Community Engagement and Social Media
A practical guide for cities looking to add social media to their digital toolkits for remote community engagement
This resource is a part of The Guide to Remote Community Engagement by What Works Cities. This collection of resources is designed to support cities that wish to create and maintain strong, institutionalized practices of community engagement during periods of remote working and in an increasingly digital world.
The proliferation of social media has had a significant impact on the degree of engagement between residents and governments. Representatives, city leaders, whole departments, and even the cities themselves, have official accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. As a result, residents and community members are able to submit comments and reactions to city operations and decision making in real time. And as the most popular social media platforms are all free, they are a low- to no-cost means of direct engagement between governments and residents.
COVID-19 has forced cities to drastically change how they work, assemble for meetings, and engage with community members on a regular basis. With many City Halls closing their doors across the country, resident visits and phone calls may go unattended. That’s why it’s so important for governments to explore a wide range of public engagement strategies. One of the simplest and most effective means of remote outreach is through social media.
The Power of Social Media
Social media usage varies significantly depending on the platform. The Pew Research center found that close to 70 percent of adults have used Facebook and Youtube; indeed, 74 percent of these users visit the site daily, including about half who do so several times a day. Understanding the potential reach of social media platforms can help cities in their targeted engagement efforts. Usage of the major social media platforms varies by factors such as age, gender and educational attainment, but one thing is certain: social media is here to stay and therefore can be leveraged as a powerful tool for public engagement.
Here are some of the benefits to using social media to engage residents.
Engage with residents directly and transparently
One of the benefits of using social media is that the public can view, comment, ask questions, and get direct answers about city operations and decision making in real time. Public trust in government has long been a concern, and many people report wanting to see more transparency and accountability from their elected officials. Social media is an easy way to share city news and goings-on with residents, humanizing government officials and employees and demonstrating the actual work that is being done day after day.
And addressing resident questions on a public-facing city page is much more efficient than answering them several times via several phone calls with different residents. Residents will feel heard and acknowledged when you engage with their comments; this can help lead to a more positive relationship between government and constituent to build a sense of digital community and trust.
Reach specific audiences
Even as social media usage skyrockets across demographic groups, young people still hold the highest degree of active users across platforms. (And certain platforms may be best suited for outreach specifically to young people, as research shows, for example, Instagram usage plummets with age.) Understanding how different demographic groups engage with social media platforms can help cities target efforts and craft posts with the specific residents in mind.
Importantly, more and more Americans are getting their daily news from a social media platform. For better or worse, they are increasingly viewed as go-to sources for news and up-to-date information, and as such, may be the most optimal place for cities to share emergency notices, important news, and public health advisories, among other noteworthy items.
Share city operations in a fun & accessible way
Sharing pictures of new projects and city work helps to dispel the notion that government only exists in an endless, opaque bureaucracy, and allows residents to feel more connected to their representatives, city staff, and greater community. Tracking and giving regular updates on capital improvement projects in particular neighborhoods may assuage residents inconvenienced by the ongoing construction.
Most social media is designed to be incredibly user-friendly; consequently, residents who may feel overwhelmed at the prospect of participating in a public forum or engaging in the budget process might embrace public engagement on social media. The City of Kansas City, MO, for example, has an account on Twitter (@DataKCMO) devoted solely to sharing the city’s data work that routinely uses a lighthearted “voice” to share updates and information as exemplified in their bio: Bringing you stats, charts, and stories about the city you love. As a less formal means of communication, social media is well situated to empower those people who would otherwise stay quiet to participate in community discussions.
Data-driven communications
What Works Cities is constantly seeking new and innovative ways to champion data-driven local government. Using social media connects cities to a wealth of data they can use to inform messaging and gain insights to resident needs. Tracking engagement on posts helps cities see what works and adapt content to encourage more conversations with residents. Cities can learn about their audience, verify their reach using analytics, and even target specific posts to community groups and neighborhoods they want to reach.
Strategies for community engagement through key social media platforms
Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites in existence today, with over 2.6 billion active users on a monthly basis. It is a great platform for posting what’s going on in the city: new parks opening, job postings, new ordinances, ongoing development projects, etc. Sharing photos and posting regularly demonstrates the breadth of their government’s work to residents who want to know what’s happening in the community.
Facebook also has live-streaming capabilities through Facebook Live. Using Facebook Live is an easy way to reach a large audience, answer questions, and make important announcements to the community. Unique functionalities include the ability to engage with viewers by fielding participant questions and gauging Live reactions in real time. The City of Las Vegas, NV, for example, has taken great strides to communicate with residents regularly via social media. The social media team broadcasts a short city news segment every day on Facebook Live. Daily Dose is the city’s channel for quick updates on city operations, public service announcements, and more. They’ve also used the broadcast to feature residents working on community projects, and to discuss pop culture topics informally.
YouTube
YouTube is a video streaming platform some cities use to broadcast their own video content. It can be used as a method of sharing virtual town halls and other remote meetings with community members hosted through videoconferencing or in person. Cities might also use YouTube to broadcast “State of the City” addresses from city leaders and other important public announcements. With engagement levels comparable to Facebook, it’s a powerful tool to communicate information with residents.
Gilbert, AZ has one of the most exciting and sophisticated YouTube channels from a city government. The Digital Newsroom is a series of videos focused on the latest information, events and announcements in Gilbert. They also have a dedicated series of updates on COVID-19, as well as video streams for several different town departments and agencies offering news and updates on ongoing work and important public announcements.
In addition to this, the town broadcasts public meetings for community viewing. Indeed, Gilbert has a larger strategy to leverage social media for resident engagement that has really paid off — Gilbert’s Facebook followers average 29 comments per month, compared to the United States average of 7 comments per month. Incidentally, Gilbert’s Office of Digital Government was just announced as winning the Sharman Stein Award for Storytelling Changemakers, an award that recognizes excellence in public communication.
Twitter is best-suited for short, rapid-fire content and real-time engagement. With a 280-character limit, cities must pull out the most important information from announcements and news to share via Twitter. While Twitter has a much smaller audience than Facebook or YouTube, it’s particularly popular among young people between the ages of 18–25, who may not necessarily be tuned into city operations anywhere else.
Twitter can be a powerful tool to make government processes more efficient and transparent. Many cities use Twitter as a means of sharing emergency notices, especially through COVID-19, through brief announcements. A number of cities use Twitter as a stand in for 311 calls meant for residents requesting city services and information. Some cities are able to offer this service through multiple languages, and with responses available 24/7.
New York City uses Twitter in a number of ways. @nyc311 answers requests for information and shares important updates and advisories. Piloted in 2017, adopting the account led to a major spike in engagement and was so well-received the city committed to making it available for response 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A number of other city agencies have accounts as well: the New York Department of Transportation alerts commuters to road closures and safety advisories.
Nextdoor
Nextdoor is designed to be a community hub for people in their neighborhoods. It’s hyper-local, and neighborhood groups are private, validating the home addresses of people who sign up before letting them participate. Nextdoor also has a program specifically targeted toward local government to encourage them to use it as a tool to communicate with residents: Nextdoor for Public Agencies, which allows cities to launch Nextdoor neighborhoods across their municipality. This allows government agencies a single channel to post announcements, emergency bulletins, opportunities for public participation, and more. Because NextDoor is hyper-targeted, cities can reach out to community members within specific neighborhoods to share updates on nearby development projects as they’re happening and other news that might otherwise be lost in the shuffle.
Washington D.C. has a robust presence on NextDoor, promoting opportunities for budget engagement, town halls and more. Several different agencies post to neighborhoods, including the District of Columbia Fire & Emergency Medical Services Department, who provide safety notices on extreme temperatures, emergency alerts, and information about COVID-19 testing centers.
Instagram is a photo sharing social media platform, particularly well-suited for visual storytelling. Instagram allows for individual posts of photos with captions, but the story function is especially useful for cities. City Instagram stories can be used to post announcements and guidance that require more content and text and share community news. Additionally, Instagram is well-suited for departments and agencies to share each other’s content — for instance, city leaders with their own pages might post announcements, which general city accounts, or accounts owned by departments and agencies can re-share to their own audiences.
The City of Miami has over 80,000 followers on Instagram. The account comprises beautiful pictures of the city, important announcements communicated through colorful graphics, and a number of pinned “stories” designed to walk users through longer streams of content. For example, a COVID-19 story collects all content related to COVID, from tips for staying safe, video announcements from the mayor, updates on business closures, and more. Miami also has pinned a story on how and why residents should participate in the 2020 Census.
LinkedIn is a professional networking application that has been the preferred social media platform for government for years. Cities can leverage LinkedIn to post job opportunities and attract new employees, but the platform has other benefits as well. It’s also a great forum for thought leadership and allows users to follow and join groups related to specific topics — useful for collaboration and sharing best practices. A number of cities, as well as city leadership in particular are active on LinkedIn and use the platform to share thought leadership.
Considerations when using social media
While social media can be an extremely useful tool for remote community engagement and collaboration, it’s important cities recognize and account for inherent risks associated with these platforms.
Misinformation
A widespread problem on social media is how quickly misinformation and inaccurate content spreads online. Policymakers and leaders in tech and social media alike are currently grappling with the issue of determining if and how fact-checking mechanisms should be integrated into major social media platforms. In the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, misleading and inaccurate medical information has spread like wildfire, endangering the lives of resident and communities.
Cities have an important role to play as leaders and stewards of community health, and should ensure information shared to and promoted on their social media is trustworthy. At the very least, this means checking sources before posting news articles and deleting false and inflammatory information from owned pages.
Prejudice
Social media is first and foremost a platform for self-expression and speech. Often times, this means that people with problematic, bigoted, and outright harmful views have their own platforms and can share these views widely, often with little consequence. Managing hateful comments and speech that threatens residents of color, women, queer people, and other historically marginalized groups is an important aspect of any government’s social media strategy. Comment moderation can be challenging and time consuming, but it’s of critical importance to ensure community members feel safe and supported by their leaders. Some social media networks are more prone to problematic behavior than others. NextDoor, in particular, has been criticized at length for allowing racial profiling and bigoted language unfiltered while posts related to protests against police brutality and other social issues are deleted.
Loss of nuance
Microblogging sites favor content that is short and can be digested in a matter of seconds. Messaging must be quick, brief, and compelling — a method that does not favor nuanced discussion of what may sometimes be challenging topics. City governments should, above all else, be trusted voices in the community. Accounting for the complex environment of creating compelling, accurate, and timely social media content on a regular basis, cities may need to hire capacity in this space to ensure the job is done well.
Have you made use of these or other strategies, or have ideas on how local governments could improve their use of social media? We’d like to hear from you! Reach out to us at cityprogress@results4america.org.
Becca Warner was the primary author of this installment.
The Guide to Remote Community Engagement is written and compiled by Charlotte Carr, Becca Warner, Greg Jordan-Detamore, and Owen O’Malley. This collection of resources is designed to support cities that wish to create and maintain strong, institutionalized practices of community engagement during periods of remote working and in an increasingly digital world.
What Works Cities is a national initiative that partners with cities as they tackle pressing community challenges and improve residents’ lives through data-driven decision making. Learn more about the program and how to get access to support, here.
