questions. The good
your real needs and objectives before selecting a social news is that many of them have answers – they just
media tool. For example, are you trying to inform or take some work and a little organizational soul
to engage? Is there information that the community searching to find.
has to understand first or misinformation to correct? Where should you go from here? We hope that it is
What is the timeline? What will be analyzed? clear that you need a strategy, and how you use social
Lesson Three: Content is key. Social media requires media needs to be carefully thought-through. The
a different approach to communicating information, Open Government Directive requires this. A strategy
through both substantive and style. Substantively, is paramount, and is best developed with a sprinkle of
organizations must be more willing to share content creativity and open-mindedness.
and be less protective of data. Stylistically, content You can be certain that Honda thought-through what
needs to be presented in a more easily digestible it meant to cannibalize its home page for a facebook
format. Federal agencies are not used to writing 140 page. They asked themselves a simple question, “What
character tweets, nor can a 120-page report be is more important to us: a visitor or a community?”
effectively cut and pasted into a blog. You will need to
think in new ways about how and communicate you
share your content.
Lesson Four: Commit to the conversation and the
community over the long haul. Building an effective
social media presence takes time. Whether you are
creating a blog or a facebook page, users need to
know that they can rely on you to provide ongoing
content and to respond to their contributions.
Lesson Five: Social media requires a culture shift.
Joseph Peters is a Partner at Ascentum.
Web 2.0 requires a change in how your organization
thinks about its relationships with its stakeholders.
From seminars and trainings to brown bag lunches, it
will be important to educate staff on social media and
how your agency wants to relate to stakeholders Joe Goldman is the Vice President of Citizen
and the public. Engagement at AmericaSpeaks.

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What are some
common goals
and objectives?

Inform, Educate, Engage, Find, Build, Leverage, Share,
Complement, Evaluate, Brand

There are many goals and objectives for government in the strategic use of social media. Most
of these apply and can be adapted to fit the context of any organization.

1. Inform the public, media, stakeholders and other interested communities about
information and developments within your organization.

2. Educate communities with accurate information and address misinformation.

3. Engage communities in brainstorming and evaluating new ideas, policies and
programs.

4. Find where your current and prospective users are spending their time on social
networks and join them, rather than waiting for them to
come to you.

5. Build and nurture relationships with key audiences to establish communities.

6. Leverage the energy, time and expertise of users to help implement your
programs.

7. Share data that you have been keeping in a drawer so that the public can take
advantage of it and use it in ways that you couldn’t have imagined.

8. Complement and enhance other communications, marketing, or engagement
activities.

9. Evaluate the effectiveness of your policies and programs by soliciting input from
users.
10. Brand and increase awareness of your organization.

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