#AAPNsocial

#AAPNsocial

Perspective • Past/Present/Future • Practicality

#AAPNsocialsoulpancake.com

@neorsd serves 300,000+ accounts and more than 1,000,000 people. Some of the ways we reach them is by broadcasting our message to the entire group and letting each of them pick up on what information they need to hear. Social media is one way we break this very large group into smaller conversations, monitor them, and jump into dialogue within the conversations already taking place.

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perspective

what is social media? Conversational, timely, personal

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past

how and why we started…

Why did the District consider social media as a means of reaching customers? Part of that answer begins with understanding our outreach in the big picture.

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Communications • Community Relations • Customer Service • Government Affairs

past: how + why

Our communication efforts include the work of Communications & Community Relations, the primary department helping to shape our outreach efforts, but many others are involved in making our outreach happen.

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past: how + why

• Promote/educate/inform• Connect with customers

Our communications goal is to promote our work, educate customers and citizens, and inform them of the information they need to know.

#AAPNsocialhttp://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/100-social-media-stats_b33696

Social media is changing (and already has changed) the game. These stats show just one MINUTE’s worth of activity on some of the more popular social networks.

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past: how + why

Over the last 4 years, we have worked with Baldwin Wallace University in Berea to conduct customer-awareness surveys to determine how our communications efforts are being received, as well as how they can be improved.

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past: how + why

A key question we asked customers is how they get information. What are your top sources of news?

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past: how + why

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past: how + why

But almost one-third of our customers use social media networks as a primary source of their news. How can we take better advantage of those platforms while complementing our existing communication efforts?

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past: how + why

• Promote/educate/inform• Connect with customers• Engage and converse• Unexpected, creative, timely, expansion

Social media offers opportunities traditional media (TV, radio, print) do not. By bringing all of these media together, we strengthen our ability to provide the customers the news, information and answers they need (even if they didn’t know they needed it).

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VOICE Social media takes on a voice and a personality of its own.

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Before we jumped into social media, we reviewed other similar organizations efforts, talked to employees about opportunities and potential obstacles, sought a better understanding of the expectations surrounding the various social networks, and found the networks that offered us the best opportunities to engage our public.

#AAPNsocialWe have several social media accounts, but these are where we spend the most time monitoring, updating, and sharing.

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@wallywaterdrop@neorsd

BEST:

WHY:

#fail:

present + practicality

As we review the District’s active accounts, we’ll discuss what kind of content works best (including what users’ expectations are) and why we find the account most useful. We’ll also showcase a few examples of how some companies or individuals make mistakes.

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@wallywaterdrop@neorsd

BEST: Timely, honest, personal, humorous

WHY: Direct, immediate, conversational

#fail: Private vs. public

present + practicality

The points here are pretty straight forward. We’ll talk about the #fail component in more detail in upcoming slides.

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/YourSewerDistrict

BEST: Visual, conversation, emotional

WHY: Reconnect, share, promote

#fail: Private vs. public

present + practicality

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/neorsdCCR

BEST: Visual, brief, creative, accessible

WHY: Variety, education, promotion

present + practicality

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neorsd.org/careers

BEST: Opportunities, variety

WHY: Recruiting, engagement

present + practicality

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All of our active accounts are promoted at the bottom of http://www.neorsd.org

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present + practicality

Here are three examples of “social media stories” we found very successful in 2012.

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Last year, we teamed up with NRDC on the release of their annual beach report. The findings weren’t pleasant, but our presence at their press conference showcased our commitment to making changes.

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That afternoon, local FM talk show The Alan Cox Show (100.7 FM WMMS) discussed the report, and a caller shared his knowledge of the work we’re doing to clean things up. The audio clip is here: http://youtu.be/mp2Mv8ASavw

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The next day, our Public Information Specialist pulled together some stats based on the caller’s comments, and emailed Alan Cox with a somewhat provocative subject line. We complemented that with a blog post shown here. Here’s the blog post: http://neorsd.blogspot.com/2012/06/radio-im-not-sure-we-can-use-that-in.html

Alan proceeded to talk about the email, the beach report, and our work for almost a half hour during drive time that afternoon. And we tweeting right along with him. Here’s that exchange: http://youtu.be/BE8eCFiWd98

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Another great example are two animal rescues our Sewer Maintenance crews managed in 2012. One was a puppy in February and another was an alligator in November. Here are their stories: http://neorsd.blogspot.com/2012/11/thanks-two-special-animals-are-grrrr.html

Both stories earned us huge attention and a lot of shares in social media circles.

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Lubestop

Lastly, Twitter has been a great way to answer a lot of questions from customers and businesses about the implications of stormwater fees and credit opportunities.

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present + practicality

Whether you’re sharing as an official organizational voice, or just as an individual, there are some things you might want to keep in mind before you click “Share” or “Retweet.”

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#profersonal

present + practicality

Jason Seiden

Social media is quickly blurring the line between personal and professional. It might be best to consider your social media activity as “profersonal.” You never know what might become public even if you intended it to be private.

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:/

This is an example. A previous summer student’s public Twitter profile featured this in a bio. It was not private, it was public, something any potential employer might see upon a search of the student’s name.

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:/

:)

Once our @wallywaterdrop requested to follow the student, the account shortly thereafter became private and the public bio was changed. This was not at any request, but simply a change of course by the student.

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In this example from January 29, even private social media activity has the potential of becoming public.

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This was a post from Fast Company. The great line in red says it all. What are your social media account activities saying about you?

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present + practicality

Does the Sewer District have an official social media policy for employees? No. We have two existing policies in our handbook that take precedent. We also have an internal document for our Communications staff that helps guide our official @neorsd social media activity and management.

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• Visuals (Photos, graphics)• Event engagement, contests• Beach monitoring• Media coverage• Project updates/blogs• “On the job”

future: 2013We have big plans for engaging social media in our communication efforts in 2013. Here are just a few examples.

#AAPNsocialYou never know where you’ll find an opportunity to join or start a conversation about the criticality of clean water.

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