Integration | Reach The Public

Email Finds New Life in Integrated Campaigns

There’s a school of thought that says email is outdated – that people are moving to social media channels (Facebook, Twitter) and mobile text messaging. Many think the generation entering the workforce today sees email as an ‘old-fashioned’ communication medium.

So, should forward-looking government agencies focus their digital communication strategies on social media and mobile messaging rather than email?

Research suggests the opposite.

Reports of email’s death are greatly exaggerated

Research by Nielsen suggests that heavy social media users use more, not less, email. Even for the socially savvy “Gen Y” demographic, email is an essential part of life.

Email is a powerful communication channel for governments. It’s cost-effective and increasingly pervasive. And as more people have phones with email capabilities, it’s a very fast and efficient way to reach many citizens wherever they are.

In fact, combining email with other digital communications increases the reach of government agencies across all channels. Many agencies use email as part of integrated outreach and interaction strategies:

Letting citizens subscribe for email updates to current road conditions, new video postings, meeting announcements or new website resources.

Using email for emergency communications in conjunction with Twitter, text messages and other real-time channels.

Combining email with social media – such as emailing a daily digest of Twitter updates to citizens who subscribe.

In the white paper “Integrating Email in Government Communications,” industry analyst and blogger Liz Azyan profiles how the Driving Standards Agency in the U.K. uses email as an integral part of driving engagement along multiple digital channels.

For example, the agency sends email updates to subscribers about new videos it releases on YouTube. As a result, they have seen a 163% increase in video views, and their new video releases quickly become among the most popular on the YouTube Motoring channel.

Download the paper to read more about specific strategies and best practices for integrating email in digital government communications.

citizen service, communication channel, digital channels, Driving Standards Agency, DSA, email, Facebook, GovDelivery, government, government communications, Liz Azyan, outreach, research by Nielson, responsiveness, social media, technology, Twitter, UK Government, YouTube Motoring

Social Media Strategy: More Than Posts and Tweets

Social media seems so easy. Getting a social media presence going is as simple as setting up an account and starting to post or tweet. It’s tempting to hire someone to get started – and check off that ‘social media’ box in e-government initiatives.

But this approach results in isolated social media outposts that don’t deliver the broad benefits that public sector organisations hope to see from new channels.

Measuring your returns

Any technology initiative in government, including social media, has to pass a litmus test: does it deliver a value for the taxpayer’s investment? It needs to either cut costs or improve service to citizens. And when efforts are isolated, it’s difficult to identify or prove their effect.

For example, does your social media presence reduce inbound calls? Deliver insight into citizen opinions? Streamline or replace paper processes? Increase your reach to citizens?

Social media efforts are often isolated

In the private sector, marketing organisations have been the big adopters of social media. Corporations have been shifting marketing budgets from traditional channels to social media and other digital channels.

But even the corporate marketers are struggling. A recent CMO Survey by Duke University Fuqua School of Business indicates that while marketing organisations are increasing their spending on social media, these efforts are not well integrated into marketing communications.

Source: The CMO Survey, cmosurvey.org, February 2013, Highlights and Insights , Figure 5.2]

On a scale of 1 to 7, the CMOs on average rate themselves a 3.4 in terms of integration of social media in marketing strategy. More surprising, this number has remained steady over the past couple of years, while the spending on social media has increased.

The importance of integration

In her recent paper “Integrating Social Media in Government Communications,” government communication analyst and blogger Liz Azyan suggests that the real, measurable benefits of social media come when you integrate it in broader campaigns. The paper gathers examples of government agencies using creative, cross-channel campaigns to improve service to citizens, including:

Proactively communicating with citizens over Twitter and Facebook about traffic, weather, and emergency issues
Using text messages or Tweets to alert people to updates available on a website
Collaborating with citizens in social media channels to improve public safety and identify rioters
Supporting and training volunteers helping within their own communities

In each of these cases, social media is part of a broader communication strategy. To read more about integrating social media in digital strategies, download the paper.

citizen service, collaboration, e-gov, engagement, government communications, Integrating Social Media in Government Communications, social media, technology, UK Government

Expanding Communication to Citizens During Sequestration

By Lance Horne, General Manager, GovDelivery Federal Team

No one thought it would happen. If you look back at all the news stories and interviews, no one in the Federal government believed that sequestration would actually happen. But here we are, and it’s clear that sequestration is making an impact. In my last post, I focused on employee communications during sequestration, focusing on how important it is to keep the lines of communication open for your staff. Now, more than ever, being a leader is as much about communicating effectively as it is about vision and strategy.

In today’s post, I want to focus on a different kind of communication: government-to-citizen communication. In the wake of sequestration, I’m pretty sure your agency may have already had a few encounters with confused citizens over what will be cut from the budget – and how it will affect them. And rightfully so. Generally speaking, people are aware that there will be budget cuts. Deep down, people probably realize there’s a possibility that their particular program may be subject to cutbacks. The biggest challenge is how to talk with citizens and stakeholders and keep them updated about what’s going on.

But, in spite of all the challenges that sequestration poses, I believe it’s possible to gain exceptional reach and value with digital communications components that drive efficiency in the face of furloughed employees and funding shortfalls.

Yesterday I talked about how the cuts may be sporadic, and I used the example of national parks. With summer right around the corner, people are likely planning vacations and may be considering visits to parks. Keeping them informed becomes crucial to keeping them satisfied, allowing them to plan their vacations better. They may not be happy with park closures, but they will be more satisfied knowing ahead of time rather than showing up to the park and not being able to get in.

In an age when new information can go viral in a matter of minutes, your agency is competing for public attention on a variety of devices. To keep people informed, you need to manage multichannel digital communications – email, text messaging, social media and more – in one system. Having a digital communication system in place at a time like this can save your agency lots of time while continuing to keep customers informed and satisfied.

In our work with more than 550 government organizations worldwide, we tell our customers that you need to have a digital communication management system that can help you dramatically increase your direct connections with the public. By maximizing your direct connections with the public, when you need to relay important information that will impact a citizen’s life, you can do so immediately through multiple channels.

I gave one example of parks earlier, but there are additional situations where an efficient communication strategy is critical. Hurricane season starts in June, and it’s plausible that sequestration could still be in full effect at that time. For an organization like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), sequestration cuts may mean that there are fewer resources to meet the agency’s mission of preparedness. Yet, FEMA’s goal isultimately to keep America’s citizens safe, and this isn’t something the agency can bend on. In emergency situations, effective government-to-citizen communications are lifesaving. Even with sequestration cuts, relaying critical information is simply not an area that should be eliminated.

In addition, collaborative digital communication tools can be extremely helpful. By using a collaborative forum, you might be able to strengthen your relationship with the public by being able to gather feedback and create dialogue with citizens in an environment that’s more secure than a social network. By creating collaborative communities, you can create secure, virtual communities that encourage higher levels of engagement. Not only do you provide information, but you can monitor and respond to feedback easily. Plus, you’ll be able to publish content quickly to as many, or as few, people you desire.

I’d like to hear about what you’re doing in your agency to effectively communicate with the public during sequestration. What have you tried that works? Are you forming communities? Have you found other ways to keep citizens informed? Please share what you think is working.

Read my first post, Don’t Sequester Your Agency from Employees During Sequestration.

To get the FREE EBOOK, Leveraging Digital Communications In Emergencies, click here.

collaboration, communications, community, engagement, FEMA, outreach, responsiveness, sequestration, sequestration and communicating with citizens, technology, UK Government

Do RSS Feeds Still Matter?

Co-written by Mary Yang, Senior Communications Manager, and Anna Stroncek, Marketing and Communications Intern- GovDelivery

The recent Google announcement that it would be shutting down Google Reader has led to a flurry of blog posts and discussions around RSS feeds, their importance (or lack thereof), and what to do now.

What is an RSS Feed?

For those of you non-techies out there, or maybe those of you whom just need a quick refresher on what an RSS feed is, here’s a short and sweet explanation.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (RSS), which is essentially a format for delivering regularly changing web content. RSS feeds allow a user to subscribe to their favorite news sources, blogs, websites, and other digital properties, and then receive the latest content from all those different areas or sites in one place, without having to repeatedly visit each individual site.

Picture your Twitter Feed filled with postings of new content from your favorite sources rather than 140 characters informing you of which friend is currently enjoying the new vanilla spice latte from Starbucks, #delicious.

RSS was developed in the 1990s, giving websites the ability to push information out to their subscribers as opposed to a subscriber having to check for new content by going to each individual website. This new development brought on increased capabilities for websites and blogs to capture new visitors and turn them into returning visitors, as well as helping to increase the online ranking of the website to bring increased overall awareness.

Now fast forward to 2013. RSS feeds still exist, and they still do get used. However, they’re no longer the new kid on the block, so they’re not as ‘popular’ as they once were. More and more that small orange widget seems to go missing from the ever-increasing lineup of widgets on any given website.

With all the buzz surrounding social media, it’s easy to argue that RSS feeds are dying out and becoming a thing of the past. Who needs to subscribe to RSS feeds when you can get instant news and updates from outlets like Twitter?

Maybe that’s what Google’s thinking by shuttering Google Reader, which, just a few of years ago, was the RSS tool to use. But what’s next, especially with this new development in the tech world?

The Future of RSS

Today’s world is filled with massive amounts of information. According to IBM, 90% of today’s existing data has been created in just the past two years. People no longer sit down at their desktop and surf the web for an hour a day. Instead, they are constantly creating, searching for information, and retrieving content from all types of devices – smartphones, tablets, e-readers, and laptops. As these digital technologies continue to evolve and move in a more mobile direction, new opportunities arise for technologies like RSS.

Hot new mobile applications like Flipboard provide a great example of how RSS feeds can be leveraged to bring updated digital content to customers. Flipboard publishes content from thousands of sources via optimized RSS feeds. Publishers are pushing out their new content via RSS, and Flipboard leverages these feeds to users in a magazine-like layout (within Flipboard). This application can be used on smartphones, tablets and e-readers bringing customers the content they desire in a simple, convenient, personal and aesthetically pleasing way.

Another example of leveraging RSS feeds is the application Pulse. Pulse, quoted by Steve Jobs as “a wonderful RSS reader”, is an elegant newsreader application that uses publishers’ RSS feeds to read and publish content. Pulse brings its 25 million (and counting) users their favorite blogs, magazines and social networks to one place at one time. Similar to Flipboard, their application is compatible across iOS and Android platforms, but also makes content even more accessible and convenient with its compatibility to Windows, Nook, Kindle, Xbox and the web.

These two applications have been around for a while now but still mainly pull from well-known publications or newspapers. With the death of Google Reader on our doorstep, tech firms are already on the hunt for Google Reader’s massive user base. Digg announced just this week that they’re speeding up the release of an RSS reader/application. But in their statement, they note that they’re going to push the envelope of RSS too:

We hope to identify and rebuild the best of Google Reader’s features (including its API), but also advance them to fit the Internet of 2013, where networks and communities like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit and Hacker News offer powerful but often overwhelming signals as to what’s interesting.

So what does this mean for you?

The demise of Google Reader sounds like an open invitation for some tech firms to start innovating on a well-defined technology to make it more relevant and integrated into the tools we’re already using every day. This could mean that RSS feeds could become the new cool in digital technology, and since it leverages technology that’s fairly stable, you could roll with this curve once it hits simply by instituting an RSS feed.

Much like magazines and newspapers, governments and their organizations possess a lot of information and produce a lot of great content. However, it can be a challenge to attract regular visitors to your digital properties, which is why RSS feeds and proactive communication comes in handy. For GovDelivery clients, all your digital communications created and sent out via the Digital Communication Management (DCM) platform can be collected in an RSS feed, allowing you to push content out to your citizens and stakeholders easily. One great example is the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) in the UK. They offer different types of RSS feeds, tailored to the topics they’ve defined in GovDelivery DCM:

Their digital communications management system allows them to segment their RSS feeds so readers don’t have to figure out what’s important – if you’re an instructor, you merely subscribe to their instructors email topic or you follow their instructors RSS feed.

Another great government example is the White House. The White House has developed a mobile app that pushes out content from The White House Blog, press articles, photo galleries, LIVE stream videos, speeches and more all by way of RSS feeds. The app is visually appealing and easy to navigate. This is a great way to emulate apps like Flipboard and push your organizational content into the mobile sphere while leveraging content and tools you already have available.

And although the White House may have a slight advantage over smaller government entities in terms of content (a live stream of the State of the Union), state and local governments can leverage RSS feeds and content that’s already available to inform and educate. People like to know and see what’s going on where they live. So take a look at what your organization currently produces (blogs, photos, events, news updates, videos, etc.) and find out if you can pull those pieces of content into an RSS feed (or multiple RSS feeds) to help expand your digital communications reach even more.

Do you use Google Reader personally? How do you feel about the announcement? Let us know what you think might be ahead for RSS feeds in the comments.

collaboration, communication, community, digital government, e-gov, engagement, Google Reader, RSS, social media, technology, Twitter, web 2.0

How NHS could benefit from proactive public health alerts

By Kathy Kyle, Digital Communications Consultant, GovDelivery

A recent BBC article explores how the National Health Service (NHS) has spent £13 million on public relations and whether the Trust and the public is receiving value for money. Some NHS Trusts have commented that the use of PR firms is necessary to educate the public on health issues, especially with regard to high-profile public health campaigns.

There is no doubt that when it comes to public health, proactive, timely, and targeted communications can raise awareness, prevent illness, and inform the public, keeping them safe and healthy. Whether it is a campaign regarding healthier choices around smoking, caffeine, or alcohol, an urgent international health crisis, or every day communications with the public to keep them healthy and safe, the value of proactive communications can – and should be – evaluated. Government healthcare organisations and institutions can be much more effective with digital communications by measuring reach, engagement, and in-person visits. This not only bolsters public trust in the system and saves funds, but can dramatically improve healthcare outcomes.

NHS communications staff can potentially demonstrate the return on its digital investment on a campaign basis by measuring any correlation between the reduction of reported illnesses, office visits, and avoidable contact and the increases in the number of people subscribed to digital communications, engagement rates with digital messages, web traffic, and social media follows.

Instead of focusing funds and efforts primarily on PR campaigns, NHS could complement its outreach efforts by maximising direct connections with the public using an integrated digital communications platform. This kind of platform is available at a fraction of the cost of hiring an external PR firm. GovDelivery Digital Communication Management (DCM) is one system that has been successfully used for proactive public health programmes in the United States by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centres for Disease Control (CDC), and many state Departments of Health – as well as in the UK by the Health Safety Executive (HSE), Health Protection Agency (HPA), Department of Health, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and the Food Standards Agency (FSA). These government institutions and organisations are directly connecting, educating, informing and engaging the public without spending a fortune – and their internal staff are easily managing the message and the process.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s goals include safeguarding public health by ensuring that the products they regulate meet required standards, that the products work and that they are acceptably safe. From a communications perspective, MHRA must ensure accurate, timely and authoritative information is provided to healthcare professionals, patients and the public.

MHRA uses GovDelivery DCM to send nearly 28 million messages to opt-in subscribers; more than 50,000 stakeholders around the UK have self-subscribed through the Agency’s email alerting service. MHRA must ensure a high message delivery rate due to the time-sensitive and potentially life-saving nature of its alerts. If you’ve ever had to ensure that a message was delivered quickly, with metrics to ensure it was delivered, you know how difficult this can be to manage in-house. There could be serious consequences if messages are delayed in reaching pharmacists, physicians and the public. By partnering with GovDelivery, MHRA leverages GovDelivery’s active management of relationships with all major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on behalf of over 550 public sector entities worldwide. MHRA is then assured a high deliverability rate, and MHRA communications staff can spend their time engaging directly with constituents, ensuring potentially life-saving, time sensitive medical and drug-related messages are delivered, instead of troubleshooting why messages are caught in filters and flagged as spam. View the complete MHRA success story.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a $941B organisation with over 65,000 staff, invests in health care, disease prevention, social services, and scientific research. HHS was already reaching a large audience through its use of GovDelivery email alert subscriptions, when the H1N1 pandemic flu outbreak threatened the United States. HHS needed to reach the largest audience possible to ensure individuals were kept informed and safe.

Email subscriptions to Flu.gov information increased more than ten times the normal rate due to higher interest as well as collaboration with CDC and other partners in the GovDelivery Network. Average new subscribers exceeded 3,000 per day versus the previously established average of 215. Over one million email alerts were sent to subscribers at their request regarding H1N1. Emails included “Share This” links with content being repurposed and shared over 120 times via social media channels. HHS also cross-promoted the email alert service with social media networks. Twitter links embedded in email alerts generated more than 10,000 clicks and helped boost HHS’s Twitter followers. View the entire HHS success story.

The difference between proactive digital communications and a PR campaign without measurable impact has more than just financial repercussions. Now more than ever, investments in communications must be made with the goal of building and sustaining public trust and health.

Kathy Kyle
Digital Communications Consultant, GovDelivery

Kathy can be reached at kathy.kyle@govdelivery.com or on Twitter @bonominiyogini.

citizen service, communication, community, digital, digital government, e-gov, email, engagement, GovDelivery, government, local government, outreach, responsiveness, technology, UK Government, web 2.0

Digital communicators transform service delivery. We are change agents.

By Kathy Kyle, Digital Communications Consultant, GovDelivery

Among the many topics discussed at this year’s Communications Camp (@commscamp | #commscamp13), the one that resonated most with me was how to best demonstrate the value of digital communications. If we can’t measure our impact as communicators, how can we influence and transform our organisations?

As a former Communications and Marketing Director in both the public and private sector, I found the most traction when I aligned communications performance metrics with customer service outcomes. In my central government agency roles, I ensured our communications approach focused on internal and external customers’ interests. Regardless of whether I was working on an internal communications programme to engage employees or a multi-faceted, externally facing digital campaign to generate support for a new regulation, I measured our success by aligning our communications efforts to our mission and by focusing on shifting my audiences’ activities and behaviours: web impressions, media coverage, social media activity, survey responses, focus group outcomes and anecdotal feedback.

We were able to demonstrate the value of digital communications by aligning our strategy and performance metrics with the people we served – both internally and externally. If you are struggling to develop a comprehensive evaluation programme, or just want to demonstrate your value as a communicator, consider the following activities:

Build support internally with leadership and cross-functionally across the organisation.
Drive your audience to online channels for accurate measurement of activities – measure whether you experience fewer calls and in-person visits due to your digital strategy.
Create content once and repurpose it (the COPE model: Create Once, Publish Everywhere)
Use the most effective, inexpensive and targeted communication channels that suit your audience. But don’t just use a social media tool because it is “free” – ensure your audience uses the channel. For example, 3.2 billion people use email, over a billion use Facebook and over 500 million use Twitter (some analysts indicate 140m active users).

Should you care about how many Twitter followers your organisation has? Or “likes” on Facebook? Yes and no. How do you know those followers are really fans? Or even in your target population? It matters more if you reach your intended audience and change their behaviour about government services. According to a study conducted by LGiU, “a Facebook ‘fan’ or Twitter follower doesn’t necessarily capture the connection and lead to a direct, sustainable, two-way relationship with a resident.” I am not suggesting throwing the baby out with the bathwater – instead, focus on your mission (some form of government service) and the people you serve (your customers) and create a bespoke plan to reach them.

There isn’t an exact science to measuring communications success – but there are ways in which we can demonstrate our value. We must shift our role from press release writers to service delivery communicators, and then delivering results that matter to our customers. We are change agents.

Kathy Kyle, Digital Communications Consultant at GovDelivery
kathy.kyle@govdelivery @bonominiyogini

citizen service, communication, community, content, responsiveness, social media, technology, UK Government, web 2.0

Top 10 Most Viewed Blog Posts on Reach the Public

I know 2013 started just over a week ago, but it already feels like it’s been weeks since I celebrated the holidays and New Year’s with my family and friends. I think part of this is jumping back into the work day after some time off, but part of it is probably due to the fact that 2012 “year-end” reviews started weeks ago. (Google posted their Zeitgeist 2012 video a month ago! If you haven’t watched it, take a look and note how many cool events were driven by government organizations like yours.)

So I may be a little late to the game in adding my 2012 “top viewed blog entries” list, but I console myself that it’s only been a week or so. And with the belief that this list contains good reading that’s timeless. For those who may have missed these along the way, here are the top ten most-viewed blog entries on Reach the Public in 2012 and why I think they’re worth revisiting:

In this post, Lauren Modeen, Engagement Strategist extraordinaire, answers a question she received in a Reddit chat: how can you use rewards to motivate your online community?

She highlights four different ways that rewards can spur conversation and keep a community engaged, from simply featuring a member’s activity (whether that’s a discussion, question, or profile) to sending thank you notes or swag.

Why do I think this post is worth revisiting now? As we moved through 2012, it was impossible to ignore the impact of social media in government. Not just because it was a “new” way of amplifying the reach of government communications but also because of the emphasis on social. At the end of the day, people want to be part of a community; they want to interact with others who are interested in things they’re interested in. And government organizations began to understand that creating, developing and managing communities could be one way to truly drive mission value in a way that had never been done before.

Using Rewards to Motivate Your Online Community

This post was written quickly as I sat in a hotel room near GovDelivery UK’s office, up late with jet lag; so please allow me a moment to be a bit proud that it’s in this top ten list.

I logged onto my email to catch up on news in the communications world, and I saw the article on ReadWriteWeb detailing Mark Cuban’s opinion on Facebook. It was a fascinating read to me, mainly because of the very provocative but highly understandable situation Cuban faced with his basketball team (the Dallas Mavericks.) His organization had worked hard to gain Facebook fans, and they’d worked hard to engage that audience over a long period of time. So to come face-to-face with the knowledge that those connections aren’t actually available when you want them — or worse, that you have to pay Facebook to reach them — was jarring. For a government agency, that can mean a matter of life or death when you consider a situation like Hurricane Sandy.

Why is this post worth revisiting? It’s a good reminder that direct connections matter, especially in urgent situations. But it’s also good to remember that an integrated communications approach is still the key to ensuring that your government organization’s message is distributed as broadly as possible.

Abandoning Facebook

You’ll notice as you go through the rest of this list how much of these posts cover social media in government. Do you think it’s odd that the second most-viewed post was about abandoning Facebook but other posts in the top ten are about how to leverage or use social media? I think this is indicative of our society’s love/hate relationship with social media.

In this post, we summarize one of the most popular webinars I’ve ever hosted in my professional career (and I’ve hosted a lot of webinars). Our main speaker, Kristy Fifelski, also known as “GovGirl,” detailed her top 8 ways for government to engage citizens with social media – and boy, did we learn how hot a topic that was.

With nearly 1000 registrants, we had to expand our webinar contract (which had been limited to 250 “seats” to 1000 just in case everyone showed up.) And we had to expand our teleconference capability to ensure that everyone who attended could hear us. The experience gave myself and my IT team a mini heart attack – but it was all for a good cause, because this webinar was really amazing.

With concrete examples, in-the-field knowledge and expertise, and a fun presentation, Kristy/GovGirl gave our audience of government communicators key tips and tricks that could be implemented immediately to start using social media in more engaging ways. This is one post definitely worth revisiting.

8 Ways for Government to Engage Citizens with Social Media

Pinterest, another social networking site, launched in beta form in 2010 but didn’t start picking up more traction until mid-2011. By early 2012, it had become, as our post notes, “the hottest thing in social media.” By the end of 2012, the hotness had worn off a bit; but Pinterest remains a solid social networking site, with the most year-over-year growth for social desktop, web and app usage, according to Nielsen’s 2012 Social Media Report.

So take a look at this post on how government organizations can leverage Pinterest. As a site that stresses the social aspect of images, Pinterest can be a powerful storytelling social platform that extends beyond the capabilities of a social network like Twitter. This post reminds you of some ways to leverage this storytelling foundation to generate more interest and provide more value for your stakeholders.

Why Should Government be Interested in Pinterest?

That’s right, folks. The Internet and technology is no longer the sole purview of the young. In this post, we take on the idea that you can’t reach older demographics with digital means. That’s bollocks, as the British would say.

“Studies show that senior citizens are fast adopting email as one of their primary methods of digital interaction and communication. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 87% of senior citizens use email and search engines, while the Nielsen Company found that checking email was the primary online activity for 88.6% of seniors.”

If that’s not a prime reason to review your communications strategy and ensure that you’re using your digital communications to reach a broad spectrum of stakeholders, take a look at this post to find out which age group uses digital technology to do what (i.e. to get email, to use a search engine, to look for health information, etc.) The statistics will surprise you!

Tech-Savvy Senior Citizens on the Rise

The title says it all. Here’s a guide to help you with the best practices we’ve found in utilizing digital communications to reach your stakeholders and the public.

The post talks about why the guide is important and some of the strategies used by well-known public sector organizations. In fact, the guide’s been accessed more than 8,500 times since it was released last April.

The guide itself is a pretty deep dive into what works for digital communications, culled from over a decade of work with government organizations worldwide. If you don’t have the time to sit down to read it all, why not download it and try to tackle one tip or trick a week?

Digital Communication Best Practices Guide Now Available

Our friend and professional colleague, Steve Ressler, Founder of GovLoop, allowed us to share his thoughts on internal communications.

In the world of Gov 2.0 and Web 2.0, he tackles the next version of internal communications, drawing on current technologies used to communicate with the public to help facilitate internal communications. For instance, Human Resources could use text messages/SMS to remind employees of form deadlines.

As one of the top ten most popular posts of 2012, I think this post speaks to the need not only to reach the public to drive mission value but to reach our own internal audiences to help ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same big goals.

Internal Communications 2.0

I have to be honest: this was one of my favorite posts from 2012. Why? Because it brought something virtual and often “abstract” or conceptual into something physical that I understood: a shining example of how great communications can be.

In this post, our resident community management expert, Lauren, addresses the question, “How do I design an online community? What’s it supposed to look like?” And her answer is, in my opinion, pretty awesome.

If your government organization has an online community or is even thinking about starting one, take a look at this post. It’s a critical piece to consider when developing a community. Oftentimes, when we think about communities, we consider finding people who are going to be the community managers and hype people; how to keep an online community going; or how to generate discussion – all of which is important. But a clean, easy, and structured online community helps with all of that, and Lauren gives you an easy-to-read road map here.

How to Design an Online Community

Just a few days ago, Joseph Marks posted a short note about content on government websites, noting that most “dot-govs fail on content, not technology.”

That makes this post increasingly relevant. As a communications person myself, the power of content is becoming more and more apparent. It’s what drives connections between an organization and its audience.

In this post, our Digital Marketing Manager/Guru, Mike Bernard, tackles the idea of content marketing for government and provides ten tips that your organization can start using immediately to leverage the power of content to help meet your agency’s goals and drive mission value. From repurposing content to curation to making content easily shareable, these tactics can help you see an uptick in your outreach programs.

Content Marketing – Government Style

If you’re remotely interested in government technology, you probably already know the acronym “APIs”. It was hard to miss Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel’s tweet about it.

That’s why I think this post was one of the most-viewed from 2012. In 2013, I’d be surprised if APIs weren’t a continuing hot topic. The integrations available with this technology make it a critical component of the Federal Digital Government Strategy, but even more than that, it allows connections in ways that make government more efficient. What’s not to love?

In this post, Richard Fong, a (master) Technical Implementation Consultant, discusses his work in helping the US National Weather Service (NWS) implement APIs to help get the word out with tsunami warnings. Their API integration with their digital communications tool allows NWS to send out tsunami warning communications more quickly than ever before, helping to save lives in situations where seconds really matter.

It’s a good post to end the list, too, because it’s a great reminder of the crucially important work that government organizations do and how critical communications are in helping organizations meet their mission in serving the public.

National Weather Service Using APIs for Tsunami Alerts

So that’s our top ten list of most-viewed blog entries on Reach the Public. Was there one that you found especially insightful that I’ve missed here? Did you find these posts useful? Let me know in the comments!

APIs, collaboration, communications, community, content, data, digital government, e-gov, email, engagement, Facebook, Gov 2.0, government, GovLoop, outreach, Pinterest, social media, Steve Ressler, technology

How New Media and Government are combating HIV/AIDS

By John Simpson, Federal Consultant

As some government agencies labor for ways to adopt the White House’s Digital Government Strategy, many have already been working towards the goal of delivering crucial government information to those who most need it and inventing more than just a mandatory response to another Executive Order. A powerful example of the innovative use of government data is AIDS.gov’s prevention and service provider locator.

With different agencies often having separate programs designed to assist the same community, information is scattered across multiple websites and can be difficult for the public to find, especially if they don’t know where to look. AIDS.gov has developed an easy online tool to cut through the forest of government domains and provide one place for the public to see official available treatment options in their area. This tool pulls information from:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) testing resource database
Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) database on housing resources for people living with HIV
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) database on substance abuse treatment and mental health resources
Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) treatment centers

After entering your address or zip code, this locator populates a Google map of the user’s neighboring area and shows available resources for those with HIV/AIDS. Much like Yelp or other location-based searches, a user can filter their search based on their desired results or click on any location to be shown additional details and contact information.

Although advancements in medicine and science are fundamental in stemming the spread of HIV/AIDS, the government’s active engagement with the public and use of innovative tools to spread awareness of publicly available resources can be just as crucial in combating this epidemic and working towards an AIDS-free generation. By allowing a user to easily see all of the available government resources and programs through one simple tool, AIDS.gov cuts through the sometimes confusing assortment of government websites and quickly connects stakeholders with as many publicly available resources as possible. With only few keystrokes, the public is connected to information on vital resources and local treatment centers through a single interface. The easier it is for those in need to find treatment, the easier it is to combat the spread and symptoms of HIV/AIDS.

AIDS.gov’s site also uses a responsive design framework, allowing for the site to be fully accessed on a laptop, tablet or smart phone and automatically adjusting to fit the respective screen. AIDS.gov is one of the first full-scale federal websites using this framework and brings online solutions to the public no matter what device they’re using at the time without the additional work needed to build a mobile site. This framework embodies the mission of the Digital Government Strategy of allowing public access to government information “anywhere, anytime on any device.”

Yet, the potential opportunities for the government to combat HIV/AIDS go beyond the digital dissemination of information. New media offers unique opportunities to combat the stigmas around HIV/AIDS by allowing agencies to directly engage the public, offer those living with the condition to share their stories online, allow for interaction with others in their community, and educate the public by leveraging tools that many of Americans now use as second-nature.

There is more than can be achieved besides providing better customer service or sending press releases through Twitter. New media can help break down walls of fear or ignorance that can’t be done through traditional methods of communication. The evolution of outreach through blogs, social media, online collaboration solutions, and community organizing websites can help eliminate the spread of HIV/AIDS and unlock life-saving resources to the public. When the government works together to better engage the public using new media, as AIDS.gov has done, lives can be saved and made better. During the recent International AIDS Conference, one of the speakers stated that the public and the government shouldn’t “be afraid to connect. And when you connect, don’t be afraid to engage. And when you engage, don’t be afraid to make a difference.”

#digitalgov, AIDS.gov, community, data, digital, engagement, Gov 2.0, government, government services, mobile, new media, social media, technology, Twitter

Access Anywhere – IRS Goes Mobile with Help from GovDelivery

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) unveiled an updated version of their smartphone application, IRS2Go, in early February. The app was “designed to provide taxpayers easier access to practical tools and information,” and the update included an application programming interface (API) integration with GovDelivery Digital Communication Management (DCM), which allowed app users to sign up to receive Tax Tips via email from the IRS.

As this was GovDelivery’s first mobile app integration using our API, I wanted to find out if the app would extend the IRS’s reach with regard to its email subscriptions. With some help from our seriously awesome team here at GovDelivery, we looked at the IRS’s DCM data to see if their app and integration to GovDelivery DCM positively impacted their subscriptions to the Tax Tips topic.

In the first month after the release of the updated app, the IRS received a total of more than 14,868 subscriptions to the Tax Tips topic, and 72% of those new subscriptions from the mobile app! As a point of comparison, subscriptions to the same topic last year during the same one-month period only totaled 4,390.

What can you learn from the IRS’s success?

1) Email isn’t dead. It’s just being accessed a different way. With the growth of social media and text messaging, there are inevitable stories of how email as a communication channel is dying. This is simply untrue, and the IRS’s data is a great proof point. In fact, a recent study on digital trends shows that the increase of smartphones users has led to an increase in mobile email (versus accessing email via a computer): “The mobile email audience for both age segments [12 – 17 and 18 – 24] saw double-digit growth in the past year, with mobile email users age 18-24 climbing 32 percent.” This same report found that “41 percent of mobile users accessed email from their device,” compared to a mere 35.3 percent using their phone for social networking.

Tip: Make sure that your emails are accessible and can be easily read via a smartphone or other mobile device (i.e. a tablet).

2) Give the public information they want. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project recent report, The State of Mobile America, shows how apps are dominating mobile phone usage in America. But it also dives deeper, showing that 74% of smartphone owners use apps that provide direct connections to “news, weather, sports or stock updates.”

Tip: You’ve got information that is essential and value-driven for citizens, from recycling updates to severe weather alerts. People want information that’s trusted and can enhance their lives. Offer those kinds of updates, and you’ll see your email subscriptions increase greatly.

3) Timing definitely helps. Do you think the IRS simply updated their app in early February because it was ready? My guess is no. It was a highly choreographed release, meant to coincide with tax season in the US. And that helped – a lot. The IRS knew that this was a particularly busy period for the agency. They create and have access to the most up-to-date tax information, and instead of relying solely on third-parties to disseminate that information to the public, the IRS leveraged the timing of their release and APIs to integrate their app with GovDelivery DCM to gain more subscribers.

Tip: You probably know the busy periods for your government organization or agency. Leverage that knowledge to run a campaign to increase subscribers for specific topics. If you award grants, why not use an overlay or a prominent sign-up box on your website to a “grants tips” topic just before your agency announces new grants that are available? If your department is responsible for property tax information, take advantage of the periods in the year where you deliver property tax statements to drive email subscriptions to a “property tax information” topic.

4) APIs are the future. Last week, Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel tweeted “‘API’ #thereIsaidit #yesitisthesecretsauce #gov20” in response to a Fierce Government article that “speculated APIs would play a major part in the forthcoming digital strategy.” (Source: NextGov) If you want to jump on the API bandwagon, now is a brilliant time to do so. VanRoekel’s new government digital strategy is due out this month, and it will undoubtedly highlight the processes government agencies and organizations can automate to drive efficiency and effectiveness.

Tip: If you’re a GovDelivery customer and you want to find out how you can use our APIs to automate some manual processes, give us a call or email us at info@govdelivery.com. Many of our customers are already using our APIs to automate bulletin sending, subscriber management and other manual processes.

Has your agency or government organization launched a mobile app? Do you have an integration in place to capture email so you can continue to communicate with the public beyond the app? We’d love to hear if you’re having success in the mobile arena. Please leave your thoughts in the comments section!

API, application programming interface, communications, content, digital, email, GovDelivery, government, IRS, mobile, mobile app, smartphone, technology

Ready for the federal government in real time? (by Dave McClure, GSA)

September 23rd, 2010 | Posted by GovDelivery in E-Government | Federal Government | Integration - (0 Comments)

By Guest Author Dave McClure,
Associate Administrator, Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies
U.S. General Services Administration

We live our lives in real time and the government is moving to respond, react, and communicate with the public in more open and agile ways. Often, however, we find that the information is coming out from government from many different agencies and offices at the same time. USA.gov is “Government Made Easy,” and we’ve just added a Notifications Sign Up Site and Real-Time Search capability that makes it easier to see the most current government information coming out and to sign up for ongoing updates via email or text messages pushed directly to personal computers or mobile devices.

The new Notifications site menu provides a live stream of content updates with a Twitter-like search capability where you can see the federal government’s most recent notifications and alerts on a wide range of topics, as well as a filterable view of these updates and subscriptions available across federal government.

Any visitor to the site can use it in two ways:

Use the Real-Time Search functionality to lookup current topics such as hurricanes, obesity, egg recall, open government, or whatever is of value and interest to you
Signup to receive highly-personalized and specific information from across any of the participating federal agencies.

Real-time information streams and search capability is the cutting edge on the Internet today, and GSA is pleased to use this proven approach to enhance our ability to connect with citizens in real time and keep them in the loop based on their particular interests.

The site has already made a huge splash, with more than 7,000 updates covering 5,200 topics from 144 federal agencies and offices. Any federal agency can add its notifications to the site just by contacting GSA following the links on the dashboard.

Here’s just one example of how the Notifications site can reach out to those seeking more information. Let’s say someone wants to learn more about government response during hurricane season. They would simply go to the Notification web page (a single click on USA.gov web site), and type the word “hurricane” into our real-time search box. They would be brought to a page full of links to what a variety of agencies have recently posted about tropical storms and hurricanes. You will find quickly the latest news from agencies like FEMA, NWS, EPA, FBI and the CDC.

With a page of pertinent links at their fingertips, the user can click on links that interest them, read a synopsis of the content, and access the full story (or press release) if desired. The really cool part is this – if someone wants to receive more information on a topic as it becomes available, they can sign up to get updates directly from the agency via email, SMS or RSS feed (depending on what the agency makes available). There’s also a quick-link list of hot topics to choose from on the home page.

No matter how you decide to receive updates, you won’t ever need to worry about being left out or uninformed.

Take a look for yourself at notifications.usa.gov, and try out some of the subscriptions. We at GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Technology Innovation also welcome your feedback on how we can make this site even more valuable to your needs.

alerts, General Services Administration, GSA, notifications, Real-Time Search, Twitter-like, USA.gov

Expanding Communication to Citizens During Sequestration

Access Anywhere – IRS Goes Mobile with Help from GovDelivery

Ready for the federal government in real time? (by Dave McClure, GSA)

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