Digital Communications

[Kristin MarkhamMember]

Social media: It’s more than just a toy for millennials to play with. Social media is now one of the best forms of audience outreach for any government agency. Organizations need to meet their audiences where they are, a few of those places being social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or even Snapchat.

Creating complex outreach strategies for each social media site can be daunting and very time consuming. In GovDelivery’s resource, 5 Steps to Government Success in Social Media, experts broke down some best practices that will ensure an organization’s success with social media.

Step 1: Understand the role of social. Use social media accounts as a way to host two-way interactions with your audience. Don’t make social media the primary communications channel. Use it as a promotional platform and for user outreach, not for communicating critical information.

Step 2: Drive social traffic with direct channels. Organizations email or mobile databases are built and owned solely by them. Focus on the growth of a specific channel and use that audience to promote social media sites or specific events that guide users to those sites. “Promoting a Facebook town hall via text message or offering an email digest to recap the day’s tweets gets your content noticed by your entire audience without having to rely on social algorithms.”

Step 3: Get visual, get engaged. Good photos are more engaging for viewers than most written content. In the GovDelivery resource, “80% of government agencies on Facebook said photos are the most popular content.” If a picture is worth a thousand words imagine the time an agency saves posting photos as opposed to writing extensive recaps.

Step 4: Do, measure, learn. Test pieces of content posted on each site to see what is most engaging for users. Use built-in analytics features and other social listening tools, such as HootSuite or SproutSocial. Test different topics and formats to see what audience members view, share or like more frequently. This allows agencies to tweak their strategy to fit their audience needs.

Step 5: Monitor the social landscape. Many social platforms have been around for a while, such as Facebook and Twitter, and don’t get as many new members as other sites like Snapchat or Periscope. Test new channels to see what is the best for your audience.

When used correctly, social media can foster great conversation within your audience. What’s your agency’s next conversation starter?

[Phill ThompsonParticipant]

Are there some gov organizations you think are doing an amazing job using social? Would you be willing to share any examples? Thanks!

[Author]

Posts