1.
THE EFFECTIVE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
Ayman Alafifi
Utah State University
WEAU Mid Year Conference – Salt Lake City
Nov. 18, 2014

2.
OUTLINE
This is NOT:
Social Media 101
This is:
 Who’s on social media?
 Maximize your virtual presence
 Social media for service providers
 Social media and marketing strategy
 What’s working and what’s NOT!

3.
THE MOTIVE
 The 2009 White House Open Government
Directive requires all federal government
agencies to “open new forms of
communication between government
and the people.”

4.
WHO’S ON SOCIAL MEDIA
http://govsm.com/w/Federal_Agencies

5.
WHO’S ON SOCIAL MEDIA

6.
Utah ranks 2nd nationwide in e-governance in
2013

7.
VIRTUAL PRESENCE
 Social media is step 2!
 SEO friendly website
 Social media friendly website
 Increase discovery, search ability

8.
SOCIAL MEDIA-FRIENDLY WEBSITE
 Links to social media hubs
 Real-time feeds
 Easy to share

9.
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS
 It’s not about quantity! Who will answer your social media
phone?
 It’s beyond status updates - It’s about people you serve
 First impression (profile picture, cover page, contact info)

10.
City of Logan @cityoflogan

11.
GOALS FOR YOUR AUDIENCE: 3E’S
 Educate
 Entice
 Engage

12.
EFFECTIVE?

13.
MARKETING STRATEGY
 Having an account is not a strategy!
 Know you audience. How?!!
 Integrate into your marketing/ PR plan
 Who do you need to tag/ follow/ like:
 Influencers: popular/ powerful people (e.g. Mayor, State Rep, City
Council)
 Advocates: who help you get the message out (e.g. KSL, news
agencies)
 Contributors: others who endorse your content (WEAU, WEF)

14.
WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE WANT
 Top calls for service
 Emails/ Live chat help service
 Google Analytics

15.
TWITTER
 Short messages (140 characters)
 More formal
 Link with Facebook!
1
2
3

16.
EXAMPLE

17.
USING HASHTAGS
Do:
 One or two hashtags per tweet.
 Only hastags that fit the content and used by other users.
Don’ts:
 #Do # Not #Hashtag #every #word #in #your #tweet.
 Don’t string together as many popular hashtags as possible to receive
attention.
 #DontUseMadeUpHashtagsThatMakeNoSense

18.
RIDE THE TRENDS
 Search for hashtags and read
feedback
 Attention spans are very short! Trends
don’t last very long. Engage quickly.

19.
SET UP ALERTS
Twitter Alerts

20.
OUT OF IDEAS?
Set up Google Alerts:
 “Central Weber Sewer
Improvement District”
 membranes wastewater,
 WEFTEC

21.
OUT OF IDEAS?
 Cover events live (post tweets, pictures, etc.)
#WEFTEC14
 Break down a report (strategic plan) to a list of
tweets/ posts

22.
ONE HUB.. MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

23.
EVEN EASIER

24.
POLICY?
 Review existing social media policies
 Your page/account = your responsibility!
 Monitor for:
 Language and tone
 Copyright and intellectual property
 Privacy control
 Protection of proprietary and confidential info

25.
WHAT WORKS?
 Make it personal! Post questions and illicit responses.
Engagement is KEY
 Answer that phone
 Use pictures, videos (informative, educational, humorous)
 Find trending hastags and USE them
 Create Google Alerts and use Twitter Alerts
 Run surveys: use crowdsourcing tools to gather market data
 Do a G+ hangout with the officials.

26.
THANK YOU
(435)881-0541
ayman.alafifi@gmail.co
m
fb.com/ayman.afifi
@aymanalafifi
linkedin.com/in/aymanalafifi