15th – 17th November 2010 SkyCity Convention Centre, Auckland

The Public Sector Workshop Summary

Posted by bulletpr on Monday, November 15th, 2010 in News

For the opening day of Social Media Junction 2, we held a Public Sector Workshop, spearheaded by Simon Wakeman. Simon is Head of Communications for Medway Council in the UK and is considered a thought-leader in online communications within the public sector. He regularly speaks at conferences and blogs on his personal site, which you can find here.

The day began with audience members being asked to write down their expectations for the workshop, along with their personal role within the public sector. This was a useful way for people to get to know each other and a timely reminder of the importance of sharing information and experiences between delegates as much as gaining insights from the speakers themselves.

Because of the deluge of mis-information, many of us find using the word ‘revolution’ a little over the top when discussing social media. Simon reminded us that it is just that. It’s has fundamentally and permanently shifted the way that every brand, public sector or otherwise, communicates with its customers and stakeholders.

When the public sector fully jumps onto a trend, you can hazard a guess that the trend has become the norm. Think of a good website. People don’t talk about whether or not a local council needs a website anymore, they talk about what it says to its community. The same is fast becoming true of social media. Simon demonstrated his plan for social media strategy: content, community and channel, with social media at the intersection. If you know your community and get the content right, the channel will follow.

Selling social media to people outside the marketing team has been a significant factor in Bullet PR’s consulting in this area and Simon echoed our experiences by isolating the hard numbers of where the communities are at to show tangible value. It may not represent the full story of the social web, but hard numbers sell anything to the decision makers. Simon compared local Facebook stats to the local newspaper readership for his colleagues.

Perhaps more than the private sector, dynamic social content for the public sector is often dependent on tying in to the news agenda. If it’s already getting coverage online, use the momentum to leverage your message, in a relevant way of course.

This links in to one of Simon’s final points. If there is an existing community, similar to what you are looking to create, explore how you can tap into it, rather than building a brand new one.

For Simon’s morning presentation please click
am Social Media Junction Public Sector workshop Simon Wakeman, 15 Nov 2010

For Simon’s afternoon presentation please click
pm Social Media Junction Public Sector workshop Simon Wakeman, 15 Nov