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You hear it all the time: Facebook this, Twitter that, social media… blah, blah, blah.
But why should government care? Especially when many are in a pinch for resources and the costs for municipal goods aren’t helping them out so much.
Well for starters, two words: Time & money.
Now saving time and money are not the only reasons to use social media in government (for example, it can provide greater transparency, reach citizens where they are – online, and provide easier access to services and information for citizens). Citizens want to get answers quickly through the mediums that they’re most comfortable with – how often do you use Facebook to communicate with your friends/family? But saving time and money are definitely still of high importance when it comes to why governments could should become interested in using social media.
Now, a lot of social media tools are free to use. However, they do take time (and thus money) to manage and do properly – so don’t think of them as completely free. But when you compare them with other options, they can have the potential to save time and money (get the theme yet?).
The other week, we spent some time to cover The ROI of Open Government – FOR Government. Well, here are a few quick ways how using social media can actually help government to potentially save time and money. Have more ideas? Let us know in the comments below!
1.) Newsletters
- Save Money: Postage.
If you’re a local government and you have a newsletter that gets mailed once a year (or whenever), how much is that costing you in the time it takes to stuff envelopes and mail them (let alone the postage it could take)? But… if you had a Facebook Page, then you could easily post a link to that newsletter online. And… for those citizens who don’t have Facebook, why not just set up a blog or an email list that people can sign up to? GovDelivery’s blog has a bunch of info about email communication for government. It might just be worth your while to do some research on it.
- Save Time: You won’t have to stuff envelopes (nor will your assistant).
You won’t have to order the right paper or wait for the printer to return the finished product.
- Plus, because this is where citizens are congregating naturally, they might just choose to pass the newsletter onto their friends. And it can be quite an easy way of pushing information out to a large group of people.
2.) Call Centers
- Save Money: Number of phone calls could be reduced.
By using Facebook or Twitter, you can quickly get answers to citizens (while not having to pay for phone calls over a 1-800 number).
Save Time: Citizens can do the answering for you.
If you have enough citizens who are signed up to receive your posts, your Fans might just jump in and answer the question themselves.
- Save Time: Send them a link to the answer.
Instead of wasting your time answering basic questions that you have already addressed elsewhere, you can just send them a link to the answer on your website (possibly even a FAQ page).
3.) Tourism
- They say that word-of-mouth is the best type of marketing that there is. Well, social media can be one way that information is spread by word-of-mouth.
- Save Money: Advertising.
You could spend lots of money to create and broadcast a TV ad promoting why a neighboring state’s residents should visit your city. Or… you could create a website that crowd-sources photos of local events (provided by your citizens) on a social photo-sharing website and promote that through social media. This could also get your residents fired up about why they love your city. In turn, they might even promote it on their social networks (which most-likely include out-of-state friends) on Facebook or Twitter. All of a sudden, you could have plenty of reach without the expense of a TV ad.
- Save Time: Easily spread the word about events.
You can quickly spread the word about an upcoming (or even current) event to people both near and far. Even those who haven’t opted-in to receive your updates might still find out about the event if they come across a re-post that their friend has made regarding it.
Now, we’re not lawyers here and this shouldn’t be taken as legal advice. There are definitely things to consider before governments jump right into using social media, so make sure you get some legal advice (as well as a strategic plan) first.
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The ROI of Open Government – FOR Government
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When you invest in something, you want to know how well your investment is paying off – your ROI. Well, citizens “invest” in government (and their community), so they want easy access to useful information about it. They want to see a return on their investment.
But open government is not just beneficial for citizens; there is a Return on Investment (ROI) for governments as well…
The ROI for Government
Saves time (and $)
When government data is easily accessible, citizens can easily find what they are looking for and download the information themselves. This significantly reduces the amount of government time spent on fulfilling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. If the government voluntarily puts data on its website (proactive disclosure) and makes it easy to use, citizens/reporters can find the information on their own, without needing to fill out a FOIA request. Clerks (and others) who work on fulfilling FOIA requests become enabled to spend their time working on other tasks.
Enabled Participation = Free consulting
Blind spots: everyone has them, including government. Citizens who have data at their disposal can be of greater help by helping to expose these blind spots to the government by means of providing insight and ideas.
If a government provides relevant information that is easily accessible to the public, citizens are then more likely to provide relevant feedback on their wants. Citizens can also take a look at what it going on and provide relevant feedback to the government that could potentially save the government money (see “Case Study: How Open data saved Canada $3.2 Billion” by @daeaves). Armed with this feedback from their citizens, government officials can then make more informed decisions about issues that impact their constituents.
Builds trust
Transparency encourages trust in government. And when citizens trust their government, they’re more likely to support their policies and their decisions. Which would you chose: To walk down a city street in pitch black or in broad daylight? It’s the same with government. Transparency (like sunlight) helps to build trust by removing suspicion.
The Payoff
The Sunlight Foundation puts it well when they say that “today, our newly networked citizenry has rising expectations of greatly expanded access to governmental information, so that it may play a fuller role in understanding, evaluating and participating in the workings of its government.” Remember Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address? The government is “…for the people”.
More openness means that both the people and the government win.
What other ways do transparency and collaboration help government become more effective? Let us know in the comments below!
*Note, Char Domin helped in editing a previous version of this post.
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