Government 2.0 – Join the party before you try to start your own
Today’s guest post is from Steve Radick, an associate with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and a member of our Social Media Advisory Board.
Which party would you rather go to?
Reading Merritt’s posting on Government 2.0 last week, I was particularly drawn to one point that she made – “like the corporate world, the government is learning how to listen to its audience, where they are…”
These last three words – “where they are” – is an important shift in how the government is interacting with the public and their employees. Traditionally, the government Internet or intranet Web site was about connecting people to information. Web sites included tons of links to reports, policies, photos, press releases, jobs, and other types of data. If someone had a question or comment, they were directed to a “Contact Us” page where they could submit their feedback. In recent years, government Web sites have even started including videos, pictures, and even blogs on their Web sites, too. Come on over to the party!
However, despite the availability of the “Contact Us” pages, the photos, and the blogs, their party was usually pretty lonely. Their blogs received few comments, their photos weren’t being downloaded and they got virtually no useful feedback via the “Contact Us” forms. Governments have started to realize that just because their stakeholders weren’t at their party doesn’t mean they were at home by themselves. They were just attending parties where their friends already were – on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.
As the Government 2.0 movement gains momentum, we’re seeing more government agencies joining their stakeholders where they are – on Twitter, on YouTube, on Facebook, and on Flickr. They’re answering questions, they’re participating in conversations, they’re asking their own questions, and most importantly, they’re creating real relationships with their stakeholders. They’re realized that it doesn’t matter whether you’re the party host or not – the most important thing about any party is the people and the relationships with those people. So, before you add a blog or other social media to your Web site, you might want to check if your stakeholders are already talking about you at another party, and head over there before starting your own.
Photo credit, iStock
Posted by Posts about Steve Jobs as of April 20, 2009 » The Daily Parr on April 20th, 2009 at 4:39 am
[...] about Steve Jobs as of April 20, 2009 Government 2.0 – Join the Party Before You Try to Start Your Own – smartblogs.com 04/20/2009 Today’s guest post is from Steve Radick , an associate with [...]
Posted by Chris Parente on April 21st, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Nice, easy to grasp post Steve. The audience votes by their presence — don’t try to re-create something that may already exist. Find communities that have raised their hands and said “we’re interested in what you do.”
Posted by Jeffrey Levy on April 25th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Wonderful, clear ideas, Steve! Go where the people are: yep! Sometimes you’ll have some success in establishing your own party within the larger ones, and we’ve tried that with things like EPA’s page on Facebook and our new Pick 5 pages on Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. The next step is to get out there and find where people already are within those sites and engage them.
Posted by Sarah Bourne on April 26th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Good point, Steve! The “build it [a website] and they will come” approach is becoming less effective. As the recent Pew studies show, people (and not only teens!) turn first to their friends for advice and information, and online that doesn’t mean an authoritative government website, no matter how beautiful the design.
Websites have easy metrics. You tweak the information architecture and you get more hits. But that doesn’t mean you’ve reached more people, much less reached the people who need your information. We should be looking to automate more of the publishing process, for instance, so government web workers can use their time to go where the real parties are.
Of course, the blocking of social sites has to stop. You need to have access to the web in its entirety so you can even find those parties. And then workers have to be allowed to spend time on social sites. You can’t just drop in out of the blue and expect an established community to accept you as a peer!
Like panning for gold, there can be long stretches with no measurable outcome: an empty pan or just a few grains of dust. But every once in a while, you get a nice, big nugget: you share some information and people are excited to get it and come to you for more. Yet there has to be accountability, so we need to learn how to measure and value both the nuggets – the anecdotal success stories – and the gold dust – enhanced reputation and trust.
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Posted by “I want a Twitter for All the Various Parts of the Government” | Social Media Strategery on May 2nd, 2009 at 9:37 pm
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