Rock Creek Roundup (October 14 Edition)

Posted by: Amy Hooker, Director of Online Marketing Oct 14, 2011 0 Comments

Four federal agencies are harnessing YouTube for social outreach, the Navy publishes a social media handbook for public affairs officers, OhMyGov takes a look at patterns in U.S. social media usage, and the White House invites tweeters to chronicle an event, all in this week’s version of the Rock Creek Roundup!

—While many government agencies are looking to Facebook and Twitter to get social, four agencies are engaging with YouTube for outreach in the social space. While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been uploading videos for a year and a half, the agency continues to see the benefit to utilizing social media and plans to keep it in its communications strategy. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) uses the medium to reach the largest audience possible to spread information on a variety of health topics and issues with videos increasingly available in Spanish. After three years of YouTube membership, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) decided to turn off comments as they were unable to monitor in real-time. As a social media front-runner, NASA has one of the top channels viewed on the network and is using the platform to educate and excite audiences about events and information. While many agencies host videos on their own websites, YouTube allows members to post HD quality video and embed videos into other sites.

—While many military branches have published social media guides for employees and members, the Navy has recently published a social media handbook for public affairs officers. The handbook outlines principles, best practices, emerging media, and social media tools. While the handbook was written for PAOs in the Navy, it offers great insight into how other military and government agency PAOs might use the technology. For those interested in learning more about emerging media, the basics, or the innovative ideas coming from the technologies, the Navy handbook is a great read! The 52-page document is full of infographics, pictures, graphs, and step-by-step instructions on all things social media.

—If you’re looking to get into the realm of social media for the purpose of interacting with a wide variety of demographics and audiences, you need to understand to whom you’re marketing and how they interact with social media. Government media blog OhMyGov took a look at the U.S. social media audience in 2011 and analyzed what they found. According to Quancast, Facebook and YouTube are almost even for the title of most visited platform meaning nearly half of all Americans check into the sites at least once a month! There are more women than men on Facebook with a 55:45 ratio; women post between 10 and 26 times per month while men only post between 7 and 17 times. Twitter and YouTube are more diverse platforms with 31% and 27% of members being non-white, respectively. Surprisingly, social media is fairly representative of the U.S. as a whole.

—On Thursday morning, as South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak arrived at the White House, several dozen tweeters were on the scene to chronicle to the event. In addition to foreign dignitaries and the usual reporters, the White House invited a number of tweeters to witness and report the event via social media. While the White House and Obama Administration are known for their active status on social media platforms, inviting tweeters to the scene was a new approach to getting the news out!

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Amy Hooker

Director of Online Marketing

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