Where Social Media Is Working
Social media goes beyond tweeting, Facebooking, and Instagramming. Government uses social media to interact with citizens and collect feedback. Take the President’s SAVE Award in 2009-2013 that used IdeaScale to collect ideas on how government could save money and time, and then people voted on the best concepts. That is crowdsourcing at its finest.
The Obama Administration also has engaged the public through online town hall meetings with hashtag #askobama. Citizens can now interact with the President in ways not possible before social media. And the good news is that any administration and branch of government can keep this trend going.
Agencies have had success using the most prevalent social media tools as well. One popular government Facebook page belongs to the U.S. Marine Corps, with 2.7 million followers. Facebook allows the Marines to communicate current events, and push out recruitment and troop-appreciation messages. Because many people get their news from the Internet and online apps, Facebook is the Marines’ way of meeting people where they already are. Need another example? Check out NASA’s Twitter feed with 11.5 million followers.
Moving Forward
We cannot expect citizens to go directly to government websites for information. Instead, government can discern where communities of interest are already hanging out and find them there. By sharing content via social media, government makes itself relevant, salient, and (I would argue) “cool.”
But there’s still the matter of the mixed message. If we know that the majority of citizens are using social media, shouldn’t we ensure that government employees have access to all these sites at work? Can’t we provide clear guidance on dos and don’ts for personal and professional social media use? Some agencies have figured this out, while others lag behind.
Bottom line: Social media allows government to open itself to collaboration and communications with external stakeholders and employees. And we’re counting on Millennials, as digital natives, to teach Uncle Sam to tweet. And while you’re at it, teach him SharePoint, Yammer, and whatever else the “kids” are using nowadays.
Are you ready for the challenge of new media? Join me for my session, “Social Media Strategies for Customer-Centered Government,” at Government Workforce: Learning Innovations. I will discuss how to make public services more accessible by implementing strategies that create a customer-centered government in the digital age.
