Engaging on Social Media When Time is an Issue

Engaging on Social Media When Time is an Issue
Posted on 11/13/2018
CivicLive Blog - Engaging on Social Media When Time is an Issue

As a local government, being active on social media is one of the best ways to build, strengthen and maintain communication with your residents, businesses and visitors. But the fast pace of social media can be difficult to keep up with, particularly if you don’t have a dedicated social media strategist. However, there are ways to engage on social media in a timely and efficient manner:


Limit Your Reach to 2 or 3 Platforms

Don’t go overboard with your social accounts—having active Facebook and Twitter pages is enough. If you’d like to stream your town halls, consider adding a YouTube account.


What’s important is that you research what accounts your residents are using the most. It’s important to note that age also plays a role in what social media sites a person uses. Statistically 69% of the population uses at least one form of social media. More importantly however is that, while 78% of adults aged 30-49 use Facebook, only 40% use Instagram. Comparatively, 64% of adults 18-29 use Instagram. Why are these stats important for local governments? Mostly because they demonstrate differences amongst age groups when it comes to social media. Instagram may be a social platform to consider if your government is looking to connect more with the 18-29 demographic.


Know Your Marketing Strategy

A comprehensive marketing strategy is important when it comes to posting on social media. It’s important to know what your goals are for your social media sites, how they fit in to your government’s overall marketing and publicity.


For example, if one of your goals is to increase communication between your government and citizens, particularly regarding news and happenings specific to your municipality, you may consider creating a specific hashtag you use across your sites to identify municipal news updates.


Plan Your Posts

Being organized is your best bet for successful social media posting when time is an issue. Building a weekly, monthly or even yearly social media content calendar is one way to keep your social media organized. A social media content calendar helps you to plan out your posts ahead of time, and helps you to tailor your posts to the different sites you use.


Take Advantage of Scheduling Tools

Along with a social media content calendar, social media scheduling tools are a great short cut for anyone with limited time, looking to post online. These tools enable you to preschedule posts for specific dates and times to your different accounts. These tools help keep you efficient, organized, save you time and make it easy to push out more quality content.


Test and Revise, Continuously

Finally, when it comes to maintaining an active social media presence you have to know what works for you and your followers. Consistently try new things, revising what doesn’t work. Check your analytics to help you learn what times, days and types of post attract the widest audience. Adjust your social media content calendar accordingly. When you know what your audience wants, meeting their needs becomes easier, and saves you time.


West’s CivicLive solutions is a complete eGovernment suite of digital solutions that foster citizen engagement and modernize local governments. To learn more about CivicLive, contact us today.


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