3 Ways to Integrate Social Media in Public Administration

Social Media is changing the way that humans interact with each other. The forces that cause content to be shared determine what millions of people see everyday. Nowhere are these forces more at stake than with public administration.

It is the responsibility of the administration to establish their online identity, and to use social media as a tool to get that identity out in the open. Different social media platforms are better at different aspects of outreach. Here are some different methods that have already been working wonders.

Twitter

Twitter is the tool of choice for frequent updates and news items. Twitter users create an account by specifying a username, preceded by an "@" symbol. Once you have a username, you can start following other users in the same sphere as your own administration. Many twitter users feel a sense of community, and will respond to a follow request by following back.

Following another user, means that you subscribe to their messages, which are 140 characters in length. This length makes twitter great for the types of frequent messages that administrations have.

Public administrations can "tweet" a breaking piece of legislation that affects the public sector, news of a change in leadership, or an update about the location of a key event. Twitter ensures the word gets out, and gets out fast.

Pinterest

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Pinterest is the tool of choice for sharing visual content. Users of Pinterest all maintain pinboards, which are essentially bulletin boards where you place your favorite images and photos. Pinterest is a powerful tool because a user can have multiple pinboards, and it is possible only to subscribe to a particular set of these.

If you've ever tried launching an email marketing campaign, and been unable to just send emails to users who are only interested in certain topics, you'll appreciate the power of a more nuanced approached. If you are a public administration who engages in the community on many different levels, you can create board for each topic which you think makes sense.

One of the hidden features of Pinterest is the ability to set the url of the image. So every time you upload an image and someone shares, or repines it, they are also sharing a link to your site as well. This makes it possible to drive an incredible amount of traffic back to your administration's website. Not surprisingly, many have found that this makes Pinterest great at finding new pools of individuals to engage with.

Facebook

Facebook is familiar to most, but is still the most popular social network and is an essential component of any social media strategy. Public Administrations can take advantage of the tremendous amount of data that exists about users on Facebook to learn more about who their audience is.

With the maintenance of "The Social Graph", Facebook has built a platform which easily distributes information to third parties via the API. Even if you extra information isn't needed, it's worth building a Facebook presence as the probability is high that many of your employees and audience already have profiles.

Facebook even allows others to use its login system as a method of authentication, which can be a great tool for commenting and discussion. When these tools are put together, your administration can launch an incredibly engaging social media strategy that can highlight the incredible work that is already being done.

By telling the story in the medium that makes the most sense at the time, it is possible to connect with individuals on a very positive level with social media.

Lindsey Danzer

About the Guest Author:

Lindsey Danzer is a public administrator and guest author at Best MPA Programs, where she contributed to the guide to the Top 10 Best Online MPA Degrees.