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The most recent Madison, Wisconsin social media event, titled Government 2.0 Utilizing Social Media, was presented by Wired Wisconsin. It focused on social media usage for government agencies, elected officials and lobbyists. The program is an effort to get governmental agencies up to speed on social media channels and the tools to engage their audiences. After talking with some of the attendees, its clear that they are behind the curve for implementation, are unclear on how best to use social media to engage, and worried about the personal and agency legal exposure they may encounter.

Many parallels to business

The presentation primarily paralleled social media strategy for business to business markets on many points.  These include, listening to your audience first, selecting tools that are appropriate for the audience, and taking small steps in moving forward so you don’t overwhelm you or your staff.  Having a lawyer, Liza Barry-Kessler, also speak about policy and the special legal issues involved in the government sector was unique, and not something seen too often in the B2B space.

The introduction was by Thad Nation, Director of Wired Wisconsin and principal of Nation Consulting. Wired Wisconsin is a nonprofit coalition of concerned individuals, businesses and organizations working to put the state of Wisconsin on the cutting edge of technology. With goals of education, collaboration and activation, it seems an appropriate platform to use and endorse social media in all sectors of the business and governmental organizations.

Nation commented, “There is a challenge for government agencies to catch up to where most businesses and individuals are at this point of time. The goal of the session today was to provide an overview to start the learning process.”

Emily Lenard, the Associate Director of Wired Wisconsin gave an informative session on why these agencies need to embrace social media and some strategies to do so. As is the case in many public sessions on social media, there was a diverse group of attendees in terms of experience. Lenard, with an engaging style, did a good job of explaining how this channel can bring two-way conversation into the forefront. It can help people who, due to location, might otherwise miss the conversation. It can be an asset to listen to what the public has to say about an issue as well as help organizations achieve goals.

Social media works both ways

She also recognized that constituents in voting districts can use social media to share concerns, complain, and even disparage an elected representative. However, the same channels and tools allow you to share your side of the story and balance the information. Many of the audience’s concerns were around time management, moderation and/or treatment of comments and reactions.

Some of the benefits Lenard pointed out are

* Address feedback as it happens
* Reach out, react and interact with people not otherwise able to speak with you
* Allow for dialogue – two way conversation

Perhaps the biggest issue is encouraging the agencies to focus on organizational goals first. Secondly, begin to listen through a social ecosystem assessment of the people who would use their services or the type of service. Once you have some information you can then determine if social media can directly or indirectly help you. It’s clear that social media will let them connect with a wider audience.

Issues of compliance, privacy and security

The issues of compliance, legality, privacy and security are very real in the Government 2.0 space.  Not that some of these aren’t for private business.  It seems that open records laws can influence how you capture and archive things like “tweets” on Twitter, Facebook postings, etc. Like insurance and financial institutions, what you say and how you say it may get into complex compliance and security related questions.  Proceed with caution in the governmental space, but don’t overlook the benefits to the public.

How do you think they should implement social media?