Municipal Social Media

When it comes to municipal social media, residents expect transparent communication. They want a dialogue on their channel of choice now – not a bot-like response in 24 hours.

Although your staff may have some social media responsibilities, it’s tough to stay on top of an ever-changing discipline – especially when social media is only part of their overall duties. And, they need to be experts not only at organic content engagement, but also social media advertising.

So how can municipal social media effectively serve different target audiences in today’s digital-first world?

A Data-Based Approach

Where should a local government start if they need to build or refine a municipal social media strategy? If we want to be strategic, we need to start at the beginning. Advantis recommends conducting a social media audit. Once your team gleans insights from the audit, they can effectively develop or re-shape the existing social media strategy. With research-based insights, your social media strategy will be based on evidence — not a gut feeling or a case study pulled off the Web. A municipal social media strategy should be purpose-built and tailored to your local government’s unique needs and challenges – a custom fit.

This approach, combined with Advantis’ social media training, is a proven method for increasing the social media expertise within your team whether it’s within corporate communications, culture, economic development, waste management etc. This approach will make the team more efficient, more effective and will reduce your municipality’s cyber risk.

Social Media Success Framework

The Social Media Success Framework (below) was developed by the partners at Advantis Communications. It is based on deep experience working with municipal and federal government clients, associations and private sector organizations. For every crucial component in this framework, we’ve listed a few questions to ask your team. This is a quick way to take the pulse of your municipality’s social media strategy and determine if it’s on target.

If you like the thinking behind this framework, call Cyrus Mavalwala, ABC, MC at 416-848-1885 to inquire about how your municipal communication and marketing staff can benefit from Advantis’ digital communication expertise.

Local Government Expertise

Local governments across Canada recognize the deep digital communication expertise at Advantis. In 2019, Advantis’ Founding Partner spoke at the Municipal Communications Conference in Toronto on social media and the Local Government Management Association of British Columbia on the subject of video production.

Advantis government social media engagements have included:
• Municipal-wide social media audits, landscape reports and comparator reports
• Social media strategy and training
• Training transit authorities on using social media for customer service
• Producing award-winning video content for the web and social media channels on a variety of topics from events to infrastructure initiatives (we’ve earned awards locally, regionally, nationally and internationally for our work)
• Social media training for leadership teams, mayors and councillors and communicators and staff in various departments from culture to economic development
• Social media content and paid campaign training
• Developing social media playbooks
• Writing and producing corporate editorial and graphic style guides
• And more…

If you’re looking to dramatically increase the return on the investment you’ve already made in social media, speak with the government social media experts at Advantis Communications. Give tax payers what they need and improve your digital communication by calling Cyrus Mavalwala at 416-848-1885.