1. Social Media @ EPA
Jessica Orquina
Office of Web Communications
January 2013
2. Background & Policy
• It is EPA’s policy to use social media where
appropriate in order to meet its mission of
protecting human health and the
environment.
– EPA is using social media tools to create a more
effective and transparent government, to engage
the public and EPA’s partners, and to facilitate
internal collaboration.
– Social media provides another set of tools to help
EPA accomplish its mission.
3. Considerations
• Social media is not always the answer.
• Social media needs to be part of a complete
communications and marketing plan.
• Four things to remember
– Social media is free like a puppy is free.
– Social media is a set of tools. Don’t throw out the old just
because you get something new.
– We’re in the first pitch of a baseball game.
– An expert is someone who knows one thing more than you
do.
• Terms of Service
• Resources
4. Social Media Tools
• Blogs
• Microblogs
• Social networking
• Widgets
• Wikis
• Video/photo sharing
• Podcasting
• RSS
• Mashups
• Idea generation
• Webinars
• Challenges
• Geotagging
5. EPA’s Social Media
• EPA is using social media to • Blogs & Discussion Forums:
communicate with a wide Greenversations family
variety of different audiences. – It’s Our Environment
• Facebook: multiple accts Region, geographical, and
program blogs
– www.facebook.com/EPA
– Region, geographical, and • YouTube: one account
program pages – www.youtube.com/usepagov
• Twitter: multiple accts • Flickr: one account
– @EPAgov – www.flickr.com/photos/usepag
– Region, geographical, and ov
program accounts • Challenge.gov: one account
• Foursquare: one account – http://challenge.gov/epa
– https://foursquare.com/epagov • More social media at EPA
• Google+: one account
– www.google.com/+EPAgov
6. Where do we engage?
• Questions:
– What are your goals?
– Where is your audience?
– What type of information do you want to share?
– How much time / resources do you have to
commit to this communication effort?
– How sensitive is the topic?
7. Maximizing Impact / Campaign
Coordination
• Foundation: Good content on the web.
– Plain language information
– Maps
– Photos and graphics
• Momentum: Sharing
– Web content
– Between social media sites (example: share blog posts on
Facebook and Twitter)
• Engage: Listen and respond
– Join in the conversation on blogs and social media!
– Answer questions when possible
– Listen to feedback
8. Resources
• EPA Web Guide Social Media
– http://yosemite.epa.gov/OEI/webguide.nsf/social
media
• Using the EPA Comment Policy
– http://yosemite.epa.gov/OEI/webguide.nsf/social
media/comment_policy
• Terms of Service Agreements
– http://yosemite.epa.gov/OEI/webguide.nsf/social
media/social_media_tos_agreements
