Social Insights: the Public Sector

Social Insights: The Public Sector

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 1 © Brandwatch.com Foreword

Today's conversations are increasingly interconnected, global and fast – political discourse is no exception. With the ubiquity and extensive reach of social networks, individuals around the world use the internet to voice their opinions and responses to agencies, political events, and the future of their government.

Yet almost counterintuitively, in an age where social media is increasingly driving people to join political conversations, 47% of Americans don’t believe they have much influence in how the government is run1.

Looking at the public sector conversations online, it becomes apparent why almost half of Americans might not feel their voice matters. Within the millions of mentions of national and international agencies posted online each month, public sector establishments consistently comprise less than 2% of the voice, leaving audience crises unaddressed, concerns unanswered, and important trends ignored.

Since the intention of national and intergovernmental organizations is to best serve their constituents, the immense social data readily available is a tragically untapped resource. There exists an unused opportunity for state and intergovernmental agencies to better listen to and respond to their constituents.

Through analyzing social media data, public sector effectiveness and efficiency can be measured and improved in three important ways. Public sector agencies can monitor and improve the virtual relationship between them and their audiences. Agencies gain the possibility to be an expert in the populations of people most vocal and most invested in the conversation. Finally, they can use the insights they learn from social media to inform important decisions and appraise their outcomes.

42% of companies already utilize social media listening and its unparalleled insights to inform their business decisions 2. Like their private sector counterparts, public sector agencies should invest in social intelligence as well to turn their government into agencies of the people, by the people and for the people.

1 “Beyond Distrust: How Americans view their government” Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (Nov 23, 2015), Accessed on: http://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/8-perceptions-of-the-publics-voice-in-government-and-politics/. 2016. 2 "What Is Social Media Listening? - Smart Insights Digital Marketing Advice". Smart Insights. N.p., 2014. Accessed on: http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-listening/what-is-social-media-listening/. 2016.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 2 Contents

Foreword ��2

1.0 Scope of Report ��4

2.0 The Public Sector Social Index ��5

3.0 Agency-Audience relationship ��8

3.1 Share of Conversation...... 8

3.2 Agency and Audience Timing...... 10

3.3 Facebook Post Format...... 11

4.0 Understanding The Audience �� 12

4.1 Gender Analysis...... 12

4.2 Profession Analysis...... 14

4.3 Interest Analysis...... 15

5.0 Listening in Practice ��16

5.1. Using Sentiment...... 16 5.1.1 Learning from the Metropolitan Transit Authority...... 16 5.1.2 A Look at the US Treasury...... 17

5.2 Revealing the Arizona Voter Issues with Social...... 18

5.3 Uncovering the Political Landscape of the US ...... 21

6.0 Of the People, By the People, For the People: Public Sector Final Thoughts �� 23

7.0 About Brandwatch ��24

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 3 1.0 Scope of Report

Aim:

The following report examines the social presence of 49 public sector institutions. The aim is to provide a comprehensive illustration of current public sector discourse while outlining specific actionable insights acquired from the analysis.

The analysis of the online conversation is broken down into four sections: • Social Index: Provides a comprehensive ranking for 49 agencies across five key factors: Social Visibility, General Visibility, Net Sentiment, Reach Growth, and Social Engagement & Content • Agency-Audience Relationship: Summarizes important benchmarks regarding the current space agencies comprise in the online conversation, and how well their content is received by their audience. • Understanding the Audience: Analyzes the gender, interests, and profession make-up of the audiences at both the sector and the agency level. • Listening in Practice: Zooms in on specific ways it’s possible for public sector agencies to diagnose sentiment, be alerted to breaking crises, and improve public services through informed decision-making.

Methodology:

The data and insights are derived through enterprise social intelligence software Brandwatch Analytics.

The analysis examines 49 public sector agencies including 9 international entities, 3 European Union intergovernmental agencies and 37 government agencies and bureaus of the United States and United Kingdom.

The data is collected through three formats: • Queries: Collects general mentions of public sector agencies or political events online. Based on boolean operators, Brandwatch Queries are specifically customised to filter out spam and disambiguate the data, leaving only relevant conversation. As such, volume estimates remain conservative. • Twitter Channels: Collects Twitter data based on specific agencies’ accounts. Twitter Channels tracks @mentions, replies, retweets directed at selected brands. • Facebook Channels: Collects Facebook data based on specific agencies’ accounts. Facebook Channels tracks likes, posts, comments, shares on selected agencies’ Facebook content.

For further questions on the aim, methodology or analysis in this report, please contact Brandwatch directly.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 4 2.0 The Public Sector Social Index

The Public Sector Social Index presents important metrics in an agency’s online presence and displays each agency’s social media performance across five different factors.

The index evaluates 49 agencies across five specific attributes: • Social Visibility: measures the volume of conversation an agency generates across key social channels. • General Visibility: measures the volume of conversation an agency generates on blogs, news outlets and forums. • Net Sentiment: evaluates the composition of negative and positive mentions of an agency in the context of that brand’s entire conversation. • Reach Growth: measures the growth of an agency’s following over the course of a month, appropriately weighted according to the agency’s current following. • Social Engagement & Content: evaluates how effective agencies are at communicating or responding to their audiences and how well their social content is received across social channels. The Overall Score reflects an agency’s performance across the five categories. For all five categories, agencies are normalized against a single leader, which receives a score of 100. As such, the maximum potential score is 500.

Social General Agency Social Visibility Net Sentiment Reach Growth Engagement Overall Score Visibility & Content

NASA 100 71 59 100 85 416

Department of 67 36 100 93 100 396 the Interior

The White House 74 100 38 95 56 364

UNICEF 72 58 47 92 60 328

United Nations 55 96 39 88 29 308

World Health Organization 50 66 40 87 62 305

Federal Bureau 55 90 32 89 32 298 of Investigation

World Bank 65 69 42 86 29 291

European Commission 47 72 39 80 47 284

Department of Defense 60 55 48 95 26 284

United States Army 81 40 50 86 27 284

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 5 Social General Agency Social Visibility Net Sentiment Reach Growth Engagement Overall Score Visibility & Content

Central Intelligence Agency 42 62 39 86 49 278

Department of State 62 52 41 95 25 275

United States Navy 69 36 52 84 33 273

Federal Emergency 26 42 49 75 76 268 Management Agency

New York City Police 54 60 50 79 22 265 Department

National Health Service 29 69 41 70 53 263

United States Air Force 63 37 47 84 32 263

UNESCO 40 63 53 82 24 262

Social Security 25 41 41 69 86 261 Administration

Department of Education 32 61 45 75 46 259

North Atlantic Treaty 47 64 33 79 22 244 Organization

Department of Energy 27 55 49 74 38 242

Department of Justice 35 72 34 81 17 239

Department of the Treasury 34 38 44 97 21 235

Environmental Protection 35 69 37 74 18 233 Agency

Office for National 20 50 40 65 55 231 Statistics

Ministry of Defence 33 44 43 76 34 231

World Trade Organization 23 46 37 73 48 227

Department of Homeland 36 53 40 80 16 225 Security

Department of Veteran 60 23 43 79 20 224 Affairs

Department of Agriculture 31 63 38 77 15 224

Department of 26 65 43 69 17 220 Transportation

Department of Health & 25 53 45 74 21 218 Human Services

Department of Commerce 21 42 50 68 34 215

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 6 Social General Agency Social Visibility Net Sentiment Reach Growth Engagement Overall Score Visibility & Content

National Security Agency 30 55 36 85 9 215

Department of Labor 28 51 44 72 18 214

Department for Education 25 46 42 70 31 214

European Council 31 47 35 74 22 209

Metropolitan 31 38 29 81 27 206 Transportation Authority

Department of Housing and 27 42 33 68 24 194 Urban Development

Internal Revenue Service 18 66 30 66 9 190

HM Treasury 23 26 36 81 22 188

Intelligence Community 20 51 41 68 6 186

Federal Reserve 21 85 37 34 0 177

International Monetary 25 63 39 36 0 163 Fund

European Central Bank 19 58 38 33 0 148

New York City Fire 20 33 57 31 0 142 Department

Department of Energy and 16 29 38 30 0 112 Climate Change

Key:

US Agencies UK Agencies EU Agencies INT Agencies

Figure 1: Analyzes 3542382 conversations of 49 public sector agencies from various online platforms from March 13th– April 29th, 2016. See monthly updates on Brandwatch’s Social Listening Indices or Tweet @Brandwatch to suggest brands to be added to the Public Sector Social Index.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 7 3.0 Agency-Audience Relationship

As the rise of social data and digitization transforms services and expectations in every sector and industry, public sector organizations are being compelled to use online mediums to effectively communicate with their constituents3.

Understanding the landscape of online public sector conversations and measuring agency effectiveness in building and maintaining successful agency-audience relationships requires creating sector-specific benchmarks.

These benchmarks make it possible to compare agencies’ social media presence to one another and highlight specific opportunities for growth.

3.1 Share of Conversation

Overall, the audience dominates all public sector conversations on social media, with nearly 99% of all tweets coming from non-agency individuals mentioning, retweeting, or replying to government agencies.

PUBLIC SECTOR AGENCY AUDIENCE ACTIVITY

AUDIENCE • • • BRAND • • •

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3 "Government & Public Sector”. KPMG, U.S. , Accessed on: https://home.kpmg.com/us/en/home/industries/government-public-sector.html. 2016.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 8 Whether looking at agencies in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union or international agencies like the United Nations and NATO, public sector conversations are heavily audience-skewed.

International agencies tweet and post more to Facebook than other public sector regions, with an average of 8.01 daily tweets and 2.08 daily Facebook posts per agency. This is unsurprising giving their bigger and more diverse domain.

AN AVERAGE DAY ON TWITTER

Agency Audience @ Audience Audience Agency Tweets Agency Replies Retweets Mentions Retweets Replies US 8.53 3.43 0.47 684.61 436.71 149.36

UK 5.81 1.23 0.33 166.09 139.00 42.44

EU 6.32 1.80 0.18 744.53 184.57 102.41

INT 10.73 2.57 1.50 1463.70 875.32 165.69

Figure 3: Analyzes 3765663 interactions on Twitter from March 14-May 10th, 2016

However, while international agencies produce more social content, US agencies lead the other regions in volume of audience interaction on Facebook, with their posts averaging almost 7366 likes, 433 comments, and 1277 shares a day.

AN AVERAGE DAY ON FACEBOOK

Audience Agency Posts Agency Comments Audience Likes Audience Shares Comments US 1.92 0.55 7365.67 432.72 1276.86

UK 1.29 0.07 346.26 28.53 133.62

EU 1.43 0.90 529.87 59.31 165.99

INT 2.15 0.95 5762.52 193.62 1041.22

Figure 4: Analyzes 4678 agency Facebook posts from March 14-May 10th, 2016

Compared to other industries analyzed, the public sector conversation tends to amass more audience activity on Twitter and Facebook. However, in comparison to the leading brands in Food & Beverage (26.32 tweets, 1.55 posts), Nonprofit (11.30 tweets, 2.74 posts), and Television (26.32 tweets, 8.55 posts), public sector agencies are not nearly as active 4.

This inequality demonstrates how substantial social media is to political discourse, and how vital it is that government agencies increase smart social media activity to educate and respond to

4 Brandwatch. Social Insights Series: Luxury Fashion; Nonprofit; Restaurant, Food & Beverage; Telecommunications; Television Networks. 2015.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 9 their audience.

3.2 Agency and Audience Timing

With thousands of individuals interacting with public sector agencies through Facebook and Twitter each day, agencies have the ability to strategically time their posts in order to instigate conversations. Examining the timing of agency and audience online activity can uncover how well agencies are reaching their audiences.

A Twitter analysis comparing the volume of agency posts to audience mentions directed at the public sector demonstrates that public sector agencies produce most of their social media content during the working week, with less than 15% of their content shared on Saturday and Sunday.

AGENCY AUDIENCE BY DAY OF WEEK

• •

Audience participation in the conversation reflects agency engagement, and spikes in agency posts correlate with spikes in audience posts.

Unlike the agency-owned conversation however, audience-generated conversation is much more distributed throughout all seven days. While audience activity is influenced by conversations initiated by the public sector, non-agency authors do not cease talking about the public sector on the weekend.

Whether responding to a US presidential primary or reacting to their nation’s leaders signing the Paris climate change agreement, the public sector conversation does not end with the work day on Friday. There is an opportunity for the public sector to better listen to and influence the discussion that surrounds them by staying involved on social through the weekend.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 10 3.3 Facebook Post Format

Facebook offers a unique platform for government agencies to use different types of content to educate the populous.

AGENCY FACEBOOK POST FORAT

• • • • •

Average photo Average video Average link Average status

LIKES 2701.1725 2098.5975 830.3 134.4825 COMMENTS 81.295 234.765 48.595 29 SHARES 293.9 747.33 96.33 28.92

Figure 6: Analyzes 2411 public sector agency Facebook posts from March 14th-April 14th 2016

Across US, UK, EU and International agencies, visual content, including photos and videos, makes up the overwhelming majority of public sector Facebook posts. Like most other industries, these visual posts are the most popular, averaging 2701 and 2099 likes per photo and video posted, respectively.

Interestingly, while photos were the most liked type of Facebook content, videos tended to be shared considerably more than any other type of content. Knowing the different ways certain types of content resonate with audience, agencies can better use social media to educate or inform people quickly and effectively.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 11 4.0 Understanding The Audience

With a few exceptions, when delving into the audience authors, one voice is not remarkably louder than any other. Diverse by gender, profession, and interest, the social conversations surrounding government agencies are composed of issues, concerns, and opinions of people of all backgrounds.

This variance in voice can be extremely beneficial to the public sector using social data. Having a large sample of individuals from different backgrounds with different interests ensures that the issues of specific demographics have a space in the conversations.

4.1 Gender Analysis

The audience of the public sector conversation on Twitter is roughly 58% male and 42% female.

PUBLIC SECTOR AUDIENCE GENDER

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• •

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 12 PUBLIC SECTOR AUDIENCE GENDER

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• •

Figure 7: Analyzes the gender of 302,849 online conversations. Gender is identified through online profiles and advanced machine learning techniques

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 13 The majority of conversations about the public sector were slightly male skewed with female authors making up between one third and one half of the voice.

However, individual differences in audience composition between agencies reveal interesting, albeit perhaps unsurprising, trends.

Consistently, conversations involving defense, security, and finance related agencies tended to include dramatically more male voices, while agencies related to education, health, and welfare generated much more female-driven conversations.

These breakdowns reflect gender biases in vocation, with finance and military roles primarily held by men and education and welfare-based positions more commonly held by women5.

This information can help agencies better understand their current audience’s goals, or help them reflect on how their messaging unintentionally excludes or targets a gender.

4.2 Profession Analysis AUTOR PROFESSION BY AGENCY REGION

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• • • • Figure 8: Analyzes the professions of the authors of Twitter conversations. Professions are identified through online profiles and advanced machine learning techniques

5 Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. Accessed on: http://www.bls.gov/cps/ cpsaat11.htm. 2016

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 14 Executives comprise the highest percentage of the conversations surrounding US and International agencies, with Artists making up close seconds for both. Both groups of agencies have audiences that were rather professionally diverse, likely due to the larger respective volumes of mentions.

Interestingly, Teachers & Lecturers are most prevalent in the conversations about UK agencies, amounting to nearly a quarter of the analyzed mentions.

Journalists make up more of the conversation about EU agencies than any other profession.

4.3 Interest Analysis

Unsurprisingly, politics was the most prevalent interest among authors mentioning US or International agencies. However, in no region are politically-interested authors a staggering majority.

Given the influence of government agencies on other sectors and facets of life from health to business, this variance is understandable.

INTERESTS OF AUDIENCE DISCUSSING PUBLIC SECTOR AGENCIES

• • B • B • • • • • • • B

Figure 9: Analyzes the interests of non-agency authors between March 14th and April 25th, 2016. Top five interests are identified using machine-learning techniques analyzing author online profiles.

Interestingly, Family and Parenting ranked second only to Politics among authors discussing the US agencies. One driving factor in this trend was the conversations mentioning the Department of Veteran Affairs. These mentions consisted of many issues specifically relevant to families, including changes or reductions of benefits and inadequate mental health treatment for veterans returning home.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 15 5.0 Listening in Practice

Encoded in social data are the concerns of nearly every demographic important to any government agent or public servant. The knowledge acquired from the analysis of social data can inform government agencies in new evidence-based policy initiatives or better understand the aftermath of old political decisions.

More than theoretical, social media data can help agencies tailor their limited attention, time and funds to the issues that matter.

5.1. Using Sentiment

One vital way public sector agencies can utilize social data in their decision-making is unpacking the sentiment of the conversations that surround them.

Filtering mentions in the political conversation with emotive or expressive language can equip agencies with focus-group-like insights into audience opinions and feelings.

5.1.1 Learning from the Metropolitan Transit Authority

The figure below illustrates the language that audience authors on Twitter use in the negative conversations surrounding New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

LANGUAGE USED IN NEGATIVE TA CONVERSATIONS

• • •

Figure 10 : Analyzes 31584 mentions of the MTA on social media from March 14-May 5, 2016. Sentiment analysis was performed using Brandwatch’s machine learning tools.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 16 Compared to those of other NYC public agencies, the MTA’s conversations include a lot more negative sentiments. From their use of negative expletives to descriptions of negative emotive language like “frustrated” and “hate”, author sentiment can be deduced.

However, within unspecific sentiment language are specific concerns that can be illuminated. Using social analytics, the most pertinent issues to the MTA’s audience can be identified.

TOP TWO ISSUES REVEALED IN TA CONVERSATION

• DELAYS (2136) • EXPENSIVE (133)

Figure 10: Analyzes 2268 non-agency mentions on social media from March 14-April 29, 2016. Issues categories were developed using Brandwatch Analytics’ rules function.

Of the two most-mentioned issues people associate with the MTA, the issues of delays and unpredictable train timing dominate the conversation, with over two thousand individual mentions in March and April, half of which mention the MTA’s twitter channel directly.

While fare hikes and other financial concerns certainly influence the negative sentiments of MTA customers, knowing that delays are discussed at much higher rates can influence both MTA’s social media and funding investment strategy.

Sentiment analyses can not only provide insight into the general attitudes people hold about government agencies, they can also illuminate specific opinions about current events in real-time.

rar annonc arrt man to nw ac o

• • •

Figure 11: Analyzes 51,656 mentions of the Department of the Treasury from March 14-April 28,2016

Consider the Department of the Treasury in the US. Following weeks of the conversation about the Department consisting of only a few dozen to several hundred individual mentions a day, their announcement of Harriet Tubman to replace Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20 bill engaged nearly 18,000 people in one day.

Of the emotionally valenced mentions on April 20, over 84% were positive, indicating an overwhelming excitement and approval for the Department’s decision.

Focused sentiment analyses like these can act as efficient ways to survey citizen opinions of policies, initiatives, and other government decisions.

5.2 Revealing the Arizona Voter Issues with Social

The conversations about the public sector affect government and international agencies, whether the agencies utilize them or not.

However, with the power to use social analytics to diagnose the issues concerning their constituents, agencies can use active social media engagement and data-driven initiatives to ensure the conversations are positive.

People become more politically vocal in response to political events like candidate debates and intergovernmental conferences. Additionally, individuals use social media to reach out to their government for information in times of crises, like Hurricane Sandy hitting New Jersey in 2012.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 18 During these times of times of high-volume conversations, citizens should be able to look to social media for information. While some local public agencies, like the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, do mandate the use of social media to provide up-to-date information, many citizens still expect more government information and involvement using social media6.

In particular, the US presidential primary in Arizona generated a lot of attention on social media. Social data revealed that many individuals all across the country were concerned about voting problems citizens in Arizona would encounter due to the closing of over two-thirds the polling sites in Maricopa County7.

VOLUE OF VOTER ISSUE RELATED ENTIONS

•

Figure 12: Analyzes 6265 posts on social media mentioning the Arizona primary and “voter issue” related words and phrases including: “election fraud,” “voter suppression,” and the hashtag #revotearizona. Mentions were filtered and collected using Brandwatch queries.

As seen in Fig. 12, between the time when many of the polling centers opened in Arizona to the time when the last voters waiting had a chance to vote (between 6am MDT to 12am the next day) over 6,000 people around the world took to the web to speak up about the polling issues.

Within the thousands of tweets on voting issues that occurred in under 24 hours, two different White House petitions were shared almost 400 times cumulatively, and four different government agencies were @mentioned on Twitter.

The day after the Arizona primary saw an additional 25,000 mentions of the issues voters were faced with the day before. Even more of these subsequent mentions called on US government agencies to respond to this issue.

6 Kunasek, John, and Rilck Noel. "Social Intelligence: Harnessing the True Power of Social Media." Public Utilities Fortnightly Apr. 2014: 10-13. Accessed on: http://www.kpmg-institutes.com/content/dam/kpmg/globalenergyinstitute/pdf/2014/social-intelligence- harnessing-power-of-social-media.pdf. 2016

7 Pitzl, M., Ryman, A., & O'Dell, R. (March 23,2016). Long lines, too few polls frustrate metro Phoenix primary voters. Accessed on: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/03/22/arizona-primary-voter-turnout-long-lines/82125816/. 2016

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 19 From one week before the primary through April 29, there were 8072 direct mentions of either the US Department of Justice, Arizona’s Secretary of State, the Obama administration or the US Supreme Court, making up almost a quarter of all mentions.

PERCENT OF CONVERSATION ENTIONING PUBLIC SECTOR AGENCIES

• • • • •

Figure 13: Analyzes 58538 mentions of Arizona primary issues from March 15-April 28, 2016. Agency categories were developed using Brandwatch Analytics’ rules function.

Knowing that people turn to the internet to complain about a variety of service issues, many businesses use social media to speak directly to their customers, some dedicating whole channels to respond to their customers, like @AmazonHelp and @AskTarget.

In the same way, it’s clear that many people demand attention and response of their government when they see or experience government-related issues.

During important public sector events like primaries, social listening provides agencies the opportunity to actively engage in the conversations to acknowledge concerns so constituents don’t feel their problems are falling on deaf ears.

Social media listening can influence more than just the conversation that surrounds government and international agencies. Targeted campaigning, evidence-based policy initiatives, and localized fundraising operations are among the many uses of social data to improve government interventions and services.

As the United States decides who they wish to see as the next leader of the free world, social media becomes both an outlet for opinions and a means of sharing information. In this regard, social data can illustrate the socio-political landscape of the country.

An analysis of the conversations surrounding four of the major candidates revealed many recurring political issues concerning Americans this election year. In the map below, the most discussed issues in each state are shown.

OST PREVALENT ISSUES TALKED ABOUT ONLINE BY STATE

WA VT N T ND E OR N ID SD WI NY A I WY RI IA PA CT NE N NV O UT IL IN DE CA CO WV VA D KS O KY NC TN A OK N AR SC

S AL GA LA T

AK FL

• • • • • • •

Figure 14: Map of most prevalent issues talked about online by state, in the context of top four US presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz.

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 21 Social data has shown the lens through which states view the presidential election. When talking about the candidates, Texans discuss taxes more than any other issue, while people in California are most concerned with energy.

The analysis of political issue conversation throughout the US also illuminates topics more meaningful to particular political parties.

For example, volume of discussion surrounding immigration is positively correlated with how conservative a state’s political affiliation is, as measured by 2015 Gallup analysis 8. This issue-party relationship is strikingly visible in the concentration of immigration discussion in the Deep South.

As US presidential candidates finish their primary battles and pivot towards the general election in November, having detailed knowledge of the issues affecting each state can undoubtedly inspire how each candidate frames their platform as they canvass the country.

Each election sees its candidates utilize social media more and more. Knowing what concerns each state, and which issues are more or less polarizing is vital information to campaigns on and off social media.

Even beyond elections, analyzing the social landscape can help with identifying specific regions ripe for everything from implementing energy policies to prototyping urban planning initiatives, so agencies can model potential federal programs or gain knowledge about the needs of certain areas.

8 Gallup, Inc. "Red States Outnumber Blue For First Time In Gallup Tracking". Gallup. Feb, 2016. Accessed on: http://www. gallup.com/poll/188969/red-states-outnumber-blue-first-time-gallup-tracking.aspx. 2016

Social Insights/ The Public Sector © Brandwatch.com | 22 6.0 Of the People, By the People, For the People: Public Sector Final Thoughts

The voices of citizens have always been loud and powerful, but the advent of social media has taken that volume to even greater heights. For instance, in 2011, Facebook and Twitter users were fundamental in organizing the many Arab Spring demonstrations throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Today, citizens are more engaged than ever before. From times of crisis to government announcements, social media is filled with the cheers, complaints, and requests people have with the public sector. The importance for agencies to have an online presence has never been greater.

Many public sector agencies are beginning to see the value of social media. Of the 49 agencies analyzed, only five did not have both a Facebook and Twitter account. However, the public sector has further to go to optimize their use of social data.

The fact that agency-owned content makes up less than 2% of all public sector conversation and agency replies less than 1% ensures that conversations won’t be agency-directed, sentiment on social will be unmanaged, and future PR nightmares like the Arizona primary voter issues will go unaddressed.

The public sector should always be striving to better serve their citizens effectively. Service starts with knowledge. More and more, that knowledge is online. Overall, public sector agencies have taken the first step by embracing social media. The next step to use it.

The time for the public sector to bring social to its fullest capacity is now.

Brandwatch is the world’s leading social intelligence company. Brandwatch Analytics and Vizia products fuel smarter decision making around the world.

The Brandwatch Analytics platform gathers millions of online conversations every day and provides users with the tools to analyze them, empowering the world’s most admired brands and agencies to make insightful, data-driven business decisions. Vizia distributes visually-engaging insights to the physical places where the action happens.

The Brandwatch platform is used by over 1,200 brands and agencies, including Cisco, Whirlpool, British Airways, Sony Music, and Dell. Brandwatch continues on its impressive business trajectory, recently named a global leader in enterprise social listening platforms by the latest reports from several independent research firms. Increasing its worldwide presence, the company has offices around the world including Brighton, New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Singapore.

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