Public sector gets social

Public sector / 11 November 2010

Social media can be an effective and cheap way of reaching out to your customers. Karen Higginbottom asks if the public sector should join in the conversation

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) recently ran a social media experiment, publishing details of all their 999 calls in a 24-hour period to the general public over the social networking site Twitter. The trial generated a huge response from both the general public and the media, with the GMP Twitter profile starting at 3,000 followers and peaking at more than 14,000.

Over the 24-hour period, the police Twitter page, which was also being displayed on the force’s website, was updated with 3,205 tweets. They ranged from the outlandish to the trivial, and one of the more disturbing included a report of a man holding a baby over a bridge. Happily, it just turned out to be a man carrying a dog.

The experiment was also proof that social media is becoming an increasingly powerful tool for public sector organisations to communicate with the communities they serve.GMP used Twitter to explain the role of policing to the public, says Kevin Hoy, web manager in the corporate communications branch at GMP. “Our Chief Constable Peter Fahy wanted to be able to raise awareness of the diverse and complex role of policing and explain how much time officers spend on non-crime matters.”

GMP learnt a few lessons from running the 24-hour Twitter experiment, says Hoy. “Twitter told us there was a huge appetite for us to be more transparent and open with the public. We found that being more open and engaging on Twitter has generated more discussion about our issues than we otherwise would have achieved. Also, it taught us that you can have a huge impact at minimal cost by making effective use of the web and social media and that is particularly important for us now.”

Public sector organisations are still at an experimental stage and looking at what suits their community. They need to think carefully about what they are using social media for and what they want it to achieve, and who it is actually targeting.

Alan Warner, communications lead office, Public Sector People Managers’ Association

Hoy adds that GMP will continue to use social media to communicate with the general public. “We will soon be introducing Twitter to our local neighbourhoods, which will allow selected neighbourhood officers to update their communities about crime, priorities and other local issues through Twitter.”

Is it good to talk?

It’s an uncertain time for public sector organisations when it comes to embracing social media as a means of communicating with the general public, says Alan Warner, communications lead officer for the Public Sector People Managers’ Association. “Public sector organisations are still at an experimental stage and looking at what suits their community. They need to think carefully about what they are using social media for and what they want it to achieve, and who it is actually targeting. I think the public sector is still working that out.”

One of the main advantages of using social media as a communication tool within the public sector is its minimal cost. A report from the Society of Information Technology Management revealed it’s cheaper to have social media/web conversations with customers, which cost 27p on average, compared with phone transactions at £3.22. “There is an affordability to social media which in the current climate is very attractive to organisations,” comments Ben Peck, head of public sector for mc2, a marketing and communications agency.

But there are some drawbacks for public sector organisations, remarks Peck. “Public sector organisations don’t feel they can control their reputation online and they fear they will get a massive barrage of criticism or an employee will say something inappropriate, but that is more of a perceived drawback,” he argues. “If you monitor social media effectively then you start to engage with it and it does help your brand.”

Know your goals

Peck recommends that public sector organisations ask themselves what their desired outcomes are and who their targets should be before using social media tools. “For example, there is a good example of Leicester Primary Care Centre using YouTube to show a 42-second video of a teenage girl giving birth in a school playground,” he says. “This was talked about in national and international media and was produced in an attempt to reduce teenage pregnancies in Leicester. It has achieved more than one million hits and is about getting a targeted message to 18 year-olds.”

Social media definitely provides an extra channel for local government agencies to communicate with their communities, adds Peck. He says that Salford Council have embraced this particularly well by offering an online discussion forum where the community can debate local issues, ranging from pubs to schools.

Ultimately, it’s the message behind your social media that is truly important, says Peck. “You can have online blogs and discussion forums, Twitter, Facebook and many other social media tools, but these are only tools to start a conversation. It’s the people who sit behind those tools who create the conversation.”