Taking It to the Streets:Social Media at

Arlington County

December 2010

Briefing for COG Trash & Recycling Committee

Maureen Dilg, Arlington County Office of Communications

2

Across the County

Several Arlington County departments maintain a social media presence: Office of Communications (Facebook: 4,683, Twitter: 1,962)-

Enterprise level updates, emergency notices, local events, general announcements

Libraries (Facebook: 750, Twitter: 879)- Events, book suggestions, logistical information

Environmental Services: FreshAIRE (Facebook: 165, Twitter: 121) and Car-Free Diet (Facebook: 879, Twitter: 2,407)

Housing: Under One Roof cross-departmental housing blog and Twitter account

Others: Office of Emergency Management, Volunteer Arlington, Artisphere, Arlington Employment Center, ShopArlington

3

Where Are We?

4

Goals

Reach a new, different audience

Raise awareness of County programs

Start “conversations” with constituents

Provide customer service

5

Strategies

Transparent, open government Encourage honest engagement, welcome all comments, wall posts, etc.

Integrated Approach Use multiple communications tools – print, TV and digital media Push to County website for complete information

Multiple accounts, general & focused:

We have accounts for general County updates. In addition, we encourage divisions to enlist social media for their specific focused needs.

Creative cross-promotion Create once – Use & promote many times Promoting across multiple social media accounts Advertise social media channels using traditional media

Creative staffing Tweet Squad Guest posters Work with the experts

6

Examples

Trash, recycling and leaf pick-up FreshAIRE Car-Free Diet Snowmaggedon

7

Trash, Recycling, Leaf Pickup

8

FreshAIRE

9

Car-Free Diet

10

Connecting Through Snowmaggedon

FB: 3,300+Twitter: ~1,300

Flickr group/set

Website: 110,000+ visits

eNewsletter: 10,000+

Snowfighting video

Arl. Alert:32,300+

11

Lessons Learned

We can’t do it alone Replying with a phone number is often

enough Sometimes you have to “go analog” Can’t always predict most popular topics It’s OK to make mistakes Lots of shades of gray in social media

12

What’s Next?

Social Media workgroup for employee outreach and support

Continue to work with existing tools if they remain relevant

Keep eyes on horizon for changes in the social media space

Work on using technology to enable conversation and engagement with constituents