Quote of the week
“…social media efforts are often isolated or fragmented…”
— UK Report
It’s no secret that governments are trying to make social media work: check out the government of Canada’s guidelines.
The big concern for public servants who want to use social media in government is simple: risk. Guidelines notwithstanding, there is huge risk for most public servants to use it. It’s all very well for deputy ministers to Tweet about issues of the department; highly dangerous for others to do the same.
A U.K. report reminds us that governments will be able to take full advantage of social media when they change the traditional communications paradigm. Communicating is no longer about the professional media and their traditional channels. Nor is it about bypassing the media. It’s about leveraging the networks that social media spawn to get maximum message impact.
In short, governments need to understand that human networks, including public servants and their personal networks, can add value when communicating with the public.
Governments also have to respond to the fact that speed and interactivity are critical; today’s headline is forgotten tomorrow. They can do so through multimedia, the most effective way to leverage messaging effectively – one uni-directional channel of communication doesn’t cut it.
The report tables the notion of “social data” and leveraging it to gain information that can be used effectively. Social data includes both structured information such as surveys and unstructured information, like text messages. Analyzing these together can help organizations improve service and, of course, decision-making.
The message in all this is that governments need to make the investment in time, energy and the workforce to understand social media so they can use it to improve outcomes.