Greater competitiveness in employee recruiting

The public sector has had difficulties competing against the private sector in attracting new, young talent to their agencies. The workshop participants believed that not using social media further disadvantages their agencies because they “do not have a presence” in spaces generally populated by the next workforce generation. In other words, even if social media tools are not used specifically for recruiting activities, a mere agency presence on social media networks provides needed exposure to the new generation.

Enhanced access for the disabled

The participants believed that social media tools could provide an additional avenue for access to government information for the disabled population of New York State. While not all social media tools are equally suited for use by the disabled (different disabilities render some tools more useful than others for an individual), participants viewed providing an alternate channel for communication and service delivery as important to improving the experience of the disabled with government agencies.

Creation of virtual communities

Some social media tools offer the possibility of building a “virtual” community around an issue area or general topic of interest. The participants viewed this as beneficial to their agencies because these communities could eventually serve as an additional source of information for constituents and thus decrease the number of routine inquiries agencies receive. In times of severe budget shortfalls, providing such additional benefit at low or no cost to the agency was seen as very desirable.

Instantaneous information sharing

The participants saw the instantaneous nature of social media as one of its key benefits to government agencies. Not only do social media tools provide additional communication channels, they do so in real time, irrespective of time or location of the sender or recipient. This feature is especially important for communication to citizens during emergencies, as well as receiving information from citizens in time of a disaster or accident. In addition, participants stated that social media can free them from the restraints of traditional media outlets, allowing them to post information on their own schedule instead of a set news cycle. These tools also enables them to post information about things customarily deemed “not news worthy” by commercial or other media, yet may be seen as important to their constituents.

Enhanced collaboration

Participants saw collaborative social media tools, especially internal agency wikis, as crucial to enabling collaboration among agency departments that typically do not work well with one another. This enhanced ability to share knowledge and information in turn could improve agency operations as problems are solved from multiple perspectives instead of one isolated and limited viewpoint. In addition to internal collaboration, participants also hoped that social media tools would enhance their collaborations with other state agencies and allow them to learn and share information with agencies from other states. In other words, collaborative social media tools allow people to take advantage of cumulative knowledge and experience irrespective of time or geography, thus contributing to further improvement of agency operations.

Enhanced public safety

Participants viewed social media tools as potentially improving public safety by allowing increased dissemination of pertinent information in a time of emergency. They also allow for more targeted distribution of agency information to populations at risk on issues such as domestic violence or health concerns like H1N1 or AIDS. In addition to enabling wider dissemination of agency information, the instantaneous nature of social media has the potential to improve coordination and response among rescue teams in emergency situations by allowing for continuous and wide dissemination of status updates.

Information dissemination and exchange

Not surprisingly, virtually all participants viewed information dissemination and exchange as one of the key benefits of social media. The majority of participants emphasized the importance of communication to citizens, especially concerning improving public awareness of government services, increasing their access to young generations traditionally viewed as a difficult population to reach, and giving the public greater access to government services. While participants also mentioned the desire to receive feedback and input from their constituency and to create dialogue with the public, they emphasized it less frequently. In addition to increasing information dissemination externally with the public, several participants also mentioned increasing information flow internally within the agency.

“Coolness” factor

While government is perceived to be many things, it is rarely perceived as “cool,” especially by younger generations. Participants viewed social media tools as potential means for enhancing the citizenry’s image of government as being in touch with current technology and able to react quickly to emerging technologies. Participants also believed that social media tools would allow them to put a “human face” on their agency, thus improving the public perception of the agency and government as a whole.

Improved training capabilities

Social media tools could improve training for government employees by facilitating the sharing of training materials with others and simply allowing more employees to take advantage of training by making it widely available. Additionally, participants also saw social media as being beneficial for training of external customers by giving agencies a venue for easy dissemination of its materials to external entities.

Documentation

Participants viewed certain social media tools, specifically internal collaborative tools, as serving an important function of creating a common information depository that is openly available to all agency staff. This function of making consistent information available to all agency employees in turn benefits the public by making responses to public inquiries consistent over time and over disparate departments that might otherwise provide different answers to the same question. This function is especially important in disseminating agency interpretations of relevant legislations so that they are freely available to all departments at the same time without having to rely solely on more cumbersome forms of communication.

Cost saving

Not surprisingly given the current economic climate, social media was also seen as a potential cost-saving measure. Specifically, participants mentioned that agencies could potentially save money on travel by using social media for collaborative efforts that would otherwise require people’s presence at a given location, harnessing the power of communities in providing answers to the public, and saving money by greater reliance on electronic communication over other traditional methods.