Week 17

I took this class to get a better understanding of how social media works, and how public agencies, specifically water agencies, can utilize social media to enhance communication with their customers. Currently, the agency I work for does not utilize social media. However, our water wholesaler is very active on social media so we have some exposure on social media through them.

This class has made me much more aware of the philosophy associated with social media campaigns and how remedial most government social media campaigns are. I now realize the most important aspect of social media for an agency like mine is not to open social media accounts, create some content, and share and re-tweet as much as possible (which the water industry promotes as the best way to have a successful social media presence). But rather start out with a clear and defined plan and desired outcomes.

At our core, water agencies are all monopolies with defined service areas. There is no need to grow our business or to break into new market places by using social media. For my employer, I think having clearly defined goals for the use of social media, and in turn communicating that to our customers will in the end be the best way to utilize social media for both ours and our customers benefit.

Our main interests in social media are to use it to communicate during emergencies, such as a major earthquake, or situations like water main breaks and water service outages. We also want to use it to make customers aware of changes in local laws and available incentive or education programs. I think explaining to our customers the benefit to liking or following us on social media, rather than sharing or re-tweeting as much as possible will create a mutually beneficial line of communication. This is completely different from all of the water agency social media campaigns that I am familiar with. Most feeds are water industry data dumps. I don’t think your average water agency customer finds benefit to that. Through this class I learned that finding out how you can benefit your customers is a key facet of engagement in social media communication.  It’s clear to me now, that water agencies in general, are not properly prepared to engage their customers on social media

The social media platform I am most interested in utilizing at this time is Nextdoor. I feel that our agency and water agencies in general are able to get great results with very little work on Nextdoor. I think it’s the perfect “gateway” social media platform for local agencies to use to disseminate information to customers while not requiring the previously mentioned planning and engagement that other platforms need to be successful.

Going forward, I hope to bring the lessons learned in this class to the management of our district to craft an online presence that meets our needs and benefits our community.

Week 16B

As a public water agency, we would use social media to disseminate information, rather than selling a product or service. Therefore the first thing that would have to be established is our internal rules for how social media is to be used and who has access to the account(s). For example, elected officials may want to use social media to promote themselves during an election, which should be forbidden. Once the rules are established I believe they should be posted on our website so customers and our elected board members understand how the district uses social media. 

Simultaneously, I would review our website to make sure it is ready to be the backbone of our up-coming social media efforts. Once the rules are in place and any updates or changes to the website have been completed, it would be then time to discuss with the public outreach group a plan that can be submitted to the Board for approval. Once a plan is approved I would set up a year’s calendar to schedule postings approved in the plan. This would probably include board items, water quality reports, and water industry campaigns, like water awareness month.

I believe that the District should have a Facebook, Twitter, and Nextdoor account. Maybe after a while add an Instagram account. I think the District should use its traditional marketing method of in bill newsletters to invite customers to engage with the District’s social media. From the beginning the District should explain what it will use social media for e.g. providing pertinent information to its customers and ask them to sign up and tell us what they would like to see in our social media posts. Hopefully we get some responses that we can consider. Either way, during the first few months or so, staff would have to report daily on our interactions on social media, which would then go to the board for twice a month updates.

I would imagine that we would limit our posts to a couple of pre-planning messages for the first couple of months. From there I would hope we would branch out and use social media to inform customers of issues, such as broken mainlines and up-coming construction projects. I think that ultimately this will be the type of messaging that the district and its customers will find value in thus growing our online presence.

As far as staff time, it’s going to be some ungodly number of man hours at first. I’ll say to get a Facebook account and a few posts on the account it will take 200-300 man hours. From there, I imagine that a few hours of work a week would be the average. That could change based upon things such as emergency conditions and hopefully a successful campaign that demands more attention!

Week 16A

At this point the social media platform that works best in my opinion is Nextdoor. Its role as a community message board fits in with the types of messages water agencies try and get out. Announcement of classes, changes in local regulations, and possibly things like planned and unplanned maintenance that can affect traffic or access. It is a perfect platform for Ad Hoc messaging. No need to worry about engagement in the same way that you would with other platforms such as Facebook.

I enjoyed learning about how interconnected all of the different platforms can be, so I really didn’t have a favorite. Also, I don’t think it’s wise to pick favorites because of the speed of evolution of online communication. What may work great this year, may not next.

It’s clear to me now; if you are going to have a social media presence you really need a Facebook page, or possibly a twitter account depending on your business. Facebook’s tools allow you to focus and assess your online marketing efforts.

I think for water agencies that the Facebook and Twitter work on a daily basis, more so than something like Nextdoor or Instagram. The only reason I could see water agencies posting on a daily basis is commenting on news or political stories that affect the water industry in some way. In San Diego, the dominate player in the water industry is the San Diego County Water Authority. They are heavily involved in state politics as well as having many different high profile legal issues that they as an agency choose to use social media to keep its constituents informed or defend their actions.

15A

So I have seen these tools used to update elected officials regarding online advertising campaign.  Really they were used by staff to show that the online campaign in question is doing numbers a higher rate (better than average) that comparable campaigns. So I think that is how many government agencies use tools like this. To show that tax payer money is not being wasted on an in-effective campaign.

After looking at a Google’s demo analytics site, four of the available features stood out to me, Overview, Demographics, Behavior, and Mobile.

Getting a quick overview of data is always nice before looking into the sub-sets of data. It also would help in producing reports, such as to elected officials, regarding website performance.

The demographics information can be helpful in a few different ways. First if an agency is trying to get the attention of homeowners (very common) the age data can verify if that is the group that is responding to your advertising. Also, in general it would be nice to know what age group most visits your website.

I think that the behavior statistics probably are the most valuable in assessing the success of advertising or your website design. Understanding the how people are relating to your content is at the crux of online marketing. Using the information of frequency, new vs. returning can help you understand if the new campaign you just launched is being effective at driving the people you want to your website.

Finding out what devices your visitors are using can be used to optimize your customers’ experience. Why design (or pay to advertise) on a platform that is rarely used by your customers?

Used all together, Google’s analytics tools can be a powerful way to understanding how people are reacting to your online presence.

Week 14

I created this ad to target homeowners 25-65 years old on Facebook and Instagram. The picture shows the same house, with a large lawn, and then after the lawn has been replaced. The ad’s objective is to drive traffic to a webpage that promotes water wise landscaping programming which could include incentives, classes, or just general information on water wise landscaping.

 

I think this ad will work because it has some humor, and there is a call to action. I left out a logo, so it’s a little mysterious, I think that might make people curious and will encourage them to find out more.

13B

Social media ads should to be visual, easily consumable, and the content should cater to your target audience. Everyone I asked about ads that caught there eye on Facebook said that the only think that made them click on the ad was the image. Therefore, the image or graphics should be the part of the ad that receives the most focus when designing an ad. Aside from the image ads should contain a call to action.

Ads can be placed in different locations on a page. For example Facebook ads can be in the news feed or the right side column. Facebook has a feature called Automatic Placements, that will track the success of your ads based upon placement then will adjust your ad budget to optimize where your ads are placed. If I was placing ads of Facebook for the first time I would definitely use the Automatic Placement feature.

Water agencies use social media ads for things like contests, or for public outreach messaging. A good example is an ad being used by the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) to promote an Instagram photo contest in the month of May. Agencies would use ads like this to hopefully boost their online audience, which at this point is what most agencies are concerned with when it comes to social media.

 

I seriously doubt any public water agency would pay for sales boosting, the media (local news) would have a field day with that.

 

 

13A

Water agencies utilize social media advertising on an ad hoc basis. Water agencies use social media to inform the public about things like droughts or public outreach programs, each of which has a beginning and end. So, when looking into advertising by public agencies it helps if there is a major issue such as a drought to see how they use social media ads. Well, the drought is over and so is much of the communication being done by water agencies via social media ads.

 

Currently, for the most part water agencies are posting information, and true advertising. The San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) just launched a Instagram contest for May, Water Awareness month which appears on Twitter & Facebook.

 

I do not view water agency social media advertising as particularly effective for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t think that they reach new people in general. Most of the people who view water agency social media advertising are in government, media, or associated with the water or environmental industry. In other words people who already “get” the message.

 

The other reason, is that using social media to communicate with the public is new to public agencies and few have staff that truly knows the medium or has the time to dedicate to produce content.

 

Today, I think that traditional advertising used by water agencies is more effective because it reaches a broader audience. However, it is costly. The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) recently began a new advertising campaign that has a budget of 4.8 million. I believe that as time goes on and water agencies become more dedicated to social media advertising it will ultimately become as effective as traditional advertising.