The first talk proper (technically Dave Briggs was first, but I’m lumping all his stuff together) at the PSF event “Effective Social Networking & Web 2.0 Strategies for Local Authorities NORTH EAST” was Simon Wakeman, who asked the question “Social Media — A Revolution in Local Government Communications?”.

Simon has already put his slides online, so if you want more details about what he was talking about, you’d be better off visiting the horse’s mouth, as it were, but here I’m going to give you the thoughts and impressions that I picked up from my notes at the event…

First of all, Simon told us all where exactly Medway was: I’ve heard this before but for whatever reason it’s never stuck in my mind, so this time I wrote it down. It’s Gillinghamish.

Podcasting

He then moved onto Mixit Online (a ‘youth’ thingy), which started in 2006 as a kind of a first toe in the social media water where they produced a podcast for a few episodes in 2006 and 2007.

What they wanted to do was to create a two-way communication channel between the Council and young people in the area — to get the young people involved in producing the podcast and also to help the organisation learn about the use of podcasting as a communications tool. Initially, it was quite cheap to set up — the only thing they actually had to pay out for was a microphone for about £100.

The podcast was designed to be 20-25 minutes long, and contain a mixture of news, bands playing their music, features, interviews and comments.

What they learned from the exercise was that you shouldn’t underestimate the time investment necessary to do this sort of thing. It took 16 to 18 hours of officer time per podcast. They also needed to consider their responsibilities as regards to accessibility — providing transcripts and so on, and learned that it is important to use the most appropriate technology for the task — which was not necessarily what their IT departments wanted them to use.

They also found that each podcast was reaching between 350 and 400 people. And then they started looking at Facebook…

Facebook and Twitter

Rather than having the Council on Facebook as an entity in its own right (thus neatly sidestepping the issue of how to make people fans of the Council), Medway decided to use Facebook around specific events and started with a Facebook page for the Fuse Medway Festival.

Facebook and Twitter were used to promote the event, post pictures and footage from the event and so on. He indicated that they had included some stuff with a more personal slant, as well as just the standard event promo stuff.

They learned that Facebook is more than just an online billboard — it helps to create a community around the festival, but that as a consequence of this you obviously need to invest time in both interacting and responding to people — you need to offer value to that community.

This is where Simon said that they had offered things such as behind the scenes tours and queue jumping tickets for those who were using Facebook — the bit I made reference to during my accessibility section.

He felt that social networks are very effective for issues that people actually care about — for example Medway Council used these to publish their stance against the expansion of Heathrow — as well as just publishing lists of events, jobs and so on. You also need to be clear that you need to speak with a human voice instead of just corporatese.

Problems

One of the problems they encountered was how to manage the stuff they encountered online. For example, when they found a Facebook group was planning a party “Facebook Comes to Medway” at a pub called The Command House, and that there were planned to be over 3,500 attendees in a pub licensed for 300, they realised that there were obviously going to be problems.

So this was discussed with other people who needed to be aware of it, and after discussions with licensing authorities, the police and so on, it became apparent that the event could not go ahead (more details at Kent Online). Obviously, some saw this as a heavy handed approach, resulting in some bad PR for the Council.

So here they learned something about issues management, how to handle specific things (whether they can suggest/provide alternative venues), which groups they need to be looking at (for example, some groups with 10-15 members might never need more investigation: but in the case of a schools reorganisation group which attracted over 1000 members in one week, this is obviously one they need to be aware of and potentially engage with. It’s important to decide when it is appropriate to engage.

And there’s the issue of how to engage. They don’t normally engage directly with the groups on Facebook — if you suddenly chip in an ‘official’ stance when everyone is already against you, you might get shouted down or abused — so they might look at engaging with the creator or admins of a particular group.

Other Lessons

It’s important now to realise that new media — Facebook, Twitter and so on — can now drive “old” media, with stories derived from Facebook, Twitter and so on being monitored by journalists as well as councils to pick up news stories and features.

New skills are required; you need to have an understanding of how that particular form of social media works, you need to have new policies and processes to deal with it and use it effectively, and you also need to understand that it creates a disruption to traditional hierarchies. Hierarchies become flattened — online there’s no guarantee that people will find the Chief Executive’s opinion more compelling or more relevant than any other person, and online communities don’t generally do hierarchies — if you don’t treat the people you are dealing with as at least an equal, people will quickly turn away.