NOW TRENDING: #CityHall on Social Media

New Ways That Municipalities Are Leveraging Social Platforms

BY LAURA ROYDEN n the past decade, Americans’ social media usage has increased nearly tenfold, with Pew Research estimating featurethat 65 percent of all adults are on at least one social media platform. We now use social media for everything from keeping up with friends’ major life updates to sharing passing thoughts, and it has become a primary method of communication for many of us. Social media’s growth also represents a unique and important 1civicI engagement opportunity for municipalities that goes beyond basic advertising. By taking full advantage of social media, cities and towns now have a relatively easy, low-cost way to hold two-way conversations with residents, reach previously disengaged populations, gauge public opinion, garner feedback, and even analyze posts to make more informed decisions about municipal services. Easier Information Dissemination The most obvious beneft of social media is the newfound ease with which cities can share information with a wide number of residents. City employees can spend a few seconds updating a social media page and reach thousands instantly, without ever leaving their desks. Cities of all sizes have begun to include social media as a standard part of their outreach, due to its comparatively low effort for employees and high impact.

Laura Royden is a research assistant for Data-Smart City Solutions (http://datasmart. ash.harvard.edu), located at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. This article is reprinted with permission from the website of Data-Smart City Solutions.

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Las Vegas, Nevada, a fnalist for the by one-way comments from residents in system into its Facebook page. Residents 2015 Shorty Award for Best Government separate forums, cities and towns can can fll out a short form on the Facebook Social Media, has built a wide-reaching directly interact with citizens, giving the page with work orders or requests that are social media network. The city has government not only a good idea of sent directly to relevant city employees. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, how citizens are feeling about municipal Residents can also post directly to the LinkedIn, Snapchat, and YouTube chan- initiatives, but fostering better relation- page with concerns or questions, which nels, and city employees have worked to ships, trust and accountability between the city or other residents can comment develop a unifed social media strategy leaders and their constituents. on; for Somerville, this style has taken off across these platforms to reach as many Perhaps the most famous government and turned the Facebook page into more residents as possible. Through social Twitter personality is former Newark, of a forum. Somerville has also taken media, Las Vegas does everything from New Jersey, Mayor and current U.S. advantage of the page to seek public input sharing safety updates, to publicizing Senator Cory Booker, who became well- on new projects and advertise city meet- voter registration deadlines, to highlight- known for his engaging Twitter feed and ings, which has signifcantly improved ing inspiring stories from local residents won two Shorty Awards. Most of Booker’s public attendance in civic life. or businesses. The city also incorpo- many daily tweets were direct interac- rates interactive events, such as online tions with citizens; whether pledging Engaging Millennials on scavenger hunts and challenges, to to fll potholes on ordinary days or helping New Platforms engage residents and incentivize them to residents with emergency supplies after One of the persistent problems with civic explore social media channels and other Hurricane Sandy, Booker’s Twitter engagement is ensuring that all popula- online city resources. served as an easy way for citizens to tions are having their voices heard, instead of just those already involved in the civic process. Millennials have become the “We drew more of our largest generation in the U.S., but their participation in traditional civic affairs constituents in to has remained lower than that of other age groups. When done poorly, civic engage- participate in government ment through social media can exacerbate this divide. For instance, Facebook and and improve our city.” Twitter have millions of users, but these users tend to skew older than those on – Former Newark, N.J., newer platforms. By leveraging these new social media platforms, municipalities can Mayor Cory Booker help combat this problem and hear from more subsets of their population. Austin, Texas, a burgeoning tech hub, Cities and towns have also tested gain quick answers or advice for their has been one of the frst cities to reach live-streaming municipal meetings: civic problems. By responding quickly, out to citizens via Reddit, a tech-minded Philadelphia began streaming its press Booker was able to keep his fnger on online forum and community popular conferences on Meerkat. The Los the pulse of Newark and quickly gained with young techies. The city has become Angeles Police Department and Mayor a reputation as a dedicated and concerned a frequent poster in the Austin subreddit Eric Garcetti used Periscope to broadcast civil servant who was always working to (an Austin-focused forum on Reddit with a discussion about crime statistics. And better Newark and the lives of residents. 50,000 subscribers), at frst primarily Evanston, Illinois, livestreamed Mayor In a 2015 interview with Wired maga- sharing links to press releases or promoting Elizabeth Tisdahl’s State of the City zine, Booker summed up the potential city events. Responses were surprisingly address. These livestreams lower the held in social media for governments: positive, so city employees continued barrier of entry for citizens wanting to “When we embraced social media, we engaging more. They began to commu- learn about their municipality by elimi- took more control of the Newark narra- nicate directly with citizens, answering nating schedule and mobility restrictions. tive. We increased responsiveness toward questions and providing advice on city- residents. We drew more of our con- run services and programs. Reddit allows Enabling Two-Way stituents in to participate in government Austin offcials to communicate meaning- Conversations and improve our city.” As social media fully and directly with residents, and it has With the help of social media, local continues to grow and develop, so will increased the public’s opinion of the city governments have been able to build the possibilities for municipalities. as an accessible and dedicated government sustainable platforms for two-way Aiming to improve direct service rather than an unnavigable bureaucracy. conversations with citizens. Instead of delivery and engage more citizens in the Cities ranging from Provo, Utah, to having one-way announcements followed process, Somerville integrated its 311 Las Vegas have also begun to experiment

14 MUNICIPAL ADVOCATE Vol. 28, No. 4 with Snapchat, an instant photo-sharing app. Half of Snapchat’s users are under age twenty-fve, making the platform Governments have a unique opportunity for municipalities to reach and engage with the notably long struggled to gather disengaged young demographic. Cities and towns can create a stream of photos meaningful feedback and videos known as a “story” advertis- ing events, explaining new initiatives, from citizens. Social highlighting local businesses, sharing emergency information, and more. For media presents a solution followers, viewing a Snapchat story is to this problem. remarkably low-effort: a single tap plays the entire story for them. Snapchat’s immediacy and easy multimedia sharing makes it one of the most effective social media tools, full of potential for munici- allowed residents to grade city agencies automatically pulls geo-tagged posts palities looking to improve their commu- and services. Users can leave reviews on from Twitter and displays them on a map nication with younger residents. the website itself, but the platform also for emergency response teams to view. collects relevant posts on Facebook, Yelp These tweets help provide a wider view Increased Feedback and Twitter and incorporates them into of the city, allowing emergency responders Governments have long struggled to the grading of each agency. By taking to better understand the geographic gather meaningful feedback from citizens. advantage of already present posts, the extent of disasters and make informed Long surveys often have low response city gets a better picture of how its decisions about resource prioritization rates, and even fling a simple complaint services are performing and includes the and management. can lead to layers of red tape and bureau- voices of citizens who may not otherwise New York City’s Department of Health cracy. Social media presents a solution to directly engage with government. and Mental Hygiene used Yelp reviews to this problem: by leveraging the already- detect unreported foodborne illness out- present online infrastructure of social More Informed Decision Making breaks. The city partnered with software media platforms, governments can provide Social media can also provide munici- developers at Columbia University to a clear, low-hassle way for residents to palities with an easy and low-cost way turn Yelp reviews into machine-readable rate services or interactions. to understand what’s going on in their data, which could then be easily searched, The federal government partnered communities beyond communication grouped and analyzed. In their pilot test, with the popular crowdsourcing review with residents. By aggregating and the researchers found three restaurants that site Yelp to launch individual Yelp pages analyzing social media posts throughout were collectively responsible for sixteen for a number of agencies. Instead of a municipality en masse, cities and towns illnesses; when the city then sent health having to spend the time and money can extract relevant data and trends from inspectors to these restaurants, they found developing a standalone review website, residents’ tweets, even when they are not a host of health code violations. New York federal agencies can simply “claim” their sent directly to local offcials. This data City has since continued the project, plan- Yelp pages and gain full access to the can then be used by municipal depart- feedback posted, allowing them to see ments to gain a better sense of how the city ning to review feeds daily and expand to feedback in real-time and respond directly or town is functioning and to have more social media posts outside of Yelp. By to users if appropriate. The feedback data information when making decisions. leveraging these preexisting social media can then be analyzed and used by agencies After a frustrating response to posts, the city was able to gain insights on to make more informed decisions on Hurricane Ike in 2008 stemming from where violations were most likely to be how to improve their service. For disjointed information across different present and prioritize these establishments residents, the Yelp partnership stream- governments, emergency response for inspections, preventing future illnesses. lines the review process (with nearly departments in the greater Cincinnati Social media holds a wealth of poten- 100 million unique monthly users, Yelp area collaborated to develop the Regional tial for cities and towns, from easier is by far the most popular rating site in Asset Verifcation Emergency Network basic communication with residents to the U.S.) and provides them with an easy (RAVEN911). The network provides advanced social media mining posts. way to rate their government interactions emergency responders with real-time Municipalities have experimented with at the same time they rate their meals, traffc updates and information about integrating social media into nearly every haircuts and dentists. important local infrastructure in order to aspect of government, and the possibili- In 2012, Washington, D.C., launched enable a cohesive regional response to ties will continue to grow as social media Grade.DC.gov, a citywide platform that emergencies. In addition, RAVEN911 platforms evolve.

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