E D M O N T O N

February 2010

Jason Darrah, Communications

Social Media 101

E D M O N T O N

Social Media 101

• What is Social Media

• When it is used

• Considerations for using with projects

• Employee use and guidelines

E D M O N T O N

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

• Personal: PR, Journalism, 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 presence:• 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

E D M O N T O N

“Social Media”

• “Media” – the channel – means web-enabled technology, don’t confuse with “mainstream mass news media”

• “Social” – focus on this aspect

• “Social” = Socializing in a mass channel

• a.k.a. Web 2.0

E D M O N T O N

Social media / new media / Web 2.0 = new opportunities

E D M O N T O N

Social Media: New Way

• Social Media refers to web-enabled sites that encourage interaction, rather than just passive viewing.

• This includes the ability to create your own pages or profiles, and post messages, pictures and videos on those pages or on other pages.

• Web 2.0 is becoming a primary resource for many people

• Different demographics have different needs

E D M O N T O N

SM = Tools supporting a Strategy

• 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?

• Social Media is another communications tool, it is part of an overall communications strategy.

E D M O N T O N

Scope of Social Media

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

Being done informally, comprehensive strategy being

developed by Communications.

Need business units to help monitor niche areas

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

Is seeking “relationships” and conversations new?

• Bus driver

• Rec centre staff

• Fort Edmonton characters

• CRC interactions

• 311 staff

• Public meetings

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

• IMMEDIACY – need to be agile/nimble in participating

• 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

http://theconversationprism.com/

Many tools and sites, which may change…

Many different uses…

but the new paradigm of connections and interactions is here to stay

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, and success of the Fort Survey)

• 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

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:

• Is NOT just a cool trend

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

–  http://www.commoncraft.com/socialmedia

– http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter-search

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypmfs3z8esI

– http://www.slideshare.net/yongfook/social-media-roi

– http://bit.ly/Ht5Lc

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 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 N

When to consider using 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

Seek help!

• Communications and Public Involvement will help evaluate IT-approved tools and resources required, that can fit your objectives

• Make sure you commit adequate resources (staff time) before engaging in social media strategy or presence

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

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

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

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

City examples

• 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

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.)

Enormous Potential. Contact your Comm officer

Guidelines developed by

Communications with Web Office,

Office of Public Involvement, IT,

HR for presentation and

discussion

Being developed in Collaboration Strategy

Use by councillors

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

http://crsteamsites/IT/ITPA/Web_Technologies/Collaboration_Strategy/default.aspx

E D M O N T O N

Questions?

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

Q to ask when building online community

• 1. Why are we building an online community?

• 2. What are people going to do when they get to our online community?

• 3. How big could our community be?

• 4. Who will be our community caretakers?

• 5. Who will we invite?

• 6. What are our ground rules?

• 7. How are we involved?

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

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…

• 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

Select tools that fit need & audience

• Tech profiling to select target demographic’s preferred conversation/relationship channel

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 Content and sharing

E D M O N T O N

Creating, sharing, rating content

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

People connecting – Social Networking Sites

E D M O N T O N

E D M O N T O N

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

Recruitment tactics• Use traditional approaches in social

media tools

– Ads in Facebook (targeted)

– Ads on popular sites

– Video on City web site

• Non-traditional approaches

– RSS feeds on job boards

– Job opps promo on Twitter

– Employee videos, go viral

– Staff blogs

“push of info”

“pull of info”or relationshipsabout experience

E D M O N T O N

People connecting – Social Networking Sites

E D M O N T O N

Public input – forums, surveys, etc

E D M O N T O N

E D M O N T O N

People creating (& collaborating) - wikis

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

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

Transforming Edmonton Blog benefits:

• “Turnkey” solution for interested business units with aligned objectives

• Unified approach from citizen perspective, unified org

• Added monitoring assistance in established framework

• Approved look/feel – SMT, Web Steering committee

• Framework decreases each contributor’s need for daily updates

• Cross-marketing between interests

• Multi-media add-ons

• Greater searchability, utility that fits new behaviours

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

Managing the blog

• Project managers as identified authors

• Avoids proliferation of projects with distinct web presence and fragmentation of vision

• One blog with multiple streams “keeps it fresh”

• Searchable by niche topics while cross-promoting

• Clear comment policy

• Monitoring of comments by project teams– Supported by Communications’ reputation management

monitoring – like media monitoring

– Supported by Social Media Advisory Committee – advice, collaboration, etc

E D M O N T O N

Transforming Edmonton Blog becoming a hub for other social and multimedia

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

E D M O N T O N

What is Twitter

• A micro blog (web log) service, est. 2006

• Used to post messages of up to 140 characters long (spaces included)

• Described as status updates on Facebook

• Used by 32M+ (tripled in 2009) –Wall Street Journal

• Average age in U.S. is ~35

• Conversations

E D M O N T O N

Why successful?

• Simplicity. People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter makes that simple.

• Twitter asks one question:

"What are you doing?"

– Answers must be under 140 characters in length and can be sent via mobile texting, instant message, the web… many applications support it

E D M O N T O N

Why people participate

• Simple to start

• Easy to connect

• Interesting info linked (pics, blogs, articles…)

• Breaking news

• Best way to understand is by participating

Trial set up for someone in audience

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 organization

• 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 N

Twitter and Facebook team

• Tweets and status updates managed by small central team (4 main people)

• Topical posts or live events distributed to communications staff in business units

• 1 person is responsible for most of a day, not short shifts, to foster conversations thru day

• Resisted automated tweets until solid base established, continue personal posts, experts

• Poster seeks topics, replies (sometimes with name, if personal or future follow up likely)

E D M O N T O N

One Twitter feed or many

• Humanize vs represent the voice of the org

• Build many followers and unified representation of the organization

• Resist temptation to have separate feeds for each silo

• Create separate feeds for distinct objectives with clear niche separate from the organization

E D M O N T O N

Twitter responses - launch state• Media Relations

– Media calls come in from ~20 media organizations; averaging approx 10/day

– Communications coordinates content experts to respond, coaches on key messages, identifies risk/related issues/potential Q

– Monitor coverage, correct as necessary

• Twitter – 2-8 comments, questions per day in first months

– Communications monitors and responds case-by-case, using model of media relations to source answers with subject experts

• 311 – over burdened with phone calls, response delays

E D M O N T O N

Twitter responses - next phase

• Twitter comment

– Communications Monitor, Co-Tweet

– Communications redirect to 311 CRM

• 311 agents respond directly or seek direct contact for detailed answer or clarification

• In-bound tweets with question are tracked in CRM

• 311 engages business unit where necessary

E D M O N T O N

Jason’s rules to live by

• Fun and find Friends

• Contribute and be Curious

• Care and be Careful

E D M O N T O N

Find friends Follow local users

– Mundane tweets may become useful e.g. traffic, events, restaurants

• http://Twellow.com

• http:// WeFollow.com

• http://www.TwitterLocal.net

• Don’t follow too many– Hard to keep up, look like spammer,

avoid follow-for-ego

• Be authentic – if you’re a cynic, be cynical

E D M O N T O N

Contribute and be Curious

• Search for topics, interests

• Be interesting, about topics that you know

• Provide links, opinions, news

• Post replies

E D M O N T O N

…search, connect

• Hashtag: Keyword with # preceding it eg. #yeg #followfriday #ecca #epcor #bike

– Enables search for tweets even if not following• Browse Trending topics (right column top 10)

• Advanced search

E D M O N T O N

New ways to contribute

• Ever-expanding applications

• Select a platform, mobile tool

• http://everythingtwitter.com

• TinyURL

• TwitPic

• Tweetdeck is a popular desktop client

• Attend a local tweetup

E D M O N T O N

Care and be Careful• Help monitor City’s reputation

• Take care with what you say

• CityLink info

• City’s Social Media Guidelines

– Don’t express personal opinions when you are identified as a city employees – you represent City

• Yammer.com – Safe environment only with City employees

E D M O N T O N

Be Careful• Personal safety - 32M are potentially reading

• Benefit of location, also a risk (holiday posts – your house is empty)

• Secure password/key – API credibility to avoid hacks

• Others’ links are shortened, to potentially malicious sites

• Be choosey about whom you follow – sense over nice

• Same rules as other social media – which may be linked (could allow someone to piece together profile)

• Just as easy as fake celeb sites are,your friends could be fake

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

Government 2.0

City of San Francisco Creates Shared Wiki Resource for Homeless Housing

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