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Introduction

Municipal, civic, state and federal governments strive to keep their citizens and visitors up to date with the information they need. In an attempt to increase accessibility and transparency, these governments are turning to social media to amplify information that their citizens need. Using HootSuite, these government groups are able to securely disseminate the right information while at the same time listening and engaging with their citizens.

At HootSuite we offer a robust set of social media tools to help government organizations effectively and securely manage their social media strategies. Use HootSuite to listen and track your social conversations, securely collaborate with team members, engage with your followers, schedule messages, and analyze your social media metrics.

In January of 2011, the city of New York (NYC Digital) set out on a mission – they wanted to provide New Yorkers with an easy way to stay informed on the most critical information from City government in emergencies and everyday life. NYC Digital recognized the importance of implementing an effective social media strategy to disseminate this information, and saw an opportunity for the City of New York to become a world leader in social media initiatives. Through their Digital Roadmap initiative, NYC Digital set out to make the city of New York, the world’s leading digital city.

Becoming a Digital City with HootSuite

“Day to day, NYC Digital streamlines digital communication with the public and creates meaningful public-private partnerships that serve New Yorkers and support local industry.”

NYC Digital RoadMap

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The Challenge NYC Digital wanted to make the city of New York the world’s leading digital city. By creating their Digital RoadMap Initiative, they set out to reach the following goals:

• Provide New York citizens an accessible and easy way to stay informed about news and information to do with their city through social media.

• Create a strong social media presence

• Maintain a consistent social media voice as one entity, while at the same time decentralizing communication to all of the various departments and agencies.

• Provide emergency information that is consistent, accurate, and easy to access.

Case Study: Becoming a Digital City with HootSuite

Disaster Response

During Hurricane #Sandy, the City of New York met the storm with a coordinated social media effort. The city used HootSuite to integrate all of its social media presence. Whereas previously during Hurricane Irene, it was separated on 5 different platforms. Streamlining the social media presence allowed the different Government agencies, and emergency response teams to share accurate information with each other ensuring messaging had a consistent voice.

“Crisis management is about making sure the information people need is consistent, accurate, and easy to access.”

Facebook:

New York City Fire Department: 113,000 - Stories and news from the New York City Fire Department

NYPD: 87,649 - Latest news, information and crime prevention tips from the New York City Police Department NYC: THE OFFICIAL GUIDE: 54,115 - Find tips on events, things to do and places to eat in the City.

Twitter:

@NYCMAYORSOFFICE: 127,208 - Updates straight from the Mayor’s Office

@NYCGO: 69,189 - The official guide to New York City

@NOTIFYNYC: 57,138 - Emergency notifications and alerts from the Office of Emergency Management

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Case Study: Becoming a Digital City with HootSuite

During the #Sandy storm recovery, the Mayor of NYC, issued an emergency order for a schedule of when gas was available to purchase. NYC Digital used scheduling to pre-schedule tweets that outlined when citizens could purchase gas. This made it easy for morning commuters already checking for city updates, to now find out which day they could purchase gas on.

Achieving Success

In order to accomplish all of the objectives of NYC Digitals initiative, they relied on the following tools in the HootSuite Dashboard:

HootSuite Teams with Limited Permissions

The City of New York needed to be able to add team members with different levels of permissions. With HootSuite Teams, they were able to give each user a different level of access and responsibility. For specific individuals in their organization, they were given approval permission, so that every message had to be approved before being sent out. Team members with less responsibility were given a level of permissions where they could use HootSuite to monitor the conversation without overwhelming them with the responsibility of publishing. Lastly, the team members that had limited permissions used to HootSuite to flag and send tweets and comments to supervisors.

Scheduling / Publisher

For the dissemination of daily city information at certain times, the City of New York needed a functionality that could help them plan ahead and schedule messages. Using the Scheduling functionality, they were able to schedule messages like daily tweets for Alternate Side Parking rules right when it was most effective - during the morning commute.

Analytics

The City of New York needed metrics on the most re-tweeted tweets as well as snapshot of the level of engagement of their social media engagement. HootSuite Analytics allowed the City to pull metrics on the top most re-tweeted tweets. This information allowed them to gain insight on what information was of most value to the public. NYC Digital also compiled these metrics to measure account growth during the Hurricane #Sandy.

Keyword and Hashtag Search Streams

NYC digital needed to track what was being said about certain topics. They used Keyword Search Streams to track responses, monitor inquiries, and correct misleading messages.

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Case Study: Becoming a Digital City with HootSuite

Results

The 2012 Digital RoadMap continues to outline a path to realizing the City of New York’s potential as the world’s leading digital city. Among an impressive list of digital initiatives, NYC Digital has:

• Increased the City’s digital reach each month to nearly 5.5 million individuals through social media, managed by HootSuite, smartphone apps, SMS programs, newsletters and NYC.gov.

• Doubled their social media audience to 2.8 million (since May 2011) with the launch of the central NYC Gov social media channels on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube and Foursquare.

• Seen a social media growth of +180,657 followers/Likes

• Had a 71% increase in followers from 74,016 to 127,154 for the @NYCMayorsOffice during and after Hurricane #Sandy.

Learn More

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