E D M O N T O N

April 2010

Jas Darrah, Communications @jdarrah

Social Media in Alberta’s Capital City

E D M O N T O N

Through the Communications lens• Social Media - No experts (or gurus)

• Personal: PR/Communications, Journalist, Pol. Sci., ChangeCamper, nerd…

• Different perspective from IT, Web Office, Marketing Projects, Public Involvement… (complementary)

• Communications Goals:– Manage Reputation, Brand, Image (of City/city)

– Inform/increase awareness

– Change perception

– Change/create behaviour • Stimulate 2-way communication

E D M O N T O N

City social media:• RSS feeds

• Connect 2 Edmonton Forum / community

• Podcasts - weekly

• Twitter – City microblog

• Flickr site

• Facebook (Fan page)

• YouTube

• Blog - Transforming Edmonton

• Google docs

• EdmontonStories.com

• Expo2017 Twitter, Facebook, Youtube

• Library Twitter, Facebook

• EEDC Twitter, Photo Gallery

• Facebook volunteer / team groups

• Public input forums, surveys, etc (ETS – Airport)

• LinkedIn (recruiting)

www.Edmonton.ca/SocialMedia

E D M O N T O N

Guiding principles• Innovate

– Take chances with social media

– But follow rules (take few chances in social media)

• Government has a much lower tolerance for mistakes than in private sector

• Do good

– Be guided by serving citizens better

• Transparency

• Utility

• Use tools/channels that fit objectives

E D M O N T O N

Social Media is

• NOT about the technologies

• ALL about the Relationships and Conversations or Interactions

E D M O N T O N

Social Media Management

• “Social” is inherently many individuals interacting

• Thinking about SM use by an organization is different than use by individuals

– How organization can benefit

– How individuals use (benefit vs. risk)

• Government is organization best suited to use SM because of “ownership by people”

E D M O N T O N

Why should gov’t be interested?

• Governance is inherently social regardless of media

• ROI 1 = Risk of Ignoring is too great (see horror stories – from Dell to Domino’s)

• ROI 2 = Return on Investment (of tax dollar$ demands citizen information, interaction, involvement, overcome “voter apathy”…)

• But – must have good case for use of tax$ (staff time) for any project, even social media

E D M O N T O N

Governing Cities - History

• Come together to find better ways to collectively deliver services – benefit to all

• All have a say on how our cities operate – “Town Hall”

• Competing interests – snow clearing vs. art galleries vs. police vs. arenas

• Cities became very good at delivering distinct services (silos)– Reinforce Complicated system

– Ignore new Complex system

E D M O N T O N

Scope of Social Media

use by City to

collaborate within City

use by City employees for personal use

use by City to connect with citizens (people

outside City org.)

Guidelines developed by

Communications with Web Office,

Office of Public Involvement, IT,

HR, Legal

Use by councillors

Governed by Media Relations Policy, Code of Conduct, Use of Communications Technology

Hardest part – capitalize on public success

E D M O N T O N

Scope of Social Media involvement

How do we participate with social media to engage, promote

etc

How do we monitor others

using social media to talk

about us

Corporate projects and projects by business units 1. Listen

2. Participate

3. Engage

E D M O N T O N

Social media can help answer:

• How do we get people to pay attention to our issues and recognize them as important?

• Once people become aware of our messages, how do we communicate in such a way that will resonate?

• How do we build lasting relationships with citizens

• How do we get civil servants answering fewer 1 on 1 email and phone calls and scale up answers to reach many people?

E D M O N T O N

Social Media Fit

• Different tools/sites enable different types of interactions

• Different tools/sites fit different needs and business objectives

• Different tools/sites have different demographics

• Social Media complements other strategies

• Different tools/sites have different resource needs

E D M O N T O NUse tools that match your objectives on how people use different social media

• People react to others – forums, ratings, reviews– TripAdvisor, Yahoo, C2E

• People seek content – consumption– RSS and Widgets

• People create content (user-generated) – Blogs (weblog), microblogs (Twitter), YouTube

• People connect - social networks, virtual worlds– SNS: Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn; Second Life

• People collaborate – wikis, open source– Wikipedia, wikiHow, Linux, Firefox

• People organize content – tags– Del.icio.us, Digg, Flickr

E D M O N T O NWhat we ask projects wanting to use social media• When you want to build a long-term relationships

• When you want to have a 2-way conversations/interactions

• When you have resources to support a strategy

• When an existing site is a popular place where your target audience segment interacts

• When you want “top-of-mind” feedback

• When you accept the risk of negative public feedback

• When you want to deliver more context on a topic

• When you want to put a human face to the organization or issue

• When you want to share rich multimedia

• When you want to compile input to support decision making as part of a public involvement process

E D M O N T O N

Hierarchy of needs – for Citizens

• Safety and security

• Information about services

• Responsiveness

• Access to services

• Information as service

• Transparency of Government

• Trust and confidence

• Engagement on Issues

• Humanizing the organization

Sometimes one objective trumps others based on the tool…

E D M O N T O N

Why City is on Twitter• Establishes presence for

credibility, connections– Crises; unfiltered thru MSM

• Allows listening / informing

• Complements other tools

• Assists transparency

• Humanizes org (less important)

• Engages citizens

• Builds champions

• Informs City, enables response

• Quasi focus groups

Posts:

– News releases

– Answer questions

– Job opportunities

– Major traffic disruptions

– Upcoming council meetings or events the mayor is attending

– Alerts about other public consultation activity

– Contests

– Informal “focus groups”

– Receive alerts on burnt lights, etc.

E D M O N T O NCreate Content – micro blog

E D M O N T O N

E D M O N T O N

Transforming Edmonton Blog Goals:

• Conveys competent city, unified voice

• Demonstrates daily activity aligned with plan, plan is aligned with citizen priorities

• Demonstrates Listening to Edmontonians

• Establishes relationships directly with people

• Humanizes the organization through real people with expertise, professionalism

• Context on issues we want to convey, issues we want to engage citizens on

E D M O N T O N

Problem blog tackles:

• City was perceived to be weak in top satisfaction drivers:

– Listening to and responding to citizens

– Communicating complex issues

– Transparency (open, honest)

• demonstrate tax value, looking for savings

• alignment with citizen priorities

Importance

E D M O N T O N

Strategies to overcome negative perception about “how we govern”• Increase transparency

• Build relationships with Edmontonians

• 2-way communications

• Demonstrate listening

• Demonstrate priorities, engage in priority-setting

• Convey value of services, continuous improvement / efficiencies

These became building

blocks for SM

strategy and

message platform for persuading

leaders

E D M O N T O N

Key blog attributes

• Author is identified

• Conversational style that adds more “colour” or context to other information

• “Fresh” updates that are timely and relevant

• Ability for people to comment on blog posts

• Archive of all posts

• Tags for each post make it very searchable, self-organizing for popular posts

E D M O N T O N

“Bringing Our City Vision To Life”

• First tangible representation of transforming Edmonton – conversations about reaching goals give meaning to

“a document about our vision”

• Complement other TE campaigns

• Highly flexible to add, change as we go

• Avoids silos of information

• Learn from pilot

E D M O N T O N

Other City examples of “success”

• C2E Forum, venting, Q&A and the issue of the day

• Twitter and the ice ruts – brand ambassadors, for free

• Facebook and the fireworks

• Blog and the bridge

• Sports field conditions RSS feed, calendar event info

• Twitter and Wind storm and the Heritage Days storm alerts - real services where info and trust are the new currency – direct connections to citizens UNFILTERED through mainstream media

E D M O N T O N

• End main presentation

• Remaining slides – for discussion and background

E D M O N T O N

Where are we going?

• Information and Conversations now

• Respond to reputation issues

• Open up data so users can re-package our data for more accessible use – Gov2.0

– Utility – services

– Transparency of government

• Long tail of public policy developing

– BlogCamp this spring: educate and support the community

• Engagement continuum: now - Forums, surveys for input; Future - Idea Zone 1.0

E D M O N T O N

Open Government

• Government as platform

• DIY Gov’t

• b/w agencies

• Government business

• Shift “need to know” to “need to share”

• Info as Service

• Spectrum of engagement

– Input on ops

– Input on policyCollaborative

Participatory

TransparencyOpen data

E D M O N T O N

Strategy to develop priorities

• Apply "the long tail" to public policy

– Networked markets are more trustworthy than info from a single source

– Networked consumers know more about a product than the company ever knows

– In development with projects like Open Data Initiative

http://tinyurl.com/eaveslongtailpolicy

• Community building i.e. BlogCamp

E D M O N T O N

Strategy - new ways to engage citizens

• New way to communicate City messages and demonstrate listening and transparency

• NOT about the technologies

• ALL about the Relationships and Conversations

• No more control of the message

• Blog, RSS, microblog, Facebook… are all just tools in Social Media toolbox, each suited for different task

• All activities in social media (if used) complement other communications and public involvement efforts

E D M O N T O N

Key lessons in management buy-in

• Make slow, deliberate steps to foster adoption

• Start with small projects, backed by a big strategy

• Create framework that allows others to push their projects forward in integrated manner

• Capitalize on projects already through the gate and integrate with developing projects

• Engage as many people as possible

• Empower champions (Social Media Advisory Council)

• Increase overall understanding of Social media in the organization … and community– Detailed slides on persuading management are available at:

http://tinyurl.com/EdmSM

E D M O N T O N

Communicate to audiences where they want to interact

Go where your target is

Transportation

ETS

Roads

LRT

Sushi

Jobs?

Get others in an online community to answer questions for us

E D M O N T O N

All strategies relating to Social Media should consider the relationship-building potential of the tactics

There is an inverse relationship between control and trust

-David Weinberger (Wikipedia link)

E D M O N T O N

What is new

• Relinquish CONTROL of the message through conversations of others

• Allow organic, accelerated SHARING of messages, ideas, info and meaning – bigger scale of viral sharing

• People CONTRIBUTE to your info… like a conversation

• Build new LINKS to other people or groups directly rather than mediated relationships

• MOBILE access to web enabled

• MULTI-PARTICIPANT conversations that persist

E D M O N T O N

Advantages with SM tools• Another channel and format to reach people

• Humanizes the City organization

– credibility = trust

• Increases knowledge about what people are saying and what’s going on (i.e. informal surveys, online focus groups, monitoring)

• Demonstrate listening and responsiveness

• Provides immediacy of posting

• Viral information spread = greater reach

E D M O N T O N

Benefits• Use new tools to communicate to many rather than 1x1

• Take advantage of lines of communication that grow exponentially with size of group (internal and external)

2 5 20 100 10 000

Size of Group

1 25 200 5000 50 000 000

Lines of Communication

E D M O N T O N

More benefits

• Stimulates conversation, engagement in issues, context

• Link to services, rich content (video, images, audio)

• Build relationships for future opportunities / communities of support

• Establish web presence as recognized source of info, especially beneficial for crises / need for unfiltered messages

• Showcase expertise, transparency

• Measure traffic, interest, support

• Low dollar cost for implementing

E D M O N T O N

Concerns with social media

• Privacy (personal perspective)

• Relinquishing “control of the message”

• Risk of online criticism

• Unbridled discussion can distort focus of your efforts

– create potential for storm/crisis

• Are we committing to doing something when people suggest it in online conversation?

• Standards and guidelines; governance

• Infrastructure for Security – data sharing in Gov2.0

E D M O N T O N

More concerns / challenges

• Time to manage, staff resources, comment moderation and guidelines

• Posting augmented by other communications efforts to make audiences aware

• Need to keep it fresh – need for frequency of posting

• risks of being open to the world and providing a record that will last and last and last…

• Would lack credibility – if “ghostwriters”

E D M O N T O N

Approach – overall strategy

• Listen– Monitoring of the conversations, multimedia, ratings,

threads/forums

• Participate – Establish presence, offer information, answer

questions, respond to comments, establish relationships

• Engage– Go where people are connecting, stimulate, compile

– range of engagement: receive suggestions and comments -- compile input for decisions

E D M O N T O N

Same approach for each project

1. Listen• Monitor, respond

2. Participate• Presence, humanize

the org, transparency

3. Engage• Mobilize, “long tail”

benefit, social change

Consider:

a) People

b) Purpose/ Process

c) Technology

Business units will have specific objectives

E D M O N T O N

Have clear objectives:

• Role of key tools in managing emergency/ addressing crisis

• Role in labour issues

• Role in talent recruitment to City

• Role in labour attraction to city

• Role in building pride

• Role in engaging people for participation in events/activities; for informing people; compiling public input

• Tracking effectiveness of initiatives such as social marketing (behaviour change)

- Complement other tactics - Measurable objectives

E D M O N T O N

Have clear approach per objectives

Emergency/crisis/labour

• Must 1st establish strong presence as source of credible, frequent and reliable information

• Build trust early, grow audience

• When needed, mobilize action to make tools useful, effective

Tracking effectiveness

• Must listen, listen, listen

• Participate and probe on issues or ask questions, then listen, listen, listen…

Role in engaging people

• Must go where people go to connect to recruit, build pride, attract

E D M O N T O N

Always be listening/watching, then…

• Reactive

– gauge health of your brand, online reputation

– Prevent crisis

• Proactive

– Join conversations

– Promote your value

• Set guidelines on when to ignore, when to respond, when to notify bosses, when to notify departments (SM policy if needed)

E D M O N T O N

City’s Response strategy

• Follow media relations strategy

• Manage image and reputation

• Correct all factual errors

• Gauge readership (followers/reach) and tone of commenter (civil vs vitriolic) before entering into public discussion

– Balance desire to correct/inform with risk of increasing attention to errors, negative issues

• Ignore/respond/act

E D M O N T O N

Listening – tools to track brand, projects• RSS aggregator

– ie Google blog search– ie Google news alerts– Twitter search – est. RSS– Other RSS alerts

• search.twitter.com

• TweetBeep alert

• Twellow – search Twitter location, etc

• Wthashtag.com – what the hashtag

• StartPR

• Backtype

• BlogPulse

• Boardtracker, Boardreader – discussion forums

• PostRank

• Scoutlabs

• Vanno

Measures – rough gauge:

• Twitter measurement: Retweets; share of mentions; tone;

• RTs, links viewed, traffic to blog & followers.

• scoutlabs and twitter search and look and # of followers of original poster and everyone that retweets

•Technorati – blog catalogue, search topics, check traffic on bloggers talking about your org

•Google side wiki – watch for it

•OMGILI

•Social Oomph; Socialtoo

•Facebook search & Facebook Lexicon

•YouTube search

E D M O N T O N

Paid monitoring – if you’ve got $

• BurellesLuce's "iMonitor." Tracks media mentions on the Web based on keywords. This self-guided monitoring service is very clean and easy to navigate. Cost: $3,600

• Cision's "Small Business Edition." Assigns "publicity values" for different stories based on length, media type (print, online, video), estimated number of readers/viewers, tone and reach. Cost: starts at less than $5,000 a year.

• Filtrbox's "G2." The "Click here for Live Chat" button makes trying the site a breeze. Cost: as little as $2,000 a year and includes both traditional and social-media monitoring.

• Meltwater "News and Buzz." Claims to track more than 100,000 media outlets around the globe. Downside: Somewhat hard to choose among the list of features. Cost: starts at $5,000 a year.

• Radian6. Only tracks media hits online (no print). If buffing your image on social media sites is a top priority, this may be your program. Cost: starting at $7,200 a year.

E D M O N T O NListening – specific measures for brand/project

Element Metric Reveals Tools (e.g.)

Audience •Referrals

•Target demographic

•Who is SM tool attracting •Google Analytics

•Twitter Search

•Facebook profiles

Influence •Time spent on site

•Bounce/exit rate

•Importance of the conversation

•How involved is audience

Google Analytics

Engagement •Viewing of parts (text, tweets, video…)

•Interest value of sites/tools

•Google Analytics

•Trendrr - Twitter

•Board Tracker

Loyalty •# of posts on brand

•Recommendations, RT

Are people supporting or discrediting

•Blogpulse

•Lexicon

Involvement •Time spent on site/tool

•Bounce/exit rate

How involved in material is audience

•Google Analytics

•Blogpulse

•Repeats

Action •Posts, tweets, pass-ons # of times audience performs desired action

•FeedBurner

•News/ ratings

E D M O N T O N

Participate/Engage: Set strategy

• Clearly define objectives of relationship and conversation you want to have

• Identify tools that fit audiences + purpose (Profile audience - i.e. surveys on tool usage)

• Commit to managing tool: set guidelines, prepare team for delivering responses, comment moderation, schedule fresh posts…

• Launch PILOT

• Listen more, respond more, initiate in purpose area (also participate in other forums to drive to your area)

E D M O N T O N

Tools for participating, sharing• Twitter - for real-time communication, connection, monitoring

and learning (via TweetDeck)

• Delicious - for sharing and saving useful sites and articles

• Facebook - for connecting with people and brands

• LinkedIn - for network building with people I know professionally

• Plaxo - for syncing between tools

• WordPress - for sparking conversations with a blog

• MicroPlaza - (new) for mining the links key contacts post

• StumbleUpon, Digg, Slideshare, Viddler, Flickr – for rating sites or sharing

• YouTube

• New tool every month

E D M O N T O N

Vital for allowing “pull” of our

information and helping viral

sharing

Content seekers – RSS feed aggregators

E D M O N T O N

Creating, sharing, rating content

E D M O N T O N

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People reacting – forums, ratings

City makes first decision to relinquish control of the message in online community

Objective: link Edmontonians around globe

Positive unintended consequences

E D M O N T O N

People connecting – Social Networking Sites

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Public input – forums, surveys, etc

E D M O N T O N

E D M O N T O N

Edmonton.ca

Static, one-way information, mainly consistent over time, City organization, formal

Transforming Edmonton

Frequent updates, archival, tags, conversational, interactive, informal, sharing, rich links

Complementary tools

E D M O N T O N

Contact me

• http://twitter.com/jdarrah @jdarrah

• Jason.darrah@edmonton.ca

• Linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jasdarrah

• Facebook– http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Darrah/1398410065