Ineffective Strategies for engaging the public via the web

Presented by Craig Thomler June 2011 Ineffective strategies for engaging the public via the web

Who am I?

Why we shouldn't engage via the web

Source: http://about.sensis.com.au/small-business/sensis-ebusiness-report/ Most Australians use the internet

Majority of Australians use social media Source: http://about.sensis.com.au/small-business/sensis-ebusiness-report/

Nielsen Online says Australians spent 6 hours and 25 minutes using social media sites in February 2010, 2 minutes less than Italians and more than the British, Americans, Spanish, Germans or Japanese.
Melanie Ingrey, Research Director for Nielsen’s online business: “Incredibly, nearly nine in 10 (86%) of Australian’s online are looking to their fellow Internet users for opinions and information about products, services and brands”
Sources: http ://mashable.com/2010/03/19/global-social-media-usage/ http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/australia-getting-more-social-online-as-facebook-leads-and-twitter-grows/ Australians very prolific social media users

Governments don't support online engagement
AGIMO Best practice Checklist: 12. Online Policy Consultation
An objective of the Australian Government's e-government policy is to enhance closer citizen engagement.
Through the use of new technologies, agencies are engaging more widely with the public through online policy information, feedback and consultation.
Online consultation provides opportunities to enhance and compliment traditional consultation mechanisms and generate better policy outcomes.

Governments don't support online engagement
APSC Circular 2009/6: Protocols for online media participation
Web 2.0 provides public servants with unprecedented opportunities to open up government decision making and implementation to contributions from the community. In a professional and respectful manner, APS employees should engage in robust policy conversations . Equally, as citizens, APS employees should also embrace the opportunity to add to the mix of opinions contributing to sound, sustainable policies and service delivery approaches . Employees should also consider carefully whether they should identify themselves as either an APS employee or an employee of their agency.

How to engage ineffectively online
- Don't provide any information online
- Create an information-only website (no interaction or contact us form at most)
- Provide inaccessible and hard to use engagement mechanisms (lots of barriers!)
- Pre-qualify contributors by paper

- Ignore social media channels & other online places your audience gathers
- Treat unthreaded comments as engagement
- Keep the moderation rules secret (no context)
- Apply extremely restrictive moderation rules
- Moderate everything really slowly (once-per week at most)

- Don't promote your engagement
- Only invest in display advertising online
- Avoid responding to anyone
- Respond bureaucratically or dismissively
- Keep the engagement process a secret

Worst practice examples of ineffective online engagement

Over 270 Australian government Twits Source: http://www.twitter100.com

Discussion & Questions (Don’t be shy!)

Presented by Craig Thomler June 2011 Ineffective strategies for engaging the public via the web

Ineffective Strategies for engaging the public via the web

by Craig Thomler

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