digital & social media challenges for local government

Digital Challenges in Local Government

Ben Matthews, FutureGov@benrmatthews

Badges!

1. Being Human

2. Engaging with citizens

3. Rise of Mobile

4. Flood of information

5. Keeping up with

5 Digital Challenges

1. Being Human

A Local Gov Exit Interview

Be Warm, Friendly, Human

“A council’s web presence should not purely be a cold, clinical, homogeneous portal for paying council tax, parking fines and the like. It should be vibrant, approachable and engaging collection of spaces where citizens can interact with their local authority in a variety of ways.”

Manchester City Council

Manchester City Council

Communication & Transaction

“Social media has transformed attitudes and expectations in relation to digital engagement and most councils have warmed to the idea of the web being a crucial channel for communication as well as transaction.”

Surrey Council

Surrey Council

Surrey on Twitter

Surrey on Twitter

Seek & Share Best PracticeEvery local authority is different – demographically, geographically and politically. There can be no “one-size fits all” approach.

We’ve definitely got to be better at sharing and seeking best practice, especially as more and more organisations wake up to the huge advantages of being truly digital

Comms2Point0

Guardian Local Leaders

Knowledge Hub

2. Engaging With Citizens

Involve Your UsersCouncils have the wonderful and rare luxury of being in the same place

as the bulk of their website’s target audience. Enlist your citizens to help

you improve your web presence.

Constantly test with real users and make it easy for them to give you their

feedback. Adapt, improve and then test again!

This is especially crucial when designing for users with specific needs,

such as those with disabilities, low literacy or limited experience of using

the web.

Camden Digital Strategy

Digital Camden on Slideshare

Enable Through Constraints

Surfacing Comments

Open Up Your OrganisationLocal government holds some of the most valuable data going – data

which could offer huge benefits to local businesses, citizens and

service delivery.

A lot of councils are talking about Data (Open, Big, Linked etc) but few

truly understand it and even less are really doing it well.

Open Knowledge Foundation has tips on getting started.

4. The Rise of Mobile

Digital Grows as a Source for News

For Many, Mobile Means More News

Size of Social Media Networks

Facebook Overtakes Google for Referral Traffic

Top Facebook Publishers

Shift in Mobile Users - And Advertising Revenue

Facebook Adapting to be More News Focussed

Go MobileIt won’t be long before more of your website visitors are using mobile devices than PCs.

If your web offering isn’t mobile friendly, that’s going to be a huge problem.

Start thinking mobile now!

Responsive Design

Consult Your Analytics

4. Flood of Information

Case Study: Maidstone CouncilMaidstone borough has suffered its worst flooding since 2000, with at least 36 families being evacuated

On duty looking after our social media feeds, 18 hours a day from Christmas Day to warn and inform residents

Facilitated a valuable conversation between council and residents to make people feel less isolated in a difficult situation

Maidstone Council Twitter

Sending Info OutFrequent updates and advice with information from the experts

Highlighted the multi-agency response while covering our warning and informing responsibilities

Worth telling people everything you’re doing. Virtually everything was retweeted, reassuring thousands about our response.

When updates became less frequent, people were worried that they’d missed something. Made a point of informing residents about the latest information, even if those updates offered nothing new.

Also important to remind people what wasn’t affected by flooding.

Twitter Updates

Bringing Information InFed information into the Emergency Centre as it came up, monitoring search terms and hashtags to capture as much information as possible

Identified through social media serious issues in two streets that they’d been unaware of, and were able to get help to both areas

Able to suggest the deployment of Incident Liaison Officers to check issues as they arose, using residents to inform our flood response

Some conversations inevitably needed to be taken offline, so liaised closely with contact centre and set up a special email address so residents could still be assured of a quick response to help them through

Facebook Updates

ResultsThe rate of increase in followers on Facebook jumped ten-fold during the floods

Added as many followers on Twitter in two days as normally would in a month

Received a lot of positive feedback from residents, who shared updates with their own followers

5. Keeping Up

Econsultancy.com

Comms2Point0

Buffer Blog

The Rabbitgram

Happy Inbox

Inbound.org

Thank You

http://bit.ly/benspexben@wearefuturegov.combenrmatthews.com@benrmatthews

wearefuturegov.com@futuregov