Local government, public sector, city workers; whatever you want to call it often we don't think about these people unless we have a problem or when we pay our taxes. In reality though there are numerous departments that exist within a municipality and they function with the purpose of maintaining stability while also improving the social and economic growth of that location. If successful the work done by these people will hopefully be beneficial for those that live and work within that municipality. However, getting interest from residents and interacting with them is not always so easy in the fast-paced world we live in today. Finding ways to connect and communicate with the residents that they serve is an important thing for local government officials. With social media officials can notify and interact with the public through a variety of ways.
For the most part the use of social media by local government has been seen as positive and by today's standards highly necessary. It helps to bring awareness to events and important notifications for local residents. It can also help promote local businesses and share stories that bolster a community's image. Residents can feel more connected to the municipality they live in which will hopefully lead to greater community involvement. Even with all the signs pointing towards to the necessity of a social media presence for local governments it is still up to how well it is maintained and how residents respond.
Success starts with local officials maintaining their various platforms of social media constantly so that information is current and reliable. It is also important to know that the trouble with social media is that it is constantly changing and the preferred platform one day might be different the next. Keeping a level of awareness to these trends is not always the first priority for local officials as most still have their actual job to preform while also maintaining their departments Facebook or Twitter. Social media in one municipality could be more successful than in another. Whether this is due to quality or demographics of that community sometimes the response from residents can be hit or miss. This only shows that for social media in local government it may have to be a process to figure out what works in order to attract the most attention and feedback.
Hi Patrick! Your blog this week was very interesting to me. It is rare that I think of social media and government working together, but it makes a lot of sense after you talk about it. It seems like especially in a city like Worcester where there are so many new people moving in all of the time, this could be very useful. I wonder actually it could be awesome to ask Clark if they could advertise municipal social media accounts during the undergraduate and graduate student orientation. I think it would have been much easier for me to get a grasp on what Worcester had to offer if I had known to look for these sites right away!
ReplyDeletePatrick,
ReplyDeleteThis post definitely hit home for me. My sister is the Director of Marketing and Communications for one of the transit authorities in Massachusetts. So, your blog resonated with what I have heard time and again from her: the public should always be connected and be in the know when it comes to news alert or on goings with the different departments that make up their respective municipality—however, getting them to pay attention or seek out this information is a real struggle. As you alluded to, the information held by these state entities is so important to our everyday lives, but it isn’t always information that people will want to read or search out. So, in employing social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. these important (if overlooked) entities are able to push the information out to the public in an easy, efficient, and fun way. With the use of media feeds (and the like) the state is able to bring the information right to the eyes of the pubic.
This also struck a chord with me. A hold a position on the Worcester Arts Council, an executive board within the city government that is responsible for allocating state funds to local arts & humanities projects.
ReplyDeleteAs a member, I co-maintain a number of social platforms so that members of our community can keep up-to-date information on the arts and culture within the city. One thing I try to do (personally) is update from specific events that we are promoting in order to make a direct "on-the-street" connection with our followers. It isn't always easy to push this information out and truly commend the folks who keep our community informed on matters of public safety as well as other updates from our local government.
Thank you for your insight.
Pat,
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely an opportunity for government here. In terms of communicating with citizens, and even improving criminal justice, social media has a lot to offer. How concerned should we be about the potential downsides though? With all the online fire storms surrounding social media everyday, are government social media accounts in a lot of danger of being caught in controversy? Is it even worth worrying about these potential downfalls given the upside?