Government agencies and public service providers can effectively use social media to increase public collaboration, engagement and participation. This presentation highlights the importance of social media for service providers and introduce tools to maximize their online presence, incorporate social media in marketing strategy and generating ideas for posts/ tweets. The presentation shows examples of what's working and what's not working for the public sector

1. THE EFFECTIVE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
Ayman Alafifi
Utah State University
WEAU Mid Year Conference – Salt Lake City
Nov. 18, 2014

2. OUTLINE
This is NOT:
Social Media 101
This is:
 Who’s on social media?
 Maximize your virtual presence
 Social media for service providers
 Social media and marketing strategy
 What’s working and what’s NOT!

3. THE MOTIVE
 The 2009 White House Open Government
Directive requires all federal government
agencies to “open new forms of
communication between government
and the people.”

4. WHO’S ON SOCIAL MEDIA
http://govsm.com/w/Federal_Agencies

5. WHO’S ON SOCIAL MEDIA

6. Utah ranks 2nd nationwide in e-governance in
2013

7. VIRTUAL PRESENCE
 Social media is step 2!
 SEO friendly website
 Social media friendly website
 Increase discovery, search ability

9. SOCIAL MEDIA-FRIENDLY WEBSITE
 Links to social media hubs
 Real-time feeds
 Easy to share

10. SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS
 It’s not about quantity! Who will answer your social media
phone?
 It’s beyond status updates - It’s about people you serve
 First impression (profile picture, cover page, contact info)

11. City of Logan @cityoflogan

12. GOALS FOR YOUR AUDIENCE: 3E’S
 Educate
 Entice
 Engage

13. EFFECTIVE?

14. MARKETING STRATEGY
 Having an account is not a strategy!
 Know you audience. How?!!
 Integrate into your marketing/ PR plan
 Who do you need to tag/ follow/ like:
 Influencers: popular/ powerful people (e.g. Mayor, State Rep, City
Council)
 Advocates: who help you get the message out (e.g. KSL, news
agencies)
 Contributors: others who endorse your content (WEAU, WEF)

15. WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE WANT
 Top calls for service
 Emails/ Live chat help service
 Google Analytics

16. TWITTER
 Short messages (140 characters)
 More formal
 Link with Facebook!
1
2
3

17. EXAMPLE

18. USING HASHTAGS
Do:
 One or two hashtags per tweet.
 Only hastags that fit the content and used by other users.
Don’ts:
 #Do # Not #Hashtag #every #word #in #your #tweet.
 Don’t string together as many popular hashtags as possible to receive
attention.
 #DontUseMadeUpHashtagsThatMakeNoSense

19. RIDE THE TRENDS
 Search for hashtags and read
feedback
 Attention spans are very short! Trends
don’t last very long. Engage quickly.

20. SET UP ALERTS
Twitter Alerts

21. OUT OF IDEAS?
Set up Google Alerts:
 “Central Weber Sewer
Improvement District”
 membranes wastewater,
 WEFTEC

22. OUT OF IDEAS?
 Cover events live (post tweets, pictures, etc.)
#WEFTEC14
 Break down a report (strategic plan) to a list of
tweets/ posts

23. ONE HUB.. MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

25. EVEN EASIER

26. POLICY?
 Review existing social media policies
 Your page/account = your responsibility!
 Monitor for:
 Language and tone
 Copyright and intellectual property
 Privacy control
 Protection of proprietary and confidential info

27. WHAT WORKS?
 Make it personal! Post questions and illicit responses.
Engagement is KEY
 Answer that phone
 Use pictures, videos (informative, educational, humorous)
 Find trending hastags and USE them
 Create Google Alerts and use Twitter Alerts
 Run surveys: use crowdsourcing tools to gather market data
 Do a G+ hangout with the officials.

28. THANK YOU
(435)881-0541
ayman.alafifi@gmail.co
m
fb.com/ayman.afifi
@aymanalafifi
linkedin.com/in/aymanalafifi