Government Social Media: Driving Results

In this age of 24/7, multi-media, multi-platform communications, getting your message seen—and, more importantly, remembered—is a vital step toward keeping your citizens and stakeholders engaged, informed and aligned with your agency goals.  The concept of “Digital Storytelling” is everywhere, but what goes into creating effective, efficient and compelling story-based video content?  And how can you be sure that content is reaching your audience?

In this hands-on workshop, you will learn the foundations of effective video content development along with proven strategies, practical approaches, and useful tips to creating content that engages your audiences and keeps the door open to ongoing interaction, including how to:

• Learn why story-based content can be a successful development strategy
• Understand the makeup of engaging and compelling stories
• Know the questions you should be asking before you start
• Develop cost-effective video content for multiple distribution channels
• Address expectations regarding engaging with and sharing video content and “viral views”
• Apply these approaches to your specific content needs

Denise Roberts McKee, COO

About Face Media

Learn how leading organizations & government agencies can utilize conventional, digital and social media techniques to address business and operational challenges.  

Following this interactive session, you will gain the knowledge on how digital and social media can be used to build professional communities, engage in outreach and achieve recruitment and retention objectives, including:

• Communicating a conscious choice with everyone inside an organization
• Why your employees need active courting to become proactive advocates
• How to prevent confusion through active partner and leadership participation
  • Jabber sessions; on-line discussions
  • Encouraging collaboration on line

• Defining your target audience by understanding your objectives and goals of your online presence and speaking to the right individuals
• Tailoring your content to capture the attention of these individuals – encouraging engagement, sharing, and other measureable metrics
• Selecting your online platforms for the most effective types of communication & using micro-spends and mini-campaigns to increase reach
• Building and managing these micro-spends (your tiny budgets) to build a long-term audience that is aligned with your organization’s objective

Ashtan Moore, Digital Media Director

McBee Strategic Consulting

This highly informational session will discuss how to jumpstart a social media program by developing a comprehensive social media strategy.  Learn how to craft an effective social media strategy, the steps taken to rapidly expand a social media audience, and the importance of trial and error.

Gain the key components and priceless knowledge to develop and manage your social media program, including how to:

• Plan for success - social media is heavily dependent on the effort you commit to planning
• Dedicate your time and patience to innovation, this can result in a social media boom for an agency
• Focus your attention on your social media strategies, it is necessary for any outreach campaign 

Dale Sweetnam, Lead Social Media Manager

U.S. Energy Information Administration

With more than 6,200 Peace Corps Volunteers serving in countries around the world, how does Peace Corps share their stories without losing its own voice?

Learn the best practices for giving your brand ambassadors a voice, without losing the overall message of your agency.

This session will provide you with the key components to utilize the voice of your audience without losing your organizations’ message, including how to:

• Use what others are saying about you to reemphasize your brand
• Employ best practices for reusing already-existing content
• Establish timing strategies
• Create strategies to connect with new followers
• Highlight others without losing your own voice

Kyle Livingston, Social Media Specialist

Peace Corps

Sex, drugs and rock n' roll are easy ways to get attention. But what about patents? Or marine debris? Or international trade tariffs for woven men's blazers? Even for these more mundane topics, you must reach key stakeholders and customers. Find out how to bring sexy back to your industry by revving up the appeal of your content.

In this highly informative session, you'll learn how revamp your content to engage your audience, including how to:

• Use humor to create shareable content
• Tell stories to show customers what your product or service does for them
• Hone in on common interests—and do less product promotion
• Harness guides and eBooks to engage your stakeholders
• Use images and photos to generate positive brand sentiment

Mike Kruger, Director of Digital Engagement

U.S. Department of Commerce

Social media is not only revolutionizing how news are transmitted, but also opening spaces to more players, who can now communicate directly and immediately with a larger public. Increasingly, government agencies are producing their own news stories, in-depth articles and embracing social media. They are also partnering with journalists and community organizations and advocates to reach and engage the public through a variety of channels and digital communications, and providing information in Spanish and other languages.

Learn how the FDA is using social media tools to achieve their public serving goals and strengthen the public trust and engagement, including how to:

• Innovative ways government communicators can reach Latinos through digital communication tools
• Effective social media marketing campaigns for Latinos
• Maximize internal resources to reach out diverse populations

Gloria Sanchez - Contreras, FDA National Spanish-Language Spokesperson and Communications Lead

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Social media offers government communicators the opportunity to engage and educate citizens in real-time. Yet, many federal agencies limit their social media return on investment to quantitative metrics on followers, likes and shares. Learn how the Coast Guard goes beyond accumulating social media “likes” to build an engaged and educated audience of citizen brand ambassadors. Gain best practices on employing brand ambassadors who can be used as force multipliers in support of strategic communication efforts related to brand management, change management and crisis management.

This session will provide you with the tools to leverage your investment in social media brand ambassadors to:

• Demonstrate your agency's value to the nation
• Manage your agency's reputation
• Validate and dissemincate information during a crisis
• Help individuals and organizations understand, support and actively contribute to change
• Educate, engage, and employ brand ambassadors for brand, change and crisis management

Christopher Lagan, Chief of Strategic and Integrated Communications

U.S. Coast Guard

Discover how to actively listen and the tools you can utilize to make it easier. This session will cover:

• Social listening tools and methods – from basic to advanced
• Embracing negative feedback
• Integrating social feedback into operations – the challenges and how to overcome them

Darcie Piechowski, Social Media & Innovation Fellow

IBM Center for the Business of Government

Every organization or agency faces a crisis at some point. How can you best prepare for it? The answer lies in the combination of establishing a social listening program that emphasizes details analysis of online conversations, practicing how to analyze and report on information during a crisis, and then cross-training your staff. A social listening program will empower your organization with the tools needed to respond quickly when a crisis situation occurs.

You will gain the knowledge on how to use social media as a critical source of information during a crisis to help your agency understand how the public is reacting, including how to:

• Utilize social media as a source of critical information that will help your organization understand how the public is reacting  
• Take advantage of the insight that can be found on social media 
• Cross-train your staff how to appropriately listen and analyze details   
• Quickly spin up a response as soon as a crisis occurs
• Establish a crisis communications plan ahead of time that addresses how to implement social listening so there is no question about how to proceed when something happens

Discover how the American Red Cross used social media simultaneously for service delivery processes and crisis communications. You will gain insight into rapid response and strategically managing social media through the simultaneous development and promotional activities that occur alongside the numerous local, national and international public affairs and government relations activities constantly happening at American Red Cross.

This session will teach you front-line communications through public presence and strategic messaging using social media, including how to:

• Listen to the online public chatter and recognizing when to respond and when not to
• Gain organizational buy-in into technology investments
• Never be afraid to tell reporters you don't know
• Maintain the core values (Compassion, Collaboration, Creativity, Credibility and Commitment) and you’ll never go irreparably wrong

Rebecca Callahan, Public Affairs/ Government Liason

American Red Cross

Organizations are increasingly using social media as a platform for customer service and engagement. In September 2015, the Transportation Security Administration launched @AskTSA to provide real-time responses to passenger comments and inquiries.

This session will examine how TSA launched and is using social media to engage with customers, including how you can:

• Understand why social media customer service matters to government
• Recognize what tools are available to help engage with your audience
• Implement a customer engagement strategy of your own

David Johnston, Social Media Strategist 

Transportaion Security Administration

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, is a small agency within the Department of Labor without its own Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or any other social media account.  You may be surprised, however, to learn that the lack of their own accounts was not the only or even the biggest challenge they faced when developing their social media strategy.

In this presentation, you will hear about some of the challenges OSHA encountered in trying to “get off the ground” on social media as a small agency and how they have attempted to overcome them. You will gain an understanding on how to successfully:

• Manage social media messaging when you don’t have your own account
• Identify why quality is much more important than quantity in driving user engagements
• Implement collaboration to best reach your intended audience
• Make mistakes; sometimes that’s the best way to learn

Sid Holcomb, Strategic Communications,

Occupational Safety and Health Administration

U.S. Department of Labor

It’s noisy online and everyone is competing for the short attention span of the average user. USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service uses social media visuals to increase the value and extend the reach of their messages.  With high-res screens in every pocket and more social media apps geared towards images and video sharing, even the simplest visual can amplify your message and generate more online traction. 

Learn visual strategies to help you increase value and extend the reach of your messages on social media, including:

• Identifying content ready-made for low-effort visuals
• Using infographics to convey everything from complex topics to high-value consumer information
• Leveraging Twitpics to increase reach

Shayla Bailey, Digital Communications Manager, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service

The Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Organization (ATO) has a primary mission: to ensure the safety of the National Airspace System. In 2012 the ATO consolidated support services into a single shared services organization. Learn how  the ATO increased their customer experience index score year over year for the past 3 years by implementing a best practices-based strategy and framework to accomplish two objectives:  drive the internal cultural change to customer-centricity and see through the lens of our customer.

Leave this session with the confidence gained from understanding how to make internal customer service relevant to your organization and knowing the next steps you can take to:

• Create a tool to reveal senior leadership’s service values, demonstrate that you “get” their point of view,  and make it actionable for your workforce
• Message customer centricity so it sticks and becomes part of the organizational conversation with a suite of tactical collateral
• Measure customer experience progress year over year with a cost-effective customer experience index tool

Claudia Bogard, Senior Strategist & Customer Service Executive

 Federal Aviation Administration

• Use social media events (such as Twitter Chat) to engage stakeholders in conversation
• Expand your reach and your audience by partnering on social media events
• Translate your government technobabble to better communicate with a broader audience
• Build a non-traditional communications plan for government

Moderator:

John Verrico, Chief of Media Relations, Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate

Panelists:

Jessica L. Tozer, Social Media Communications Manager / Support Contractor, DHS  Science and Technology Directorate / Corner Alliance

William Selby, Content Manager, DoD News Social Media Operations / Support Contractor, Defense Media Activity / REJ & Associates