This presentation provides an overview of how governments in Australia are using social media, risks they may face and how to address these with structured processes and guidelines. It finishes with some quick case studies of excellent use of social media by the public sector.

1. Social media in
government
Craig Thomler
Managing Director
Delib Australia
18 March 2013

2. What is
social media?

3. Many definitions for social media…
ProPR – Social media are online communications in which
individuals shift fluidly and flexibly between the role of audience and Webgeekly - Social Media is generally any
author. To do this, they use social software that enables anyone website or service that uses Web 2.0
without knowledge of coding, to post, comment on, share or mash up techniques and concepts
content and to form communities around shared interests
Fresh Networks – Social media is people having Optimize Your Web Presence – Social media are online
conversations online. These conversations can venues, such as social networking sites, blogs and wikis that
take a variety of forms; for example, blogs and enable people to store and share information called content, such
comments or photo sharing as text, pictures, video and links
Health is Social – Social Media is the
BlackBox Social Media – Social media is any online media platform
meeting place between people and
that provides content for users and also allows users to participate in
technology
the creation or development of the content in some way
CubixDev - Social Media is the new term for socialising Get a Social Boost –
Relationship Economy –
online. It allows people to freely interact with each other Digital word of mouth
Social media is
online where-ever they are and whenever they want
communications
Affilorama - Social media is content created and shared by individuals
Michelle Digital – Social on the web using freely available websites that allow users to create
media is life online and post their own images, video and text information and then share
that with either the entire internet or just a select group of friends
About.com – Media is an instrument on Wikipedia - Social media are media
communication, like a newspaper or a for social interaction, using highly The Financial Brand – Social
radio, so social media would be a social accessible and scalable publishing media isn’t about the media, it’s
instrument of communication techniques about being social

4. Social media has in common…
 Facilitates user-generated content
 Facilitated by social connections
 Distribution is zero or low cost
 Supports flowing discussions (low barriers to
participation)
 Allows the community to ‘do’ for themselves
 Use open frameworks that support integration &
extension

5. Social media includes…
 Blogs (Over 50 government blogs at Govspace)
 Groups and Forums (Whirlpool, Google Groups)
 Wikis (Wikipedia, Wikispaces)
 Social networking (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google+)
 Social bookmarking (Delicious)
 Social news (Digg, Reddit)
 Micro-blogs (Twitter, Yammer)
 Community Q&A (Yahoo Answers)
 Multimedia sharing (YouTube, Slideshare, Scribd)
 Ideas markets (Dialogue App, Ideascale, GetSuggestion)
 Collaborative budgeting (Budget Simulator)
 Product and service reviews (Epinions, Yelp)
 Emerging tools (Group buying, Pinterest, Crowd funding)
 Each has different uses

6. What social media is not…
 Just for teenagers and young adults
 50+ age group is the fastest growing on Facebook and Twitter
 30% of Facebook users are aged 35-49
 Average age of Twitter users is 31, of LinkedIn users 39 years old.
 All low quality content
 An independent study in 2005 by Nature Magazine found Wikipedia and
Encyclopedia Britannica had about the same rate of errors
 Since then, reviews in 2007, 2008 & 2012 have found Wikipedia is at least
as, if not more, reliable than commercial encyclopedias in a range of topics.
 Unproductive
 “People who surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of
less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about
9% than those who don’t”.
Dr Brent Coker, Dept of Management & Marketing, University of Melbourne
 Going away

7. What about
Australia?

8. Australia’s internet use
Total 98%
Male 99%
Female 97%
14-39yrs 100%
40-49yrs 99%
50-64yrs 99%
65+ yrs 93%
NSW 98%
Source: Sensis Social Media Report May 2012

9. Australia’s social media use
62%
Use social media
62%
38%
Never
38%
2011 2012
Source: Sensis Social Media Report May 2012

10. Australia’s social media use
30%
Everyday
36%
24%
Weekly
19%
9%
Less than weekly
6%
38%
Never
38%
2011 2012
Source: Sensis Social Media Report May 2012

11. Facebook in NSW
Based on residents aged 15+
2,620,620 (72%)
Sydney
1,020,701
3,599,380 (63%)
NSW
2,109,315
Use Facebook Don't use Facebook
Source: Facebook March 2013 / ABS Census 2012

13. What about
Australian
governments?

14. The social media majority
In mid-2012:
73%
of Australian Government agencies
reported using social media for
official purposes

15. What the Australian Government is
using social media for..
Answer choice Response Share
For stakeholder engagement or collaboration 32 54.24%
Operating an information campaign 25 42.37%
Responding to customer enquiries/comments/complaints 25 42.37%
For engaging with journalists and media outlets 24 40.68%
For engagement or collaboration with other government 24 40.68%
agencies
Monitoring citizen, stakeholder and/or lobbyist views and 17 28.81%
activities
For a public consultation process 16 27.12%
For a stakeholder or other restricted access consultation 13 22.03%
Other type of activity (i.e. recruitment, crowdsourcing, staff) 11 18.64%
For policy or services co-design 7 11.86%

16. NSW government has…
At least:
• 173 Twitter accounts
• 75 Facebook pages
• 50 YouTube accounts
• 21 Flickr accounts
• 9 Google+ accounts

17. Selecting the right
tools for the job

18. Rule 1: Don’t start with the tools!

19. Start with - POST
People
Objectives
Strategy
Technology

20. What are you trying to achieve?
Inform
Consult
Involve
Collaborate
Empower
Source: IAP2.org

21. Online engagement spectrum
Announce Inform Consult Involve Collaborate Empower
Information dissemination tools
Basic website      
Document
    
sharing
Online video      
Podcasts      
Presentations      
Photo sharing     
Key:
Optional  Recommended  Essential 

22. Online engagement spectrum
Announce Inform Consult Involve Collaborate Empower
Information collection tools
Feedback
    
form
Polls    
Surveys    
Events
    
planning
Feedback
    
form
Key:
Optional  Recommended  Essential 

23. Online engagement spectrum
Announce Inform Consult Involve Collaborate Empower
Interaction tools
Blogs      
Forum     
Document
editing/annot    
ation
Wikis    
Social
     
networks
Geospatial
     
location
Mashups     
Key:
Optional  Recommended  Essential 

24. Online engagement spectrum
Announce Inform Consult Involve Collaborate Empower
Announcement tools
Email
     
newsletters
Micro-blogs      
Newsfeeds      
Widgets      
Key:
Optional  Recommended  Essential 

25. Online engagement spectrum
Announce Inform Consult Involve Collaborate Empower
Engagement in 3rd party online properties
Blogs      
Forums      
Newsletters      
Social
     
networks
Websites     
Key:
Optional  Recommended  Essential 

26. Building a
future-proof social
media structure

27. Don’t build on feet of clay

28. Online infrastructure
Engagement/
project practice
Guidance and
training
Strategy and framework
Social media policy
Agency instructions and policies
Government policies and guidelines
Legislation and international agreements

29. Online infrastructure
Branch/
Team
Engagement/
project practice
Guidance and
Whole training
of
agency Strategy and framework
Social media policy
Agency instructions and policies
Whole of Government policies and guidelines
Governmen
t
Legislation and international agreements

30. Support systems
Engagement hub Monitoring suite
Blogs Polls Forum Web reporting Archiving
Groups Idea market Social media monitoring
Your website
Outreach activities
Blogs Forums Enabling services
Groups Social media publishing
URL shortener Survey
File transfer Email
Email
Social media presence
Facebook Twitter YouTube Groups Storage (image, video, docs)
LinkedIn Yammer Foursquare Forums Mapping Apps

31. Managing risks…
We’ve considered every potential risk
except the risks of avoiding all risks.”

32. Social media risk
What’s the risk to your
organisation of
NOT engaging
via social
media?

33. Social media risk
The biggest risk for agencies assessing social
media risks is when the people assessing the
risks don’t understand
and/or use the social
mediums involved.

34. Awareness threshold or risk level?
Avoid confusing awareness with risk.
Becoming aware of something doesn’t necessarily
mean the level of risk associated with it has increased.
Aware
Unaware

35. Top areas of social media risk
• Conversational – what people say
• Reputational – how agency is seen
• Privacy/security – what information exposed
• Administrative – How policies are followed
• Technological – how systems operate
Risks should be ‘owned’ by the business owner
with advice and support with Communication,
Legal & IT groups – depending on approach.
Recommend: http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/pdfs/vmia-risk-insight-12-11-2010.pdf

36. Risk varies by audience, goals and
content
There’s no standard risk level – plus levels vary
as an online channel matures
Risk area Likelihood Consequence
Conversational High - very high Low - very high
Reputational Low – very high Low - very high
Privacy/Security Low – very high Low - very high
Administrative Low – high Low – very high
Technological Low – very high Low – very high

37. For example….an online community
Size/engagement Technological
Conversational
Security
Technological
Reputational
Privacy Conversational
Administrative
Technological Reputational
Time

38. So how to mitigate?
• Assess versus comparable existing social media
channels
• Have risk assessments done by people who
understand the social mediums AND organisational
context
• Review risk plan regularly over time and when
environment/context changes
• Develop agency and project social media guidance
documents and review them regularly as well!
• Test your risk mitigation strategies

39. Key documents to develop
Social media strategy – how your organisation will
use social media to help it meet its goals (including
risk mitigation)
Social media guidelines/policy – how your staff are
expected to engage officially via social media and
advice for personal use to help staff avoid issues
Escalation plan – How you will escalate incidents,
including decision trees
Moderation policy – how you will moderate user
comments via appropriate social media

40. Intel’s social media guidelines:
Source: http://www.intel.com.au/content/www/us/en/legal/intel-social-media-guidelines.html

41. YMCA Chicago escalation plan
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43118383@N00/4668895145/sizes/l/in/photostream/

42. Areas to pay attention to
• Negative comments & misinformation
(workflow, context, moderate, engage)
• Inappropriate comments
(set context, limit rich content, moderate, block & report)
• Overwhelming level of responses
(employ management tools, resourcing, broaden responses)
• Hacking & spamming
(integrate spam control, complex passwords, moderate)
• Privacy (users AND staff)
(Strong policies and clear guidelines to users, test tools first)
• Inappropriate use by staff
(social media guidance and training)

43. Prepare your social media channels
before you need them
Such as:
 Twitter (for real-time news distribution)
 Blog hosted externally (for long-form updates)
 Facebook page (for community building)
 Flickr group (for photo capture)
 Ushahidi instance (for geomapped incident reports)
 Youtube (for video footage and reports)
 Provide context and user guidance for all, set right
settings per channel (ie: no commenting on YouTube)

44. Use appropriate social media
management tools
Such as:
 Hootsuite/Measured Voice
(for social channel management, approvals
and auditing)
 Backupify
(for archival/storage)
 A social media monitoring service
(for tracking externally reported
incidents/issues/sentiment)

45. Best practice
examples

46. Inform http://www.police.act.gov.au/crime-and-safety/crime-statistics.aspx

47. Inform https://www.facebook.com/theline

48. Consult http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/spend_spendingchallenge.htm

49. Involve http://www.challenge.gov

50. Collaborate http://transcribe.naa.gov.au/

51. Empower http://stjornlagarad.is/english/

52. 100% correct information
delivered too late or in the
wrong context is worthless
(and causes more issues!)

53. Craig Thomler
craig@delib.net
@CraigThomler
http://eGovAU.blogspot.com
www.delib.net/australia/
@Delibaunz