You don’t have to have a popular sports, food or entertainment brand to be successful on social media: You can also effectively relay important information, change perceptions and provide customer care no matter your industry. David Johnston, head of social media for the U.S. Department of Defense will share how better storytelling can help you shed negative sentiment, forge connections with followers, and boost awareness for your brand.

You’ll learn: 

• How to develop a brand voice that resonates with your audience
• Ways to balance information security and transparency
• Where to find unique content for your brand
• Why customer care should be a part of your strategy

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The common refrain of “don’t feed the trolls” among social media managers is rooted in good intentions but leads to missed opportunities and builds barriers between you and your audiences. Social media is social for a reason, and embracing the comment section – with strategy, honesty and humor – will help you grow engagement, your audience, and most importantly, your relationship with the people you serve.

We’ll discuss:

• Discerning true trolls from concerned residents
• Creating opportunities from negativity while assessing risk
• First Amendment considerations
• Handling vitriol and negativity with empathy and resilience
• Developing brand advocates

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Dark suits, sunglasses, and no-nonsense demeanors— that’s what most people envision when they think of the FBI. In reality, most FBI agents and support staff are kind, humorous, and steadfast public servants with unique backgrounds and incredible stories. FBI Public Affairs Officers seek to share these stories of the FBI within our communities but are frequently thwarted by popular movies, TV shows, and long-standing public misconceptions. 

In this session, we will share a few tips on how law enforcement agencies can:

• Begin to change the perception the public has regarding law enforcement in their community
• Humanize both armed law enforcement and civilian support employees on social media
• Publicize threats and share successes through agency-specific communication campaigns
• Employ humor and exciting stories from their department to highlight future careers

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The GBI public affairs office consists of a two-woman team handling media relations and legislative affairs for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the criminal investigative agency for the state. The summer of 2020 proved to be the busiest and most challenging yet: In May 2020, a cellphone video from a South Georgia incident that occurred in February went viral, leading to demonstrations and inquiries from the media and the public from around the world. Later that month, events in Minneapolis sparked civil unrest worldwide, including Georgia. During the height of these protests, another incident occurred in Atlanta that led to even further unrest…all during a global pandemic.

This presentation will illustrate how a small communications team can utilize multiple social media platforms to message to a worldwide audience. Mrs. Miles will also emphasize the importance of communicating on a daily basis during the height of a national event. The significance of a good command staff structure will also be illustrated, as well as how social listening and affordable communications tools come into play.

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Even if you only have a smartphone, you can create great video for social media. Ronda Scholting, PIO for West Metro Fire Rescue (Colorado) has some tips on the tools and techniques to help you gain more followers and engagement. 

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Small agencies have even smaller teams with limited budgets. Maybe you’re a one-person show; charged with responding to media calls and designing flyers, AND posting to Facebook. But, how can you possibly write news releases, attend press conferences, reply to thousands of comments and finally have something creative to tweet on Twitter? You’re probably thinking there aren’t enough hours in the day…

With a few tools, a plan, and a little creativity, you (or your team) can consistently put out creative content without reinventing the wheel. A strategic social media manager works smarter, not harder.

You’ll leave this presentation with the following knowledge:

• Equipment every small team should have in their arsenal
• Must-have social tools designed to make your job easier
• How to repurpose content for various platforms
• and more!

Who this talk is for: Agency or department employees responsible for content creation or planning; public information officers or other communication leads whose role involves the development of engaging social posts/photos/videos.

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Working in public information, public affairs, or communications today is completely different than it was even five years ago. In a day in age when “citizen journalists” carry a computer and video camera in their pocket, news breaks on social media within seconds of it happening. While this information sharing means we now know more than ever, it also makes getting misinformation or rumors under control extremely difficult.

This session will cover case studies of what happens when tweets go viral for all the wrong reasons and traditional news media use social media to report on their stories, instead of checking first with the communications lead or another credible source.

Attendees from this session will come away with:

• Steps you can take to get control of a story when it breaks on social media
• Suggestions on how to best use different social listening tools
• Ideas on how to manage the 24-hour social media news cycle – either solo or as part of a team
• A sample checklist to use when responding to a crisis on social media

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You know your content needs to be accessible, but do you know how to make it happen? In this presentation, you'll learn how to create, test, and save time when creating social media content that is accessible to your entire community. Attendees can participate and follow the content creation process step-by-step using their devices in real-time in order to post accessible messages and images for most social media platforms. Attendees will leave this session with an understanding of how to post accessible digital content, tips to minimize the process, and ways to test messaging.

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Don’t report on your social media successes using data? You should be. Not only do key performance indicators (KPIs) tell you what challenges and opportunities exist, they also give your organization’s leadership an objective measure of success. These measures can be used to advocate for anything from resource requests to strategic course corrections.

Join me for the session: Social Media Analytics & Measurement for Government Agencies — Leveraging Insight to Improve Your Online Presence. We’ll talk about what works and what doesn’t in using analytics to drive strategy.

At the end of the session you will learn to:

• Identify your organization’s KPIs
• Create monthly and quarterly reports
• Use data to advocate for increased resources

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32% of the US population listens to a podcast at least once a month. More than half of podcast listeners do so while they are multi-tasking -- from driving to doing the dishes to working out and beyond. This captive audience offers your agency an opportunity to dive deep into topics that may otherwise be difficult to convey via social media.

Podcasting is easier than it seems! You'll learn how to get started with everything from the equipment to the challenges of telling stories via sound to actually getting it out into the world.

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