Posts By Heather Kerrigan

Feds All Over Social Media: A Final Roundup and Takeaways

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about how federal agencies use social media platforms, and more specifically, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. There are a ton of other sites out there that speak to various groups of people or have particular uses. Because it’s important for government to reach its audience in theRead… Read more »

Awesome Fed Channels on YouTube

Back in March 2009, GSA signed an agreement with YouTube which would allow government agencies to post content to this site in compliance with federal terms and conditions. By 2012, every major federal agency had a YouTube channel, and some were even featuring content specifically created for the platform. Compared to the other platforms I’veRead… Read more »

Key Takeaways from the (Few) Feds on Instagram

There are far fewer agencies or departments on Instagram than on Facebook or Twitter. And that’s relatively logical if you consider that it is the far more visual platform of the three I’ve looked at so far. But what I love about Instagram is that you don’t have to have amazing pictures (like NASA orRead… Read more »

Top Takeaways from Some of the Best Fed Twitter Feeds

Continuing my review of federal agency/department use of social media, this week I’m looking at Twitter (missed the Facebook review last week? Check it out here). After reviewing more than 100 Twitter feeds, I learned a lot. Some agencies tweet too much. I know a lot of that is personal preference, but I find itRead… Read more »

Top Takeaways From Some of the Best Fed Facebook Pages

Federal agency and department presence on social media varies widely—some have multiple accounts on various platforms while others have just a page or two that is updated infrequently. I wanted to find out what makes some sites more useful than others, so I set out to look at as many federal social media pages asRead… Read more »

Improving Your Image Through Internal PR

Is your department, division, or team chronically looked down upon by others in your organization? Sure, some of it might be your primary function (i.e. if you’re responsible for performance improvement plans, discipline, or firing, you’re probably not very popular). Similarly, it could be the amount of time it takes you to complete your dutiesRead… Read more »

16 Tips for Navigating Office Politics

Office politics is an inevitable part of work life. And unfortunately, avoiding it altogether, or pretending to be above it, is nearly impossible and likely won’t help you move through the ranks. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be negative, as long as you know how to navigate the system. Ultimately, office politics is allRead… Read more »

3 Municipal Broadband Success Stories

Over the course of 10 years, Seattle has studied the possibility of creating a municipal-run broadband network seven times, most recently this year. Although it was determined in June that the cost would be lower than expected (somewhere in the range of $463 million to $630 million), city officials again rejected the idea, citing barriersRead… Read more »