Approximately 50 communications and leadership personnel representing nearly 40 state agencies gathered on July 30, 2014, at the Georgia Emergency Management Agency’s State Operations Center in Atlanta to discuss emergency communications and lessons learned from the winter storms that struck Georgia earlier this year.

The presentations varied, but they all focused on how government agencies can better communicate with their audiences before, during and after an emergency.

Cross-agency coordination like this is imperative for much of the work communicators do. This is especially true during an emergency, where cooperation between agencies is imperative and allows communicators to amplify messages, grow audiences, and better communicate with customers. To that end, representatives from the private sector (Georgia Power and The Weather Channel) were also invited to some and share their “best practices” with the State.

Below are the presentations from Georgia’s third #TeamGaSocial Summit:

• Georgia Department of Administrative Services:
Employee Communications: Tips and strategies for effectively communicating with your employees before, during and after an emergency

• Georgia National Guard
State/Federal Cooperation: What communications role Federal entities can play in a local emergency; and how words, actions and images can impact the perception of an emergency response

• Georgia Regional Transportation Authority:
Customer Relations: Moving past the disaster: Changing the conversation without shutting down engagement

• Georgia Power
Public/Private Partnerships: How private sector PR assets can support public sector communications needs in an emergency

• The Weather Channel
Media Relations: Resources and information TWC provides during an inclement weather emergency that state agencies should be aware of; and information news outlets want from state government during an emergency and what channels they monitor to get it

• Georgia Emergency Management Agency
Coordinated Communications: How the messaging from all participating partners gets de-conflicted and unified during an emergency; What information GEMA pushes out during an emergency and through which channels; and innovations and improvements in GEMA’s emergency communications processes

For pictures and discussion from the day’s event, please click here.

If you “do social media” for your state agency, we invite you to join our Facebook group by requesting access here.

Approximately 50 communications and leadership personnel representing nearly 40 state agencies gathered at the Georgia Department of Administrative Service’s office in Atlanta on Nov. 7, 2013 to discuss how state government communicators are leveraging innovative digital media to support their agency’s strategic priorities. The topics varied, but all focused on tapping digital media to make state government more responsive and approachable.

Cross-agency coordination like this is imperative for much of the work communicators do. This is especially true for digital initiatives, where cooperation between agencies’ respective social media presences allows communicators to amplify messages, grow audiences, and ultimately better communicate with customers.

“What I hope was obvious to the event attendees, is that our peers throughout state government are doing smart, edgy and innovative things with digital media,” said Seth Stuck, Manager of Online Communications for the Georgia Department of Administrative Services and the organizer of the event. “There’s value in seeing and hearing what other state agencies are doing really well, and then considering how their ‘lessons learned’ might apply to our own agencies.”

Below are the presentations from Georgia’s second #TeamGaSocial Summit:

• Optimizing Email: Leveraging targeted, measured email to ensure key audiences are receiving, seeing, opening, and acting on important calls to action
• Ready Georgia Mobile App: How to build and market a mobile app around a strategic need
• Geotagging: How geo-specific apps and social platforms like Foursquare can support strategic initiatives
• Interactive Multimedia Campaigns (Presentation not available): Launching a social media campaign driven by customer-submitted content
• Adaptive Web Design for Responsive Government: Designing websites for mobile users to make state government more accessible

If you “do social media” for your state agency, we invite you to join our Facebook group by requesting access here.

Approximately 70 communications and leadership personnel representing nearly 40 state agencies gathered today at the Georgia Department of Administration’s office in Atlanta to discuss “Social Listening in State Government to Provide Better Customer Service.” The topics varied, but all focused on leveraging social media to better “listen” to state agencies’ respective customer groups and stakeholders.

Cross-agency coordination like this is imperative for much of the work communicators do. This is especially true for digital initiatives, where cooperation between agencies’ respective social media presences allows communicators to amplify messages, grow audiences, and ultimately better communicate with customers.

Below are the presentations from Georgia’s first State Agency Social Media Summit:

• Listening to the Enterprise: Using content aggregates across channels (Facebook, Twitter, and RSS) and social hashtags to keep your “finger on the pulse” of current events within the enterprise of Georgia state government
• Listening to Your Community: Lessons learned and best practices from recent jointly hosted Twitter chats.
• Listening to Negative Feedback: Leveraging two-way symmetric communication on social to innovate and provide better customer service
• Listening to your Data: Identifying key website and social metrics for regular monitoring, and they will share some of the key findings from their own data
• Listening to the Social Conversation: Using active listening, search and inbound marketing to find and engage new followers

For pictures and discussion from the day’s event, please click here.

If you attended the Summit, please provide feedback by answering our brief survey, here, if you have not already done so.

If you “do social media” for your state agency, we invite you to join our Facebook group by requesting access here.