Effective Social Media Use: The Municipal Context

A research paper prepared for the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks & Treasurers of Ontario

Executive Diploma in Municipal Management Student No. 104629 1

Table of Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction & Outline ....................................................................................................................... 4 Part I

Social Media: What & Why? .............................................................................................. 6

The Municipal Context ................................................................................................................... 8 The North Grenville Context ......................................................................................................... 9 Part II

Social Media Tools: What, When & Who? .................................................................... 10

Facebook ........................................................................................................................................ 10 Twitter ............................................................................................................................................. 11 LinkedIn .......................................................................................................................................... 12 YouTube ......................................................................................................................................... 13 Part III

Recommendations ........................................................................................................ 15

The Municipal Context ................................................................................................................. 15 The North Grenville Context ....................................................................................................... 17 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................... 22 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 23 Appendix A ........................................................................................................................................ 24

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Executive Summary Social media is everywhere. Open a newspaper and there will be the familiar icons of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites with an invitation for the reader to follow breaking news via those sites. Look at a billboard and the familiar icons will be in the corner indicating the advertising company’s presence on the social media sites. On TV, viewers are invited to visit specific social media sites for more details of promotional campaign or behindthe-scenes footage of the TV program. Virtually every website for a company, organization or individual contains links to their pages, tweets, photos and blogs on social media sites.

But what is social media and what is the point of it? Why are so many municipalities attempting to use social media? Is it an effective tool for communicating and engaging with the public? Is it worth the time and resources being used?

This paper will attempt to answer those questions and provide direction to municipalities for how to make their social media use more effective.

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Introduction & Outline At the beginning of 2015, the Municipality of North Grenville created a new position in the organization – Communications Coordinator. This position was created based on an identified need to have both more and better communication flowing from the Municipality to the public as well as the need to increase the opportunity for feedback from the public back to the Municipality. One of the key components of the improved communications was to be the increased use of social media.

As the individual hired to fill the newly created position, one of my first tasks was to familiarize myself with the existing social media policies, procedure and usage so I quickly discovered that, like many other municipalities in Ontario, North Grenville had jumped into the world of social media without really understanding what they were getting involved in or why. There were no policies in place, no written procedures and usage was based on the tools that individuals were familiar with rather than on any logical analysis of purpose, goals or costs involved.

At the time I was hired, I was in the midst of the Executive Diploma Program and when it came time to identify a topic for a research paper, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the paper would be a perfect opportunity to take a step back and look at the big picture of social media use in municipal government and use that research to develop a policy for use in North Grenville.

This paper will begin in Part I with a look at the big picture and attempt to answer the question of what social media is and why it is important to municipal government and to North Grenville specifically.

In Part II, I will narrow the focus a little to review a number of social media platforms and examine the costs and benefits of each one in general, in the municipal context and then specifically for North Grenville. Due to the large number of social media platforms, this paper will look only at those that are most widely used.

Part III will contain recommendations for effectively using social media within the context of municipal government broadly and specifically for North Grenville.

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My goal for this paper is to be able to use the information to develop an effective policy for social media use in North Grenville, while providing the context for social media use being used more broadly throughout the municipal sector.

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Part I

Social Media: What & Why?

If someone mentions that they are on social media, everyone knows what they mean – or thinks they do. The term social media and the various platforms or channels that are considered to be social media burst onto the scene so quickly and were adopted so universally, that there wasn’t time to examine what social media was and the purpose it was achieving or hoping to achieve. However, in order to be effective with a tool, it is essential to understand the tool’s purpose.

While social media has been around for a few decades, it was the arrival of high-speed internet in the 1990s that kick-started its growth. Then the 2000s brought along the development of mobile devices and social media exploded. In essence, social media is what the name implies. Social meaning “relating to or involving activities in which people spend time talking to each other or doing enjoyable things with each other”1 and media meaning the “means of communication…that reach or influence people widely”2. However, in practice, social media is much more than simply large numbers of people relating to one another about mutually enjoyable topics. In practice, social media is the use of “online technologies and practices to share content, opinions and information, promote discussion and build relationships”.3 It is more about conversing than informing, listening and engaging than telling and dismissing, more about providing content relevant to the listener than content relevant to the speaker. Social media is flipping the world of communication on its head by allowing the traditional consumers of media (usually the general public or a specific segment of society) to become the generators and curators of content rather than the traditional media outlets (usually major media corporations). Society is no longer content to let information flow to them when and how the provider chooses; instead individuals are actively seeking out the information they require and are sharing that information with other people in their social spheres. It is a communication style of many-to-many instead of one-to-many.4 It is about equality of voice – everyone in the conversation is an equal partner.

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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/media 3 Think Shift. Whitepaper: Social Media in the Public Sector. Think Shift Advertising, Winnipeg. December 2012, 5. 4 Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012. 2

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The table below highlights some of the characteristics of traditional media in comparison to those of social media. CHARACTERISTICS OF TRADITIONAL & SOCIAL MEDIA TRADITIONAL MEDIA One-way communication, controlled, relevant to the provider Information is distributed to target audiences Promotes desired messages Focused on the delivery of the message Controlled by the content providers Professional standards applied to content (i.e. information filtered through journalistic principles or corporate guidelines) Power is held by the entities controlling the media and providing the content (i.e., corporations, governments, etc.) Control over the timing of the release of information (i.e. sending a press release at a specific time or holding a press conference when desired) Can be costly (buying advertising space or airtime, printing brochures/posters)

SOCIAL MEDIA Networked conversation, free-flowing and relevant to users5 Information is shared by user choice based on relevance Promotes openness Focused on interaction, engagement and feedback Controlled by the participants No standard filter or “lens” for information; personal opinion is highly valued Power is held by the users (i.e. the public) No control over when information becomes available (i.e. a member of public tweeting from a Council meeting or posting Facebook pictures from the site of an emergency) Is cost-effective – most platforms are free to develop and operate

This shift in communications isn’t just a small blip or a passing fad. According to Statistics Canada, in 2012, 67% of Canadians using the internet visited social media sites and that was up from 58% just two years earlier.6 Of the Canadians who use social media, 86% have a Facebook profile and, while the growth of new Canadian Facebook accounts has leveled off, the growth in other platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram is continuing to grow.7 And the use of social media cuts across all age groups and demographics, meaning the audience on social media is significant both in terms of sheer size and representation of the general public.

At the same time as social media has been on the rise, traditional media has been in decline. Newspaper circulation in Canada declined from 44.5% of households in 2000 to just 27% in 2012.8 The number of households ditching cable and satellite in favour of online streaming or subscription services is rising year after year. Small local television channels and radio stations 5

Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 4. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/131028/dq131028a-eng.htm 7 Town of East Gwillimbury. “Social Media Strategy.” www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 6 8 It should be noted for comparison purposes that in 1950, this statistic was more than 100% of households. http://media-cmi.com/downloads/CMI_Discussion_Paper_Circulation_Trends_102813.pdf 6

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are being taken over by the media giants and the local programing is being replaced with national programing. This means that the audience for traditional media is shrinking as is the effectiveness of using traditional media to communicate.

The Municipal Context For the municipal world, this fundamental shift in the world of communications presents a significant opportunity and challenge. For decades, traditional media has been a main method of communicating with the public and those traditional means have allowed municipalities a considerable degree of control over: 

The message – what is being said

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The medium – where and how the message is delivered

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The timing – when the information is provided

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The audience – who receives the information

And for decades, traditional media worked fairly well for municipal governments.

However, the rise of social media and the decline of traditional media has meant the audience for municipal messages has been shrinking at the very time when, in the current political climate, “openness”, “transparency”, “accountability” and “authenticity” have become what the public is demanding from both the elected officials and the bureaucracies behind them. Municipalities have been forced to acknowledge that they must adapt their communication strategies to fit the new realities or risk becoming irrelevant to the public they seek to serve. In the face of this culture shift, municipalities have recently9 begun to embrace social media to ensure they are able to communicate the necessary messages to the public. They have begun to realize that social media “has the potential to extend government services, increase civic participation, solicit innovative ideas from the masses, and improve decision-making and problem-solving.”10

One very interesting and perhaps unexpected aspect of the move to embrace social media has been the ability to measure its effectiveness. With traditional media, there was a higher degree of control over every aspect of a communication except the ability to measure how effective it was. While newspapers may have had circulation with a certain percentage of the population, 9

Prior to the 2008, there were no Ontario municipalities engaged in social media. Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 11. 10 Kahn, GoharFeroz & Lee, Kon Sang & Swar, Bobby. Social Media Risks and Benefits: A Public Sector Perspective. Social Science Computer Review, October 2014, vol. 32 no. 5, 3. 8

there were no easy ways to measure the number of people who read the specific communication from the municipality. The same goes for television, radio and any kind of print advertising; there were general numbers, but nothing specific. In contrast, social media tools have the ability to provide specific information about the number of people viewing, sharing, commenting, etc. on everything from a Facebook profile to a single tweet. And in a fiscal environment where municipalities are being asked to do more with less and seek out greater and greater efficiencies, being able to measure and track the effectiveness of their communication is very valuable.11

The North Grenville Context North Grenville is an amalgamated urban/rural municipality of 16,000 residents. Located on the border of the City of Ottawa and just north of Highway 401 in the middle of the Toronto-Montreal corridor, the municipality is experiencing significant growth and development and it has been a struggle to keep up with the increased demands and expectations from new residents and businesses regarding communication.

The Municipality entered the world of social media in 2009 with a Facebook account set up and managed by the Recreation Department that highlighted events taking place at the Municipal Centre. A few years later, a Twitter account and LinkedIn profiles were added. The thought process at the time was that the public were asking for more communication and they were already using social media, so having a municipal presence on social media would result in more people receiving more communication.

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Municipality of Meaford. Corporate Communications Strategy. www.meaford.ca. 2011. 9

Part II

Social Media Tools: What, When & Who?

Now that, we have an understanding of the purpose of social media and why municipalities need to be involved in it, a closer look at some of the specific platforms is warranted. For the purpose of this paper, a discussion of the specific platforms is being limited to only those most widely adopted by the public and the municipal sector, specifically Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. All of these platforms are free to use, require no special software and are accessible from any device with an internet connection.

Facebook Facebook is the most popular and widely-used social media platform. It is a social networking site that allows individuals, groups, organizations, businesses, etc. to create pages and populate their own content. The content pages provide space for comments by anyone viewing the pages and users are able to “like” a page in order to continue to follow the individual/group/ business, etc. Facebook allows for written content with no limit on size as well as other media such as photos, videos, links, etc. and this provides for flexibility in the type of communications that it can be used for. Facebook also provides built-in analytics via a tool called Insights which provides information on everything from the gender and ages of visitors to the location they arrived from to how much engagement a specific post received. This tool, if used on a regular basis, can provide valuable insight that can help improve the effectiveness of a page. The Municipal Context As Facebook is the most popular social media site in terms of the number of users, it can also be an effective tool for municipalities as the audience is already there and this is evident by the fact that in 2012, 79% of municipalities using social media had Facebook pages. 12 It is also effective for building awareness of municipal operations and activities because when users “like” the page and become a follower, they will continue to see the municipal updates in the news feeds on their own pages. This keeps the municipality “top of mind” with its public.13 This also makes it an effective tool for communicating during a crisis – municipalities can provide emergency messages and be assured that they will show up on their followers news feeds. In addition, the “share” button makes it easy for readers of content to publish the content on their own pages allowing all of their followers to view it or to publish the content to specific individuals they have friended who would also be interested. 12 13

Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 24. Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 25. 10

Another interesting benefit of Facebook comes in the form of being able to monitor what is being said about the municipality on the platform in order to show trends, get feedback on programs and activities and possibly get in front of problems or issues before they becomes a crisis. 14 What is important to keep in mind with all social media is that, to be truly effective, one of the goals needs to be engagement and not simply municipal messaging and so, in the context of Facebook, it is important to set up an account with the ability for the public to comment. This allows the municipality to gain feedback on both the effectiveness of the municipal operations as well as the effectiveness of the social media tool itself. This also means that it will require ongoing and regular monitoring by municipal staff so that questions can be answered, complaints addressed and feedback gathered. This is the key aspect of the two-way communication that is at the heart of social media. The North Grenville Context The Municipality currently has one Facebook page titled “Events at the Municipal Centre”. Setup originally for the purpose indicated by the name, it has become the main Facebook page for the organization by default and is used to post messages ranging from job opportunities to press releases from Council meetings to notices of burning bans to recreational programing. While this has served a purpose, I believe there are ways to make the Municipality’s Facebook presence more effective as outlined in the Part III.

Twitter Twitter is a micro-blog with a format that limits each tweet (message) to 140 characters. Users sign-up for an account which allows them to tweet and follow other Twitter users. Because of the emphasis on being succinct, Twitter is perhaps the easiest and faster social media platform to operate. It works best for quick, short messages with a direct to other sources for additional content. Like Facebook, Twitter allows for replies, the mechanism for the two-way conversation. Twitter also allows for re-tweets – person A tweets a message, person B re-tweets that message on their account – and again, because of the emphasis on brevity and the simplicity of using Twitter on a mobile device, a message can be tweeted and then re-tweeted to millions of people within in seconds. Another feature of Twitter is the use of the hashtag to organize and link tweets on a similar topic.15 Twitter also has an analytics tool called Twittercounter that tracks tweets and re-tweets to provide an idea of how effective the communication is.

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Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 25. “Because Twitter provided no easy way to group tweets or add extra data, the Twitter community came up with their own way: hashtags. People use the hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase in the Tweets to 15

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The Municipal Context Twitter has great potential for use in the municipal world. There are many situations where immediate, simple messaging works best such as a water main break, traffic accident, boil water advisory, etc. It is also helpful as a tool for gathering feedback and gaining insight into the priorities of the public. Municipalities can ask questions such as “What is your top priority for recreation in Municipality ABC?” and watch the answers fly in. However, similar to Facebook, Twitter does require monitoring as questions may be raised in replies that should be addressed. In addition, because of the pace with which tweets are often re-tweeted, messages should be carefully thought-out before they are tweeted as there is no re-call mechanism on re-tweets. The North Grenville Context The Municipality currently has a corporate Twitter account as well as an account for the Municipal Fire Service. In addition, there are a couple members of Council with Twitter accounts. The corporate account is operated in a very unstructured manner – sometimes the same message is tweeted as the one that is posted on Facebook and sometimes different messages are circulated. Sometimes the tweet is about a municipal activity or initiative and other times it is promoting an action by another agency or group within the community. Sometimes tweets from the Fire Service are shared on the corporate account and sometimes they aren’t. The Fire Service account has only recently been created and to date, it is tweeting daily messages (mainly safety tips and reminders) and not allowing for replies. I believe the Municipality needs to become more effective on Twitter by adopting some criteria for Twitter content and establishing a schedule for regular tweets.

LinkedIn LinkedIn is another social networking site, however the focus is on networking among professionals and it is used primarily to help connect job seekers with employment or to connect suppliers with business partners.16 Individuals or organizations create a profile and invite others to be part of their network and able to view the profile. This platform requires the least on-going maintenance because once a profile is created, there are only slight changes to the information, however, it also creates the least engagement because users can follow one another, but there is no format for adding comments.

categorize those Tweet and help them show more easily in Twitter Search.” Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 46. 16 Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 28. 12

The Municipal Context For municipalities, LinkedIn has the advantage of providing a way to show the human side of the organization – the people behind the machine. It can also be a valuable tool for attracting employees and it is the least resource intensive of all the platforms discussed in this paper. However, because there is no opportunity for meaningful engagement, this is not an effective tool for communicating to the public about general municipal issues. The North Grenville Context North Grenville has a LinkedIn account that has had very little activity take place on it. A number of employees have linked their profiles to the Municipalities as have a number of other municipal governments. However, given that there are other venues for professional networking within the region and given the fact that there is no expectation of significant growth in the number of employees in the near future, I don’t believe that this tool is worth even the small amount of time and energy it requires.

YouTube If the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is true, than YouTube probably provides the most bang for your social media buck because it is a network specifically for sharing animated messages, usually videos. In our culture where visuals are increasingly important, YouTube can be a valuable tool for communicating with a public accustomed to receiving messages with visual cues and prompts. The Municipal Context YouTube provides an opportunity for municipalities to harness the creativity of their employees and develop visual presentations that can effectively communicate the necessary information while at the same time reinforcing the municipal brand. The videos can be archived and organized so that once they are created, they can be used repeatedly by the public at any time. There is also the opportunity to make comments so the public can provide feedback or ask any follow-up questions. One of the most common uses of YouTube within the municipal world is as a format for sharing footage from municipal meetings either in real-time or as soon as possible after the meeting. This makes the business of the municipality much more accessible to the population than the traditional practices of recording the proceedings for broadcast at a later date by a specific cable or satellite provider to say nothing of the practice of relying on print media to get the information out. 13

The North Grenville Context North Grenville does not currently have YouTube account. However, promotional videos have been created by the economic development team and more may be developed in the future. Council has also expressed an interest in having their meetings streamed live or at least available to view online, so a foray into YouTube is likely on the horizon.

This is just a brief review of the most popular and commonly used social media platforms. New platforms are being created all the time and people are trending from one to the other on a constant basis. As with any communication device whether traditional media or social media, the key is to consider the message to be delivered and match it with the appropriate platform. A notice of an emergency road closure may be better suited to Twitter than YouTube, while an explanation of an electronic voting system is more appropriate for a YouTube video.

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Part III

Recommendations

Where do we go from here? Social media isn’t likely to go away anytime soon and even if the platforms change, the fundamentals behind the movement will have a lasting impact on communication. So the question really isn’t whether or not to engage in social media, but how to do it effectively.

The Municipal Context Many municipalities saw the value and potential of social and simply began engaging in it without a clear goal in mind or a plan to accomplish that goal. As a result, they are spending time and resources engaging in social media without reaping much benefit. Outlined below are some recommendations for what municipalities can to do to increase the effectiveness of their social media use.

1. Understand that social media needs to be part of a larger vision for municipal communications. “There is a growing acceptance of communication as a process of engagement rather than a stream of corporate messaging”17 and the use of social media fits nicely as a piece of that engagement puzzle. In fact, social media can be used to drive the public to some of the more traditional forms of communication such as a website, press releases or local television programing. As such, municipalities should adopt social media policies or strategies, not as silo documents, but integrated as part of a larger vision for improving communication and demonstrating openness.18

2. Set specific goals for social media use and choose platforms that will best achieve those goals.19 Municipalities need to determine what the goals are for their social media use and then decide which platforms to use to meet those goals. In an article on the public sector and social media, advertising firm Think Shift advised that “to best make use of a social networking site,

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Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 8. Shewell, John. Whitepaper 14: Social media in the public sector. David Wilcox Publishing, London. December 2011. 19 Think Shift. Whitepaper: Social Media in the Public Sector. Think Shift Advertising, Winnipeg. December 2012, 10. 18

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organizations should keep in mind the users’ primary reason for being there – LinkedIn users have a very different goal than Facebook users – and tailor content to that purpose”20.

3. Develop written guidelines for social media use. It is important have procedures or policies written down so that both employees and members of the public have the same understanding and expectations for how social media will be used within the organization. The guidelines should consider issues such as: 

Which social media platforms the municipality will use and the types of message that will be communicated on each one.

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How many people will be involved and what their roles will be. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities will help mitigate many of the potential problems that can occur with social media use such as privacy breaches, inconsistent voices, misinformation and inappropriate handling of public feedback.

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The type of content that will be publicized and some general information on basic rules that must be adhered to.

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How the platforms will be monitored and how comments and feedback will be responded to.

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Establishing a clear distinction between the corporate social media accounts managed by employees in accordance with the guidelines and employee’s personal profiles that they use in off-work time.21

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How the effectiveness of social media will be measured - the type of statistics that will be monitored, how often it will be done and how it is reported back to managers and members of Council.

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How social media will be publicized in all other corporate messaging. It is suggested that cross promotion be used between social media platforms and the corporate website as well as links to social media included prominently in other communications such as press releases, newsletters and advertising.

4. Set reasonable expectations for the amount of staff time to be devoted to social media For most municipalities, social media is being added to already existing job descriptions so it becomes yet another “additional duty as assigned” that employees are required to carry out. With that in mind, it is wise for municipalities to set reasonable expectations for how many social 20 21

Think Shift. Whitepaper: Social Media in the Public Sector. Think Shift Advertising, Winnipeg. December 2012, 5. Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 11. 16

media platforms they use as well as how often those platforms are updated and monitored. Advice from both the academic sector and the municipal sector is that the best approach is to start small with one or two platforms and then only add additional platforms once success is realized with the initial ones.22 In addition, municipalities with experience in this field suggest establishing a regular schedule for posting and monitoring in order to avoid the pitfall of either posting too much information and turning the public off or not posting often enough to engage the public.

5. Measure the results and adjust the strategy accordingly. As noted earlier, one of the benefits of social media is the built-in ability to measure the impact it is having. A number of metrics can be tracked and used to analyze success including number of followers, ratio of comments-to-posts and retweets. In addition, it may be possible to track whether there is a change in the number of questions and complaints that are phoned in to the office. For example, the waste and recycling department in the City of Brighton and Hove (UK) began to use social media as part of a customer service strategy to provide information and solicit feedback on their programs and within a year were able to reduce the volume of calls to the office by 30%, cut response times to emails/letter from 9 days to 2 days, had website views increase by 50% and online reporting increase by 50%.23

Once results are analyzed, it is important to adjust social media use if required to ensure that it continues to meet the goals set out at the beginning. Flexibility and agility are two terms that should always be kept in mind when dealing with social media; if a municipality doesn’t adjust the messaging or methods of engagement as the platforms and public use evolves, they risk becoming as irrelevant as they would be if they didn’t engage in social media at all.

The North Grenville Context

1. Understand that social media needs to be part of a larger vision for municipal communications. With the establishment of a Communications Coordinator position, the Municipality acknowledged that communications was an area that needed to be prioritized and that this would include social media. As a result of the research done for this paper, I would recommend 22

Municipality of Meaford. Corporate Communications Strategy. www.meaford.ca. 2011. Shewell, John. Whitepaper 14: Social media in the public sector. David Wilcox Publishing, London. December 2011, 12. 23

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that the Municipality go one step further and commit to developing an entire communications plan of which the written guidelines for social media mentioned in Item 3 would be just one chapter.

2. Set specific goals for social media use and choose platforms that will best achieve those goals. The Municipality has some very general goals for social media such as offering two-way communication and participation with the public who want to be engaged and informed, enhancing the transparency of Municipal operations, increasing the accessibility of and to the Municipality and ensuring accuracy of information. However, while those are good goals, I believe additional thought needs to be given to what information or programs the public would like to have more information and involvement with and make sure our social media activities are meeting those expectations.

For example, the Municipality has a very active recreation department that operates a wide variety of recreational facilities and innovative recreational programing which are well used. The use of Facebook has assisted the department both in getting information to the public regarding the options available as well as provided valuable feedback from the public as to what types of programs they are interested in. I recommend that goals be set to increase the number of followers to the current Facebook page and to limit the messages to only recreational issues. If we were to begin to post messages with focuses on other municipal programs, I believe the number of followers would shrink because they begin following the page because of their interest in recreational activities. Similarly, there are existing Facebook users who are not interested in receiving recreational focused information or providing input, but would welcome updates on Council decisions and major municipal initiatives.

As a result of my research, I recommend that a corporate Facebook page be created to provide messages of broader municipal interests. I also recommend that the existing Twitter account be used for corporate messaging and should continually point back to the corporate website for additional information.

As communication around fire prevention and emergency preparedness are areas that municipalities are required to engage in, I recommend that the existing Twitter account for the Fire Service continue to operate with messages focused on emergency management and that it be monitored closely to determine whether it is effective. 18

3. Develop written guidelines for social media use. As a result of this paper, a policy will be presented to the Senior Management Team and then Council for adoption. The policy will contain the following information: 

Social media use in North Grenville will be limited to Facebook and Twitter for the time being. The Facebook account will have both a corporate page with messages of broad municipal relevance (major initiatives, emergency messages, reminders about municipal services, etc.) and pages devoted to recreation and to emergency services with messages specific to those areas of municipal operations. Twitter accounts will include a corporate account and an emergency services account.

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One of the goals of communication is “the resolution of ambiguity and reduction of uncertainty and nothing is more confusing than contradicting messages across different channels”24. In order to mitigate this possibility, all social media activity will be run through the Communications Coordinator who will be the only individual authorized to establish and administer social media accounts. The corporate accounts will be updated and monitored by the Communication Coordinator. Authority for content generation, updating and monitoring will be delegated to identified individuals for the accounts specific to recreation and emergency services. The establishment of social media accounts will only be carried out following an analysis of the need for an account supported by data including the need/goal it would meet, the benefit to the Municipality and the public/audience, the ability to maintain the account, etc.

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“Thoughtful choices about what to put on social media sites should replace spontaneous babbling”25 and accordingly, municipal content on all accounts is to be timely, professional, relevant, accurate, align with corporate policies relevant respect privacy legislation. In addition, content will be limited to information within the jurisdiction of and supported by the Municipality. Content posted by users, whether positive or negative will be allowed with certain exceptions.26

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Each social media account will have information on how it is monitored by municipal staff so that the public has reasonable expectations. As the emergency services accounts are one-way communication tools, they do not require monitoring. For all the other accounts, monitoring will be done on a daily basis including weekends and holidays. Not

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Haenlein, Michael & Kaplan, Andreas M. Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media, 7 25 Fyfe, Toby & Crookall, Paul. Social Media and Public Sector Policy Dilemmas. Institute of Public Administration of Canada, Toronto. 2010, 12. 26 The Town of East Gwillimbury developed an excellent list of unsuitable content. It is included as Appendix A for reference. 19

all comments require a response and municipal employees will exercise discretion regarding when and how to respond to negative comments. Questions, complaints or comments requiring feedback will be responded to as soon as possible, with a goal of a response within 24 hours of posting. 

Corporate accounts are to be established with corporate emails and contact information, not personal information, and only corporate information is to be posted. Only employees with delegated authority will represent or speak for the Municipality on corporate accounts. Employees with personal accounts may engage on the corporate social media accounts, but must state that they are speaking as an individual and not an employee. Employees with personal accounts should be aware that comments regarding the Municipality, even on personal accounts, are public and as such should conform to corporate policies.

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The Communications Coordinator shall establish a program for reviewing the analytics on all accounts and will create monthly statistical reports which will be provided to the CAO and Senior Management Team. Quarterly reports shall be provided to Council and a year-end report will be prepared and presented as part of the annual budget process.

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Links to social media will be prominently included on the corporate website. Existing templates for items such as newsletters, press releases, email signatures, weekly advertisements, letterhead, etc. will be amended to include links/icons for Facebook and Twitter.

4. Set reasonable expectations Given that the advice of seasoned practitioners of social media is to start small and build slowly, only Facebook and Twitter be used in North Grenville for the time being. Although there is an existing LinkedIn account, based on analytics, I recommend that this be shut down and that staff focus on the other accounts. As for the expectation related to posting and updating, I recommend that a schedule be adopted where all the accounts are updated at least once a week and at most three times a week, with an exception for emergency messaging. As a formal social media policy is a new initiative for the Municipality, these expectations may not be realistic and therefore, careful monitoring of the analytics should be done to determine whether the level of engagement needs to be adjusted to suit the needs of the public.

5. Measure the results and adjust the strategy accordingly. The measurement of social media is a new venture for North Grenville, since they like many municipalities, simply began engaging in social media without fully understanding the medium. 20

As the policy will state, the built-in analytics tools for Facebook and Twitter will be used to measure the impact and effectiveness of the accounts and this will provide the information needed to determine how to change our strategy to ensure we achieve our goals.

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Conclusions As noted in a paper from the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, there is a paradigm shift going on within all levels of government involving the idea that “public information should be considered not as a possession owned by the government but as a resource that gains value when shared”.27 This paradigm shift along with the growing prevalence of social media in society has meant municipalities have begun to embrace social media to some degree in order to remain relevant to large segments of the public they serve. However, “in order to truly harness the power of social media, it is important to not get caught up in the frenzy and examine how social media can best be incorporated into what [a municipality] is doing in engaging and collaborating with the citizen”.28 Municipalities would be well advised to take the time to research what options are available in the world of social media and then match the use of specific platforms to their own goals. The use of written guidelines would assist in this process as well as help to ensure that social media use remains in line with corporate policies and objectives and is effective.

The potential benefits of effective social media use by municipalities are many and varied and municipalities who take the time to thoughtfully embrace social media will experience those benefits to the betterment of both the government bureaucracy and the community as a whole.

27

Fyfe, Toby & Crookall, Paul. Social Media and Public Sector Policy Dilemmas. Institute of Public Administration of Canada, Toronto. 2010, 15. 28 Falco, Tish. Taking Social Media Public: Social Media for Successful Citizen Relationship Management. IBM Global Business Serivces, NY, USA, 2011, 6. 22

Bibliography 1. City of Guelph. Communications Plan. www.guelph.ca. 2010. 2. City of Mississauga. Communications Master Plan 2012. www.mississauga.ca. 2012. 3. Falco, Tish. Taking Social Media Public: Social Media for Successful Citizen Relationship Management. IBM Global Business Serivces, NY, USA, 2011. 4. Fyfe, Toby & Crookall, Paul. Social Media and Public Sector Policy Dilemmas. Institute of Public Administration of Canada, Toronto. 2010. 5. Haenlein, Michael & Kaplan, Andreas M. Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 2010. Available online at www.sciencedirect.com. Http://michaelhaenlein.com/Publications/Kaplan,%20Andreas%20%20Users%20of%20the%20world,%20unite.pdf. Accessed 7 August, 2015. 6. Kahn, GoharFeroz & Lee, Kon Sang & Swar, Bobby. Social Media Risks and Benefits: A Public Sector Perspective. Social Science Computer Review, October 2014, vol. 32 no. 5. 7. Municipality of Meaford. Corporate Communications Strategy. www.meaford.ca. 2011. 8. Redbrick Communications. Social Media Use Among Ontario Municipalities is Growing Fast. www.redbrick.ca. Redbrick Communication Inc. 2012. 9. Shewell, John. Whitepaper 14: Social media in the public sector. David Wilcox Publishing, London. December 2011. 10. Think Shift. Whitepaper: Social Media in the Public Sector. Think Shift Advertising, Winnipeg. December 2012. 11. Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012.

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Appendix A Excerpt from the Social Media Strategy for the Town of East Gwillimbury, November 5 th, 2012:

“The site administrator monitors all Town social media and may review any post with unsuitable content as described below, and may block/ban users for repleaed violations of its social media guidelines. This is stated in the Town disclaimer on each site. Some examples of inappropriate content include but are not limited to the following:    

           

     

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comments that are profane, abusive, threatening, harassing, intimidating, hateful or intended to defame any person or organization content considered to be disrespectful or insulting to Town staff or representatives comments that suggest or encourage illegal activity content that promotes, fosters or perpetuates discrimination on the basis of race, creed, colour, age, religion, gender, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, national origin, physical or mental disability, gender identity or sexual orientation sexual content or links to sexual content content posted by persons whose profile picture or avatar, username or e-mail address contains any of the aforementioned unsuitable content Page 40 solicitations or advertisements, including promotion and endorsement of any financial, commercial or non-governmental agency information that may compromise the safety or security of the public or public system messages not supported in the Town’s current advertising protocol comments that are topically unrelated to the issue public disclosure of personal and confidential information religious and political messages promotional messages for personal gain or personal solicitation harmful software, viruses, Trojan horses or malware in any form data that could reasonably be expected to cause, directly or indirectly, strain on any computing facilities, or interfere with others’ use of the service, such as chain letters and mass mailings (spam) commercial endorsement or solicitation confidential and personal information jokes, slurs, or innuendos content for the purposes of promoting a candidate for any elected or appointed office content that violates intellectual property rights of any other party content that contains personal information about an identifiable individual other than the individual posting the content”29

Town of East Gwillimbury. Social Media Strategy. www.eastgwillimbury.ca. November 2012, 39-40. 24