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Managing Network Communications through Social Media

by

David Landsbergen, J.D., Ph.D.

Jangsoo Park, M.P.A.

John Glenn School of Public Affairs

The Ohio State University

at the

11th Annual Public Management Research Conference

June 2-4, 2011

Maxwell School of Syracuse University

Syracuse, New York

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Abstract

Social media, like Twitter or Facebook, is more than a fad. It is growing rapidly because it supports important social needs. Understanding how social media support these needs is important if social media can improve government. Social media enhances communications by: 1) supporting society’s increasing reliance on human networks; 2) making more efficient use of social capital; 3) enabling faster interactive communications; and 4) accommodating the desire to reduce formality and blur what is private and public. But can government adapt its formal, hierarchical communications style to one where it must work within a larger network? How will bureaucracies adapt to the increased pressures for timely, interactive responses? This paper reports on the early stages of work being done with twelve cities and townships in Central Ohio. The goal of this study is to determine what strategies are being pursued and how managerial practices affect governments’ ability to effectively realize strategic goals. The study found that, strategically, many of these cities were not only “broadcasting” news one way to the public, but also engaging in the more difficult task of interactive communications. Cities who engage in interactive communications also have a high reputation within Central Ohio. Social network analysis revealed very few clear distinct communications patterns emerging for any of the communications strategies. While cities are fairly clear about their strategies, very few of the cities actually engaged in strategic planning of the sort prescribed by the management or ITC literatures. Professional network influences appear to have a more important role in dictating strategic directions. There was almost uniform attention paid to “brand management”. Very few cities, meanwhile, were even aware of the need for risk management. Part of these results can be explained by the fact that government is in the early stages of using social media. Another important factor is that the majority of the officials in charge of social media are public information officers who are trained to “control the message”. Future work will collect better data to identify differences in patterns of communications as a function of strategies and management and policy practices. Future work will also involve watching this network of professionals change over time. Longer-‐term work will link objective measures of improved governance with improved communications.

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INTRODUCTION

A Challenge to Our Assumptions

A challenge recently launched into the Tweetsphere. For those people “following”

Andrea DiMaio, the Tweet pointed to a blog that clarified, and then challenged, the

assumptions about how social media would lead to better government:

“There are great expectations about how governments will be able to leverage technology in the near future that will finally allow them to re-‐engage with citizens. We use different names for this: government 2.0, open government, e-‐democracy, e-‐participation.

The basic assumption is that as citizens use technologies like social software to connect with each other and gather around issues and topics they care about, they’ll be able to make their voices heard more clearly and more timely by politicians and government officials.

When we look at barriers for this to happen, we usually focus on governments as the culprits. ‘They don’t get it’, we say, ‘They are risk-‐averse’, ‘They are afraid of innovation’, and so it goes.’” (DiMaio 2009)

But San Francisco gets it. It is handing over all of its data over to civic

entrepreneurs, who are cheaply building creative “apps” to supply citizens with useful

information: where crime is occurring or the best way to use public transportation. But not

all governments are as eager. There are both valid and specious concerns for why

governments may not use social media. Andrea then issues a challenge to the assumption

that a “new era” will appear: “But are we sure that citizen engagement would really work

even if governments ‘got it’ and went to great lengths to embrace social networks?”

(DiMaio 2009)

Andrea goes on to relate a story about some citizens in Italy who used social media

to raise awareness about a public issue. But when it came time to convert that awareness

into action, the social media culture that was so successful in networking to raise

awareness was the same culture that actually eschewed the formal effort required to work

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through the bureaucratic system. The end of this story challenges our assumptions about

how social media can improve government. It is exciting to be part of a new technological

movement, it is totally different experience in beginning the hard work of actually putting it

to use. Putting the technology to good use involves paying attention to the important

management and policy details.

For example, Twitter is touted as a highly interactive communications technology

that allows for short quick exchange of messages that can be read by anyone who cares to

listen. Twitter, however, is also in danger of becoming just another broadcasting

technology for government, as a one-‐way flow of information of what a government wants

its citizens to hear. Implementing social media to improve government will require close

attention to the details of implementation. It will require sustained effort in asking how

technology can be used to serve the values inherent in government.

Problem Statement

In previous research, an in-‐depth case study City of Columbus in 2009 found a

whole series of factors that propelled Columbus to begin using social media and affected

the direction and the intensity of their efforts (Landsbergen 2011). Of the research done

on social media in the public sector, there has been only casual mention of the “important

details” such as the importance of public records law or the privacy rights of employees.

There are many more issues that have not even been discussed including how public

organizations should strategically plan, the benefits and drawbacks in centralized

management of communications, or the ways in which government can determine whether

their social media strategies are working. For example, we could hypothesize that:

1) Cities that undertake well-‐managed social media projects that included: a) clear objectives; a) the explicit use of metrics, b) the use of multimedia; and c) the strategic identification of important sub-‐networks, will have higher message diffusion and stronger communication ties with other public, private, and non-‐profit networks. 2) Cities with centralized policies and procedures will have lower message diffusion (re-‐tweeting / links) and weaker communications ties with other network nodes because of the high demand for interaction and timely responses and the lower capacity of centralized cities to be able to respond in a timely manner.

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This research reports on the early stages of research that is examining the details of

implementation: strategy, management practices and policies.

Organization of Paper

The paper begins with a brief discussion of the important attributes of social media

that helps explain why it is growing so fast and why it might be important to government.

It is important for government to understand these drivers if it is to use social media well.

Having identified the principal features of social media, the next section identifies

the principal ways in which social media could be used to improve government.

While there are many promising ways in which social media could improve

government, the vignette about concerned Italian citizens raises the important

implementation questions: are the appropriate managerial practices and policies in place

to facilitate the use of this promising technology? The section on Research Design first

identifies the important research questions and then discusses a recently initiated (April,

2011) study of a network of twelve Central Ohio cities as they learn how to implement

social media.

While still very early in the research process, the section on results reports on some

important findings that are already emerging about the kinds of strategy cities are

pursuing, the degree to which they are using a strategic process, the actual results of those

strategic efforts, and the kinds of managerial practices and policies now implemented.

The conclusion is that while social media offers promise, there are many

implementation details that still need attention. Future research will watch how this

innovation network develops managerial practices and policies, what the details of those

practices look like, and then determine whether and how they will actually improve

government.

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

What are the Important Characteristics of Social Media for Government?

The tremendous growth in social media is occurring because it is a set of tools that

service important social needs. Broadly speaking, social media is a tool that: supports the

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social need for increased reliance on human networks (Provan and Milward 2001)

(Agranoff 2007) insists upon interactive communications (Williams 2006); is powerful

because it uses multimedia to powerful effect (Jain 2009), utilizes social capital and trust

(Coleman 1988; Putnam 1993), and mirrors the blurring of what is public and private

(Bozeman 1987). In addition, social media has various cultural attributes that need to be

understood if government is to use this technology well, including an emphasis on

informality and the use of metrics (Fichter and Wisniewski 2009). Other important

features of social media include the fact that most social media is freely provided software

on the Internet, web-‐based and independent of platforms (“cloud computing”), and

employs open source software and open standards.

Government needs to understand these characteristics because they will have to

adapt in order to use them well. For example, one of the cultural characteristics is the

informality of this culture and the expectation of regular, timely, entertaining information.

If government does not understand this, or it is difficult for a government organization to

be informal or be interactive, it will not use social media well.

Networks

There is an ongoing debate within policy circles about the relative efficacy of

markets or bureaucracies (witness the healthcare debate). There is a third institution –

networks. Networks span across and within, public, private and nonprofit sector

organizations. In many cases, they can more quickly and accurately provide answers to

questions like: “Whom do you know that can get something done for me?” “Who can I ask

to get the correct information I need?” Social media’s attraction to individuals is that it

makes it easier for individuals to communicate with people in their own networks and,

equally important, is that social media provides an opportunity for those individuals to

become part of new networks. Social media, like Facebook and Twitter, makes visible, the

hidden connections among people in a network.

When many networks are enabled through social media, and individuals “bridge”

those many networks, not only does it lead to faster communications, and the faster

development of trustful relationships, but also stronger social cohesion among individuals

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and the empowerment of individuals as members of groups.

As applied to the public sector, social media could help government face the

tremendous challenge in finding the resources needed to advance a public interest. It is

clear that government cannot do it alone but, instead, must find creative and innovative

ways to leverage resources outside of its control. Effectively using, and participating in,

networks of individuals, organizations, and institutions, offers great promise in finding and

mobilizing these resources to work for the public good (“co-‐production” (Percy 1984;

Ostrom 1996) or “collaborative government” (Bingham, O'Leary et al. 2005; Cooper and

Kathi 2005)). Coordination of networks and managing partnerships and networks will

become an increasingly important skill (Agranoff 2007). Social media is a tool that

supports these networks and allows government to partner with other organizations to

advance the public interest (Boivard, Loeffler et al. 2009).

Trust and Social Capital Allow Networks to Operate

Social media and social networks rely on trust (Lambright, Mischen et al. 2010), or

social capital (Coleman 1988; Putnam 1993). One example of social capital is the

reputation one has among one’s peers, and the larger network of people who might ask

about you. If someone is looking for someone who can be trusted to get something done,

one is asking who has the reputation or requisite social capital. The more social capital, the

larger the networks, and the more those networks overlap, the better chance that a society

will find the correct person with good information or the skills to get a political or business

deal done.

Trust is important to the success of e-‐government. If e-‐government wants to

increase trust, easy access to a web page might increase accountability, but it may not

increase trust (Welch, Hinnant et al. 2005).

Ultimately it may be far easier for a person to vest their trust, not in an abstract

institution like “government”, but in another person. The less that government is seen as a

“faceless” website, or a “screen-‐level” bureaucrat, and more as individuals who have a

name, have a reputation, and can give a commitment about what will be done, the easier it

will be for people to see government as something (someone) working on their behalf.

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Social media, unlike a website, offers the opportunity for citizens to communicate with

public servants in a timely way and know that someone on the other hand of that

communication is someone they can trust.

Blurring of Public and Private

One of the most important trends in governance has been the blurring of the public

and private sectors (Bozeman 1987). Whether it is contracting out, collaborative

government, the many hybrid organizations now being created, or the increasing

interdependency of private organizations and public organizations, it is becoming

increasing difficult to rely on notions of hierarchical command and control governance.

This blurring of public and private is also evident in social media. What is

considered “private” is changing significantly. People share the most intimate details about

their lives in blogs, Tweets and Facebook. As it relates to government, one of the more

difficult questions is separating one’s personal life from one’s professional life. If someone

on Facebook shares intimate details about their life or volunteers a political view, and also

shares with the world that they work in a public agency, can governments legitimately

dictate how individuals’ communicate this information? On a positive side, the blurring of

public and private might actually put a “human face” on government, and that real people

with the same interests and concerns as anyone else, work in government.

Interactive

Social media is also powerful because it is an interactive communication replacing

broadcasting. People now want more control over the access to the information they need

and the relationships they want to develop. In a broadcasting world, information flowed

one way, whether it was a network television, the daily newspaper, or static web pages that

dictate what information is to be communicated. Closely related to interactive, is the value

placed on speed and novelty of new information. Messages and content are very quickly

disseminated and consumed, only to be replaced by the next important idea or message. A

society increasingly expecting interactive communications will no longer go to traditional

communications channels (Witness the continual, drastic decline in current forms of mass

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media, both television and print). Social media is designed to support rapid interactive

communications.

Social Media Culture

It is also important to consider the cultural values that surround the use of social

media. Some of these cultural values include an emphasis on informality, a focus on

metrics to gauge how important content of the message, and the importance of “branding”.

Twitter’s simple interface prominently displays metrics including how many

followers one has on the network. For someone who is building an online presence, it may

be an important indicator of how important that person’s message is. If a government

agency has a blog, and no one comments, it may be a sad indicator of how many people are

reading or engaged with the message.

Another concept central to social media, but very foreign to government, is that of

“branding”. Branding usually connotes a slick claim with no content. In the competition for

attention, it also is a statement of values and what value-‐added an individual or

organization brings to the table (Drapeau 2009).

To summarize, social media has grown because it serves many important social

needs. Many of these needs also relate to current suggestions for how to improve

government and governance. At the same time, some of the characteristics of social media

and its culture may pose a challenge for how government operates. For example, the

demand for timely and interactive communications and having government becoming “part

of” a network instead of assuming command and control, all imply very different ways for

how government does its work. The next section develops a framework for identifying the

many possible opportunities for using social media within government.

HOW CAN SOCIAL MEDIA IMPROVE GOVERNMENT?

In this section, we outline the ways in which social media can improve open

government. Both the micro and the macro are important because they are essentially

different vantage points into the question of whether government is acting appropriately.

See Table 1 for a list of examples.

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Rational Voters and Responsive Elites

The ideal, and probably most discussed mechanism, is where rational voters

communicate their needs to political and/or administrative decision-‐makers (“elites”) who

respond to those requests. While perhaps a simple idea, and one most fundamental to a

democracy, there are many components to this working well.

If social media can improve government, it is important that all of the linkages

between citizens and elites be well understood. Citizens might have an increased capacity

to express their preferences but without good access to information, it might be much

harder to press their claims. Minimally, supporting the communications between citizens

and elites would include: 1) access to information, 2) the ability to understand and process

that information, 3) the opportunity of like-‐minded individuals to organize for collecting,

aggregating, and synthesizing individual preferences, 4) communicating those preferences;

to elites, 5) the opportunity by citizens to review the results and communicate their

reactions to elites. Clearly, the simple belief in the power of technology to improve

government would have to play out in all of these venues. In listing all of these elements, it

becomes very difficult to make the claim that the power of the social media technology will

necessarily improve government. Instead, advocates of social media must take advantage

of this window of opportunity to make sure that social media is implemented well in all of

these areas.

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Table 1: Mechanisms by which Social Media can Effect Gov. 2.0

Mechanism Variety Example

1. Ideal Model: Rational Voters and Competitive Elites Respond to requests for information Federal portal for data: http://data.gov Partnership response to requests for information Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/09/25/san-‐francisco-‐app-‐

store/ List of Apps: http://datasf.org/showcase/ Blog explaining this innovation: http://www.cnewmark.com/2009/09/serious-‐civics-‐apps-‐a-‐big-‐deal-‐in-‐san-‐francisco.html

Respond to service requests SF311: Twitter: http://sftwitter.sfgov.org/twitter/ Partnership response to requests for service Citizens provide info to govt.: Apps and Web

http://seeclickfix.com/citizens Helps citizens educate each other Reno, Nevada using Facebook page for broad communication about a

number of issues (getting citizens involved in development of new city energy policy, street sweeping, greening of reno, etc.) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Reno-‐NV/City-‐of-‐Reno/15562227049

Helps synthesize, refine, and articulate needs City of Santa Cruz uses Blog, Voting on Website to deal with Budget priorities: http://budget.santacruzcityca.gov/

Hold government accountable Seattle debates education system: http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/

2. Rule Compliance: Creating, Implementing, and Enforcing Governmental Policies and Regulations Participation in the policy process Federal Rule Tracker:

http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#home Implementing laws and rules Implementing the Recovery Act -‐ http://www.recovery.gov/ Enforcement of Health and Safety Track health inspection scores of local restaurants around the country:

http://www.cleanscores.com/

Enforcement of thefts Track and recover stolen bikes (or skis or snowboards or ...) http://www.karmaarmy.com/

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3. Civic Virtue - Will social media, because of its public nature, create more civic virtue? Political Elites push for, and highlight their use See for example, San Francisco: 4. Bureaucratic Efficiency – Improved communications within bureaucracies, among bureaucracies, and between bureaucracies and their stakeholders (G2C and G2B), bureaucracies can be more efficient.

Cheaper and more effective communications Facebook to reach potential firefighter recruits: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Madison-‐WI/City-‐of-‐Madison-‐Fire-‐Department/36268437043

Faster Communications Using Twitter to communicate H1N1 information to the community: http://publichealth.columbus.gov/ or to communicate road hazards or highway construction: http://twitter.com/pavingthewayoh

Produce an Esprit de Corps with government Coordination of Defense with Homeland Security (Discussion on Blip TV) http://gov2summit.blip.tv/file/2611075/

5. Empowering Individuals and Developing New Leaders Digital Inclusion – Demographics of social media Changing patterns in the digital divide:

http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2009/41-‐-‐The-‐Democratization-‐of-‐Online-‐Social-‐Networks.aspx

Social Inclusion -‐ Empowering stakeholders who would not otherwise be heard

Dedicated to homeless persons: http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog

Political Inclusion – Translating digital and social inclusion into greater political inclusion

PEW Survey on Civic Engagement: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/15-‐-‐The-‐Internet-‐and-‐Civic-‐Engagement.aspx

Enabling the faster exchange of good ideas and practices

Use of wiki by civil servants on how to use social media in government : http://govsocmed.pbworks.com/

Make it easier for persons of similar interests to find and work with one another

Resource for public sector professional interested in social media to improve government: http://govloop.com

Adapted from (Boix and Posner 1998)

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Rule Compliance

Once (good) policy is created as a result of the work between voters and elites, the

policy still needs to implemented and enforced. Government cannot enforce every

violation, because of resource limitations. Consequently, much of implementation and

enforcement depends on the people’s trust in government or policing through social norms

and pressure. The question then becomes whether social media might be an additional

means by which rules and policies can be enforced. There are at least two ways: using

social media to report on the implementation and progress of implementation and using

social media to provide information on specific violations of that policy. See Table 1 for the

many interesting experiments now underway to enforce rule compliance.

Increasing Civic Virtue

Social media could also engender more civic virtue. Here, the claim is not that

decision-‐makers will be more responsive to peoples’ needs, but rather that the preferences

of those demands will become more public in nature (Boix and Posner 1998). This could

happen in a number of ways. Social media makes it easy for individuals in a network to

communicate and increase their bonds of trust. With an increased use of social media and

social capital, it becomes easier to shift from short-‐term individual goals to longer-‐term

public goals. In addition to having an instrumental value, increasing the amount of civic

virtue is also a good in itself. Citizens deserve to feel good about their government and the

society in which they live.

Increase Bureaucratic Efficiency and Effectiveness

Social media could also improve government by increasing the efficiency, economy,

and effectiveness by which open government is run. Web 2.0 technologies, including social

media, have been proposed as a ways to improve knowledge sharing and breaking down

the silos of government (Mergel, Schweik et al. 2008; Mergel 2010). One of the more

interesting examples already discussed, is the move towards open data (Sutter, 2010). The

open data initiative involves providing access to public datasets so that private sector

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developers can develop applications that are responsive to the needs of the public and are

produced more cheaply. Governments can also use social media to manage crises by

providing the latest information about breaking news and how they are responding to

those events. There are many examples around the country where Twitter and Facebook

are used to quickly communicate information about the H1N1 virus or highway accidents

and road construction delays. 1

Finally, social media can be used to enhance intra-‐governmental communications

and to increase esprit d’corps. Facebook is one way that the “silos” can be broken down,

and while the same difficulties of inter-‐organizational communications are present, having

two governmental sub-‐units not know about each other’s programs and how they

complement each other, is especially risky when it is so public.

Empowering Individuals and Developing New Leadership

The digital divide may have limited how well government was able to make effective

use of Web 1.0 technology since a significant portion of the population did not own

computers or knew how to make effective use of them. But many of the social media

applications can be found on smart phones, and many more people will purchase a smart

phone before they purchase a computer. When it comes to participation in social networks,

some of the traditional divides: race, and urban/rural, have disappeared; but some of the

same differences by education and age still persist (Lenhart 2009).

The hope is that digital inclusion can translate into social and political inclusion as

well. On this front, there appears to be good and bad news. There are blogs like

Invisiblepeople.tv, that are raising awareness of, and giving voice to, the homeless. A

recent survey, however, by the Pew Research Institute (Smith, Schlozman et al. 2009) finds

that the internet is not changing the profile of those who participate online in such

activities as contributing money, contacting a government official or signing an online

petition. Wealth and education still are the primary predictors. Yet, there is hope that

1 In fact, the Columbus Health Department’s initiative to use social media to broadcast news about the H1N1 virus was an important instigator for other city departments to use social media. This pushed Columbus to reviews its IT and communications policies.

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when it comes to social media, “some 19% of internet users have posted material online

about political or social issues or used a social networking site for some form of civic or

political engagement. And this group of activists is disproportionately young.” (Smith,

Schlozman et al. 2009).

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RESEARCH DESIGN

Research Questions

The previous framework identified the various ways in which networks, and social

media in particular, could be expected to improve government. There is, however, a long

list of factors that must be accounted for in the chain of causation between implementing

social media well and the expectation that it will improve government. Proposition 1

simply captures this idea. If an aspect of government or governance were to improve

through improved communications, we would like to see the specific objectives being

sought and the objective measures to show this effect.

1. Improved Government (as measured by objectives and measures) = F (Improved

communications and info patterns through social media)

But the claim that social media is one ITC that can improve government must first

demonstrate that it can positively improve communications and information patterns.

Therefore, this paper focuses on the necessary first step of showing that government can

use social media to influence communications and information patterns. The important

elements are simply captured in Proposition 2, below, and are the focus of this paper. While

previous research has mentioned, in passing, the importance of some of the important

managerial and policy concerns, there is relatively little discussion about what managerial

practices and policies are important or what they should look like. Examples of these

managerial polices could include a risk management strategy, clear policies on employee usage,

standards for managing public communications (e.g., incendiary remarks on a Facebook page),

public records and records management. This paper provides a first empirical examination of

these subjects.

The communications patterns sought depend on the particular communications strategy

(e.g., effectively “broadcasting information” to broadly disseminate information vs. engaging in

“interactive dialogue”). The patterns also depend on the ITC drivers for innovation since social

media is an information and communications technology. The brief vignette introducing the

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paper also underlines that technology just does not implement itself and that there are many

managerial details that need to be attended to, if social media is to be successfully implemented.

Finally, just as objectives and measures are needed to determine if government is being

improved, objectives and measures are also needed to determine if social media is effecting the

communications patterns being sought.

2. Social Media Communication Patterns (objectives and measures) = F (ITC drivers,

Managerial Practices and Policies | Communications strategy)

Implementing social media well begins with an identification of a strategy through a

strategic process.

3. Communications strategy derived from (Stakeholders, Needs of Organization)

Data and Data Collection

Research, Service and Teaching Effort

The data for this project was collected as part of a research, service and teaching

project in a course on Government Information Systems during the Sprint Quarter, 2011.

The class focuses on managing information in the public sector and includes work on the

generic management issues and policies relating to ITC and information. The first phase

will end in the middle of June with a presentation of the results and the selection of specific

managerial practices and policies to be researched in the next phase.

The project had service and teaching goals as well as providing the opportunity for

collecting research data and establishing a working relationship for ongoing research.

Service was provided to a semi-‐formal group of public information and community

extension professionals who are primarily responsible for leading and managing the social

media initiatives in their organizations. These professionals meet periodically to exchange

ideas and experiences. Most recently the subject of how to manage social media has

become an issue of primary concern. The network is close-‐knit with members openly

sharing the knowledge they currently possess.

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To support this exchange of information, the course created a wiki that

systematically gathered all of their knowledge as well as managerial policies and practices

from outside of Central Ohio.

Collecting the information on a wiki provided a number of benefits. Information

that was informally exchanged in an ad-‐hoc manner as necessity dictated, is now more

easily accessible across many important managerial and policy issues. This allows for easy

access should a government want to “borrow” a policy already crafted, more closely

scrutinize the logic and the implications of these practices and policies; and, as articulated

by several cities, the hope that a “Central Ohio policy” could be developed. Part of the

motivation in developing a regional policy is that it would help these public information

officers argue for the legitimacy of a policy to their superiors and thus promote innovation.

As a teaching tool, social media is a subject that is interesting to students and

therefore sustains their attention and provides an opportunity to discuss some of the

issues relevant to managing innovation and technology in the public sector.

The class project began with panels of the professionals talking about the

opportunities and challenges of introducing and using social media in the social media.

Students were provided with several readings and expected to have questions prepared for

the panelists.

Twelve student groups of three to four students were responsible for interviewing

the local and regional governments and then posting the information to a wiki. The

remaining thirteen student groups collected information about policies and practices about

specific topics outside of Central Ohio and posted that information on the wiki.

At the end of the quarter, the class will provide the wiki site to the clients. This wiki

platform was chosen in part because it allows for easy export to another wiki, PDF or a

website. Access to discussion and materials can be managed so that it is visible to some or

the public at large.

Interview Protocol

Each group conducting interviews were provided explicit and clear directions on

good interviewing techniques. A portion of the class time was devoted to reviewing the

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directions and reviewing prior coursework on research design and evaluation, which also

covered qualitative research techniques including interviewing.

The class materials provided directions on how to contact the client, how to make

an introduction and explain the purpose of the interview and what is expected of the client,

what would transpire during the course of the interview, how to conduct the interview and

how to review and record the results of the interview.

Students were asked to send the structured questionnaire in advance of the meeting to

insure that the client had a chance to prepare for the interview.

The interviews lasted approximately one hour. Students were asked to encourage

the client to provide any written materials that they might have on managerial practices

and policies so that they could be posted on the wikisite.

A style sheet was provided to insure that information was collected and entered in a

consistent manner. Instructions on what a wiki is and a demonstration of how to use the

wiki were also covered during the class. The overall structure of the wiki was created in

advance so that students could easily identify where the appropriate information should be

entered. Discussion boards help coordinate student activities. The project ended with a

class session devoted to a review of the findings. The final phase of the project will require

one more review of the accuracy of the data by the instructor with a final review of the data

by the clients. A final presentation of the results will be made in mid-‐June.

RESULTS

Strategy

Stated Strategic Goals As Reported by the Clients

Government can decide to use social media in any number of ways. The framework

presented in Table 1, attempts to identify in a comprehensive way, the variety of wys in

which social media could improve government. Table 2, below, identifies the particular

communications strategies identified by the clients. Analysis later in the paper will

explore how effectives cities actually were in actually realizing their strategic goals.

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Table 2: Stated Social Strategies

Strategy Type

Cities *

Number of Jurisdictions Pursuing Strategy

Number of Network Leaders Pursuing Strategy

A. None Franklin, Powell, WO 3 B. Broadcasting 4

Info NA, UA 2 News Media GN 1 Website GN, UA 2 Marketing CMH, CW, GN 3 1

C. Interaction Dublin, MORPC, WE, UA 4 3 D. Broadcasting and Interaction WE, UA 2 1

Broadcasting and Interaction and (E. F. or G.)

CW, GN 2

E. Build Community CW 1 F. Monitor Environment GN 1 G. Customer Service WE 1 1 * A city was categorized as pursuing a particular strategy using responses from a specific question as well as reviewing any documents that were obtained.

The two principal kinds of communications strategies are the one-‐way,

“broadcasting of information”, and two-‐way “interactive communications”. One way

communications are simpler and involve simply sending information out to anyone who

will listen. Broadcasting could include simply communicating simple messages about a 4th

of July celebration or a street closure affecting traffic. Another communications strategy is

to provide the usual mass media outlets with live Twitter feeds or Facebook posts instead

of the usual press releases or interviews. This makes it easier for both media organizations

and governments to quickly obtain breaking news and communicate to the public faster.

An additional managerial practice is to use social media as part of an integrated

communications strategy which could include using one social medium to refer people to

websites or Facebook pages where more information can be found. Finally, public sectors

are to varying degrees, seeing “marketing” as an important tool, which for some involves

broadcasting the news about why living in a particular community is a desirable choice.

A riskier strategy than broadcasting is to engage in two way, interactive

communications. This is reflected in many of the scales which measure the maturity of

websites (Welch and Pandey 2007) or government information systems (Moon 2002). The

risks include lose of control of communications where any number of uncomfortable posts

19

on a Facebook account may occur, or difficulties in fully estimating the time and resources

requirements to handle those communications.

Other difficult issues emerge when deciding to engage in interactive

communications such as whether comments posted on a website can be removed, thus

affecting 1st amendment rights, whether public records requires that even if those

comments are removed, whether those comments must still be archived and whether those

comments are indeed on a public website since much of the information is stored in “the

cloud.” As of yet, no standard of practice has occurred, and as a result the uncertainties

pose risk and uncertainty to cities on exactly how they should proceed. Despite these

uncertainties, cities are at least stating that their strategy is to engage in dialogue and

interact with their constituencies. Interestingly, of the four communities who articulate an

interactive strategy, three of those four communities are considered leaders within their

professional network.

In addition to strategies where the focus is on the direction in the flow of

information, “building community” and providing customer service have more specific

larger governmental goals in mind. Finally, advocates of social media often point out the

importance of listening as much as talking when it comes to using the social media

channels. Governments can learn what the important issues are and what people are

saying about those issues and even government itself.

Strategic Processes

While most cities could articulate some kind of strategy, when asked to provide the

process by which the strategy was articulated, the results showed many jurisdictions not

having a process in place or needing to develop a process.2 Moon (2002) found a similar

lack of strategy in his application of a five-‐stage maturity model to the development of local

2 It should be noted that these scores are very conservative in that the mere identification by a city of any kind of procedure or element important to strategic planning resulted in classifying that jurisdiction as having a strategic process. The results tabulated, therefore, overestimate the number of cities actually doing strategic planning. In addition, only one of the four leaders had a strategic process in place. Casual observation seems to indicate that being a “leader” is more a function of using particular new tools like “apps” rather than having a complete social media system in place including having a strategy, objectives, measures and a set of managerial practices and policies.

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government websites. This begs the question of whether “strategy” is the appropriate

word to describe how these cities are thinking through the use of social media. The

analysis explored whether the network of innovators rather than a strategic process is

what is driving the creation of a strategy.

Table 3: Strategic Process

Strategic Process Status Number of Jurisdictions Number of Leaders None 4 Need or Need to Learn How to Do 4 1 Draft 1 Have Process 3 1

Network of Innovators

The participants were asked to identify who are the “important governments to

watch and are doing interesting things with social media?” Figure 1 displays the results.3

Reviewing Figure 1, Worthington, Upper Arlington, Gahanna, and Franklin County at

the bottom of the figure are “isolates” and do not “follow” the innovations of any other

network node, nor are they followed by any jurisdiction.

3 Cluster obtained using NodeXL clustering algorithm employed by Wakita, K. and T. Tsurumi (2007). Finding community structure in mega-‐scale social networks: [extended abstract]. Proceedings of the 16th international conference on World Wide Web. Banff, Alberta, Canada, ACM.

21

Figure 1: Network of Innovators

Of the remaining cities interviewed, there are three clusters each led by a particular

city. There is the light blue Columbus network that looks outside of Central Ohio for ideas

on how to be more innovative. Dublin is a leader within its “green-‐colored” cluster. It is

also important to Central Ohio in its role a “bridging” node between Columbus and the

other Central Ohio cities. Finally, there is dark blue cluster led by Westerville which is

followed by four cities, the highest number of cities within Central Ohio.

Some of the patterns can be attributed to geographical proximity. The “Dublin”

network is located in the North / Northwest part of Central Ohio. The subnetworks also

may be an artifact of the move of two public information officers within Central Ohio.

Actual Communications Effects of Strategies and Strategic Processes

Table 2 displays the stated strategies being pursued. Table 3 displays whether these

strategies actually result in the communications patterns being sought. This data is based

on data collected from Central Ohio cities using Twitter. Specifically, the data is on all of

those accounts that are “following” what a city tweets and those accounts which “follow”

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Central Ohio cities. It is therefore a directed network that measures both information flows

and reputation. These measures can be used to draw a variety of inferences, for example, a

high ratio of followers to following indicates high reputation within a network.

If a city is successfully engaging in a broadcasting strategy, we would expect that the

city has a relatively high number of followers and therefore would seek to maximize its

“outdegree centralization” within a network. On the other hand, if a city is seeking to

maximize its interaction, it is seeking a lower “outdegree centralization” and higher

“indegree centralization”. Finally, cities can also provide an important “bridging” function,

much like Dublin plays in the Central Ohio network, to connect relatively isolated

subnetworks. This “bridging” function can be measured through a “betweeness” measure.

The higher the “betweeness” measure the more important that city is insuring that

information can find its way through networks between any two cities.

Table 3 provides the results for these measures for the three main strategy groups.

Cities highlighted in red are considered innovators, and perhaps, by extension, could be

considered more sophisticated in their use of social media. Cities highlighted in yellow are

those categories in which cites had the highest scores among the three measures employed.

Table 3: Strategies and Communications Patterns *

Strategy Cities # Outdegree “Cities

followed”

Indegree “Cities

following”

Eigenvector Betweeness “Bridging”

A - None FR 29.4 90.9 14.0 8.8 PO 36.3 88.3 25.8 22.3 WO 35.3 82.9 15.2 14.1 B - Broadcasting CW 47.8 74.1 5.0 22.82 GN 36.9 19.7 11.5 1.70 NA 37.8 77.1 17.9 28.1 UA 41.9 62.5 25.7 15.5 C - Interaction DU 23.2 9.2 14.1 0.73 MO 33.3 75.2 13.7 19.9 WE 28.3 86.7 20.2 18.4 UA 41.9 62.5 25.7 15.5 # The city of Columbus has several Twitter accounts, over several departments and for different projects, and no simple way was found to combine this data.

* Results obtained used UCINET, version 6.339 (Borgatti, Everett et al. 2002)

23

Again, no clear results emerge. If there is any clear pattern, the “broadcasting”

measure of high “outdegree” centralization conforms to the expected magnitude. As to

interactive communications, the “no strategy” “indegree centralization” scores were

marginally higher than those cities that expressed “interaction” as one of their main

strategies. “Betweeness” scores were the highest among “broadcasting” cities.

The lack of clear results could owe to several alternative explanations: 1)

measurement error might be confounding the result since the first phase of the project still

needs to verify the results obtained with the clients; 2) better measures, other than

“indegree” and “outdegree” and “betweeness” could be employed; 3) how the measures are

operationalized could be improved – presently the measures collect data on “followers”

and “following” and clearer results might appear by modeling the direction and flow of

messages instead; 4) this initial demonstration relied on data that was collected in a

nonsystematic way over time; 5) cities are new to social media, and while cities have

articulated various strategic choices, knowing how to use social media and implementing

those strategies might require more time and experience; and 6) the managerial and policy

choices might also affect how well cities are able to pursue their strategies. Future

research will collect more data in a more systematic way as well as seeing if patterns

become more discernible over time.

Future research will expand the kinds of data collected including qualitative data

and whether messages themselves are propagated through the network rather than the

more static measure of who is following whom. But the more fundamental question

remains: if cities cannot see how their activities are affecting the quality, quantity or the

direction in the flow of communications or information, it may be even harder to conclude

that cities are using social media in a way to improve government.

Management Practices and Policies Now In Use

Management Practices

The primary goal of this research is to examine the extent to which cities actually

have the important managerial practices and policies in place to effectively use social

media given the particular strategies. With the finding that strategic processes still need to

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be developed and an unclear relationship between strategy and any communications

pattern, it becomes difficult to see the mediating effect of any particular management

practice or policy. Yet, some interesting conclusions still appeared. Table 4 provides the

managerial practices now in use and Table 5 provides the interview question that

generated the result.

The last column in Table 4 provide summary measures of the results obtained. Most

notable is the emphasis on “brand management” with eleven of the twelve cities saying that

they had some kind of plan to manage their image. Channel management, a concept

important to social media, was also identified by a majority of the cities as an important

managerial practice.

Most notably missing was the absence of any risk management plan. While the

estimates vary, a large percentage of e-‐government projects fail in some respect (Levinson

2009) and therefore it is critical that governments assess the risks in a systematic way and

find ways to blunt those threats. As far as implementing strategy, most of the clients were

able to cite some statistics on the demographics they were dealing with, even if it pertained

to another media like brochures, emails or websites. At the same time, no cities reported

having any formal measures to determine the success of their social media operation.

Finally, it must be noted that even for the cities responding that they had a

managerial practice in place, many of those cities also indicated that they were hesitant as

to the adequacy and completeness of their plan. They indicated that they looked forward

to seeing what their peers in Central Ohio and other governments outside of Central Ohio

were doing. This appears to be a primary driver for their interest in ongoing participation

in this project.

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Table 4: Existence of Important Management Practices

Practice CW CM DB FR GH GC MO NA PO WE WO UA Total What Strategy?

Crisis Management

Need Need Y Need 1

Risk Management

Need 0

Brand Image Mgt.

Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 11

Channel Mgt. Y Y Y Y Y 5 Internal Mgt. Y Draft 1 Implementing Strategy Training Y Y Need Y 3 Demographics D D Y Y Y Y Need D Y Y 6 Measures 0 Analytics Y Y Y Need Y Y Need 5 Time Resources Required*

.5 .75-‐1 .5 .4 1 .5-‐1 .33 .57- .63

Key Y = Yes; D = Difficult to do; Need = Need to develop; Draft = Draft policy/ plan; * Hours / day

Table 5: Definition of Management Practices

Practice

What Strategy?

Crisis Management

Have you experienced or had the chance to develop some kind of policy or protocol: a. When an emergency happens and you are using social media to keep the public apprised quickly and authoritatively? Or, b. The communications on Twitter or Facebook “gets out of control”?

Risk Management

Do you have a risk management plan? Risk management is explicitly identifying the risks of using social media. It increases the chances of success and encourages the use of something new because all of the potential problems are fully listed and explicitly dealt with.

Brand Image Mgt.

What is the image you are attempting to foster? How are you managing its communication?

Channel Mgt. Do you have a plan for channel management? Internal Mgt. Social media is changing how we communicate with the public. One of the interesting

things that came out of the panel sessions was that it is also changing the patterns of internal communications in order to respond better to the public. Has this been true for you? Has there been any discussion about how whether and how these changes might take place?

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Implementing Strategy Training Is there a plan on how to keep apprised of new developments for staff directly associated

with social media? A plan or approach in how you train your superior? How do you train your peers that will need to understand what the new opportunities and constraints are?

Demographics Who is using social media and other forms of communications? How does that compare to the demographics of my city or my target audience? What tools can I use to gain better insight?

Measures What measures are you using for particular kinds of social media or particular kinds of initiatives?

Analytics What tools are you using to find your audience is and their networks? Time How much time is required? How much time do you spend? Do you wish you had more

time? What would you spend that additional time on?

Management Policies

The 2009 Columbus case study (Landsbergen 2011) revealed that a large inhibitor

to innovation was the uncertainty surrounding the need and content of policies governing

the management and use of social media. In 2011, a community standard is beginning to

develop on appropriate policies and management practices but its application still varies

around the country and within Central Ohio. Without clear direction many governments

are hesitant to act, and only by identifying what other cities are doing, will sufficient

confidence be generated and cities will begin exploring how to use social media.

Table 6 shows the number of policies adopted or in draft form among Central Ohio

city governments. While the number of cities having policies in place is higher than

managerial practices, comparison of the policies indicates that many of the policies differ

on what contingencies and situations are covered. Clients are looking forward to a

comparison of their policies and other policies outside of Central Ohio to determine if their

policies are complete and can provide the kinds of protection they desire and can reflect

their managerial goals.

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Table 6: Existence of Important Social Media Policies

CW CM DB FR GH GC MO NA PO WE WO UA Sum Employee Use of Social Media

Dr Y N Dr Dr Y Y Y Y Y 6

Standards of Usage Y Y Y Dr Dr Y Y Y Y Y Y 9 Public Records Y N N N Y N Dr Y 3 Records Management N N Dr Y N Y Y 3 Centralized / Decent C D D D C D? C C D C D Key Y – Yes (but could include statement by City that they may NEED to revisit or revise) NEED – Explicitly stated that need to revisit or revise Dr – Draft written up or work is now being done “D” under Centralized / Decentralized means that more than two departments are responsible for creating and posting content while there may be only one policy governing the City.

SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Social media is a communications tool that serves important social needs.

Government needs to understand why social media is important so that it can begin to

understand how to use social media.

While social media is an important and potent force, actually using social media will

require attention to many details. This research on an informal innovation network of

twelve local governments within Central Ohio begins the process of identifying the

important implementation details including what strategies government should adopt, how

to strategically plan for social media, and the important managerial practices and policies.

Cities are now developing a rich set of strategies and moving behind the simple

broadcasting of information to the public. Yet these strategies and practices are being

developed more by network influences of peers rather than through the strategic and

systematic assessment of environments, organizational needs and capabilities.

Despite not knowing the appropriate way to do strategy or even some of the

important policies and practices that “should” be in place, it should be noted that managers

are trying “social media”. If managers continue to use social media sufficiently long,

presumably their experience will grow, lessons will be learned, and their policies and

practices will become more sophisticated and nuanced. Cities participating in this

innovation network will presumably increase the chances for learning (Mergel, Schweik et

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al. 2008). The hope is that partnering this innovation network with the research skills of a

university research team will make even better use of their ideas, experiments, and

collective knowledge.

Future Research

The first phase of this research study still needs to be completed. This will include a

final pass at the accuracy of the data and review of the findings with the clients. A large

number of opportunities for further research have been identified for selection by the

client innovation network at their upcoming meeting. The author will also demonstrate

some of the social network analysis tools available and the opportunities they present for

the clients in identifying important networks that the cities might want to identify and

reach as part of the social media strategy. At some point, they will want to know whether

their strategies, policies and practices are generating the kinds of communications

envisioned by their strategies and whether these communications strategies are resulting

in network communications that realize their strategic aims. As far as the innovation

network itself, there are several important research questions. Will these policies and

practices converge over time? Will, a Central Ohio policy and practice emerge? As

learning takes place, will cities become more sophisticated in executing their strategies so

that they are better able to engage in the kinds of communications there strategies require?

What important role can university research / service play in advancing the use of this

promising communications technology?

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