Measuring Government’s Social Media Use
Posted by
Ali Smith on Fri, Oct 30, 2009 @ 05:36 AM
At SpeakerBox’s Got Content? Get Government Customers event, Lisa Dezzutti, CEO of
Market Connections, presented some preliminary research on the government market’s use of social media. The study looked at both government contractors and federal employees.
The research confirmed what seems to be the common perception of social media adoption in government. About one third of respondents reported utilizing social media both on the integrator and government side. It also showed a surge in social media adoption over the past six months for both groups. What this says to me is that the contractors are following their customer’s lead in getting involved in social media. The full presentation with detailed stats can be found
here.
Some takeaways for me included:
- Employee recruitment is low on the list of the ways integrators use social media (top use is customer engagement). With integrators fighting each other (and
increasingly the government) for top talent, social media platforms hold a huge opportunity to interact with employees and prospects while showing a little company personality in the process.
- Federal respondents report that Search Engines are the main way they gather info on contractors. All integrators should look at what comes up when searching their name, it’s likely a lot more than just your website to include news coverage and blog posts about your company. If the results are negative, increased efforts on media relations and creation of online content should unseat unfavorable search results.
The research shows (not surprisingly) use of social media is in its infancy but growing quickly (with around 40% on both sides expecting spending to increase in the next year). In that increase, Dezzutti recommended caution – social media should complement not dominate the marketing mix.
-Piper Conrad