Thomas A Brazelton

Actually, we have a couple of videos! One from 2011 and one from this year!

http://youtu.be/mt8oflHbPKA
http://youtu.be/cMKXNa46kHk

We’ve deliberately leveraged YouTube as a means to promote our brand. Largely because of it’s reach, if someone Google’s “Ankeny, Iowa” and something comes up that isn’t particularly flattering, that’s an abdication…[Read more]

For those of you still wrestling with this issue, apparently Facebook is hosting a webinar on the topic next Thursday, August 16 at 1:30 PM EST.
3CMA posted a link just about an hour ago: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=257664821017950&id=157101001007874
Even though the City of Ankeny has navigated through the waters on this…[Read more]

Greetings everyone. It’s been a little while since I’ve posted on this topic and I felt like I owed everyone a follow-up to let you know how things turned out.
After being put in touch with a representative from Facebook who was a little more prompt returning messages than who I was originally dealing with, we were placed in something of a holding…[Read more]

I don’t think Facebook will let you get away with that.
As it’s been explained to us, they want to avoid giving admin privileges to pages about specific locations. So city name and state abbreviation won’t work.
Our vanity URL used to be facebook.com/AnkenyIA, which is maybe what put us on their radar to begin with?
They want names to include more…[Read more]

By “custom URL,” I meant the vanity URL.
I think when you get over 30 likes on your page, Facebook gives you vanity URL permissions to more effectively brand and market your page.
For example, our page used to be facebook.com/AnkenyIA.
Now it is https://www.facebook.com/pages/City-of-Ankeny/102436154792
As it was explained to me, Facebook wants to…[Read more]

For those of you looking for an update on this story, I received confirmation from Katie Harbath – the Facebook representative that Luke Stowe put me in contact with – that Facebook will not be budging on this issue.
Katie originally explained that enforcement around Facebook’s policy was decided upon after larger cities like New York and Chicago…[Read more]

I’ll chime in and say that TweetDeck has been my platform of choice when it comes to managing multiple accounts. It’s also good for scheduling tweets over the weekend or during off hours!

Luke, that is excellent news. I am very interested on getting more details from Facebook regarding their policy.

I worked for corporations for 10 years out of college. While I learned a lot and gained valuable experience, sometimes it felt like I was throwing my efforts into a well. I never really saw the direct outcome.
Working for local government the last two years, I see directly how my role affects, informs and improves the lives of citizens.
I spent…[Read more]

We are currently in communication with a Facebook representative. Her name is “Nancy” from Page Operations. We don’t know her last name. We have no contact information for her other than the e-mail thread that she established. We’ve asked repeatedly for a phone number that we can call to speak with a customer service representative over the phone…[Read more]

Exactly. Our only recourse, really, would be to remove our page from Facebook.
But that would be like cutting off both your arms out of spite!

My director and I spent a little time discussing this with the City’s Attorney yesterday and she brought up a good point. Where I an my director viewed it as a trademark issue, Facebook has no responsibility to promote that trademark. Our trademark only exists to protect us from copycats. So it was kind of a moot point.
I think we’re coming around…[Read more]

The return might not be there, but it’s an opportunity for excellent brand management.
Our philosophy has always been to position the city in the places where people expect to find us. Foursquare fits into that strategy well.
Additionally, by taking ownership of certain locations, we bring their existence to the attention of Foursquare where…[Read more]

That’s a great idea about pet licencing. I actually hadn’t thought about leaving tips AS the local government I represent in places that did not already under our banner.
Our primary use of Foursquare is to leave tips for citizens about the things you can do in City locations – where and when council meetings are, renting park shelters – that kind…[Read more]