In social Media,
everything comes though the eyes
The United States of America has great
landscapes, and what a better way of sharing its wonderful natural resources
than through astonishing photos of them. This has been the main piece of the
digital outreach strategy of the U.S. Department of the Interior
(DOI). With the intention to reach more audiences and sharing what the DOI does
for transparency and visibility purposes, the digital outreach strategy started
in 2010 with Twitter.
Now, through Twitter, Facebook, Youtube,
Instagram, Flickr, and Tumblr, the DOI is in constant interaction with its
audiences (the general public, as well as stakeholders and funders) sharing
beautiful pictures of the America’s outdoors to remind the U.S. citizens of its
great natural resources.
Unlike other countries, the mission of the DOI in
the United States is
“to protect America’s natural resources and
heritage, honors our cultures and tribal communities, and supplies the energy
to power our future[1]”. The
social media strategy of DOI, is consistent with its mission as it engages the
citizens with the natural resources and the need to protect them.
Tim Fullerton, Director of Digital Strategy at
U.S. Department of the Interior, explained that the use of social media at the
DOI started with Twitter and they realized very quickly that the impact of the
photos was very important in social media.
With a team of six professionals (Director,
Social Media Strategist, Digital Media Strategist, Videographer, Staff
Photographer, and Content Specialist) that belong to the Communications
department, the DOI is able to post daily in every social media that they use.
Complementary to that, contests inviting the audiences to share their pictures
and live Q&As events have been some of the resources that have allowed the
DOI to get 102,604 followers in Facebook, 6795 followers in Instagram, and 279,000 followers in Twitter.
Photos as windows to America’s natural resources and heritage
Everyone likes watching amazing pictures, but
when these images are difficult to get by a citizen, like the view of the obelisk
in D.C. from above, the photo sharing gives even more value to the audiences.
Tim Fullerton explained that the sources of the pictures were a paid
photographer, as well as pictures contests for American citizens, mainly the “Share
the Experience Photo Contest” presented by recreation.gov.
DOI mainly shares photos and even when tweeting,
they accompany every tweet with pictures.
Regarding archiving, DOI does not have a records
management and archiving policy but they follow the archiving guidelines of the
National Archives.
Live streaming
and digital-virtual activities
One successful interactive tactic that the DOI
has been using is live streaming sessions of Q&As. This allows the audience
to ask the DOI official and share their concerns and experiences.
Measuring the
impact
The DOI is using a professional program
named "SproutSocial". Additionally they analyze the visitor
interactions (# of RTs), increases in number of followers (300/day)
to measure their success.
External
services, privacy and other issues
When asked about hiring external services for the
social media strategy, Fullerton said that there are some trade offs of doing
so. “if you do it your self you have
all the control and if you get some external help you might earn time to do
some other things”, he held.
Finally, to distinguish between official and
non-official use of social media, Mr. Fullerton suggested to
follow the Social Media Guidelines and be thoughtful to never comment on
government policy either from government account or personal account.
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