Last week I moderated another great webinar from the Social Media Today Best Thinker webinar series, this time on the topic of The Social Government vs. The Social Citizen. The webinar included a really diverse group of speakers each with a unique perspective on the social government. Alan Rosenblatt a regular columnist on the SocialMediaToday blog and the digital / social media strategist for Turner 4D, Lindsay Crudele the community and social technology specialist for the City of Boston's award winning social media program, and Laura Bellinger, the senior communications consultant for the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
Alan started us off with some slides and a a discussion on why governments should be more social and what are the citizen's expectations when they are engaged in social. One of his key points which really resonated with the audience was: "We used to live in a world where the producers of content determined the channels of distribution. We now live in a world where the consumers of content determine the channels of distribution." which was a quote from Kyle Stoneman
Then Lindsay gave us an overview of the City of Boston's social media program including highlights such as a twitter/hashtag campaign they did last year called #spotholes - where residents of Boston could report potholes in the local area. Another great campaign she highlighted was a Facebook Q&A with Major Walsh which helped to double his follower ship in his first 30 days in office.
Finally, Laura talked about some of the polices and processes within the CDC regarding social and how that differs from her work at CARE.
If you have ever been on a SocialMediaToday webinar before, you know they are very "participant-driven" and we love to ask your questions of our panelists. Many of the questions from our audience revolved around topics such as: what types of approvals process you must go through to get things published, how do you staff for the 24/7/365 nature of social in a public sector environment, what types of crisis communications plans they have and how they have evolved.
If that piqued your interest and you want to hear the replay of this webinar, please check out this link. Otherwise we hope you will join us on another Social Media Today webinar! The next webinar is on Influencers 2.0 ROI of the Influencer signup for it on the SMT website or just view the schedule of upcoming webinars here.