This week has been a hard one for the New Zealand public sector as it comes to terms with social media. The furore over the blog critical of Child, Youth and Family Services (part of the Ministry of Social Development) has highlighted how much all of us, as public sector communicators, need to learn to adapt to this new environment. It is also, I think, a pretty good indicator of the type of issue that all of us are going to have to deal with in the near future.
In previous posts about reputation management, I have written about how once something is published to the web, it is there for good. Google never forgets. Consequently, your strategy for dealing with an issue in the social media space needs to reflect this reality. It needs to inform the way you respond, and the channels you use.
The first lesson that we can take from this is that agencies need to be engaged in this space. Your publics are already there: join them. Don’t be left out of the conversation. If you are present and contributing, then you are a) building up a relationship and enhancing your reputation and credibility, and b) able to respond quickly and appropriately, because you will understand both the medium and the community.
The news that CYF have approached Google about taking down the blog is – from my perspective – an odd tactic. Even if Google were to comply (which seems highly unlikely) it doesn’t remove the content from the web. Secondly, it is likely to engender more negative feeling, not less. And, if anything, it is likely to reinforce the appearance for some that the accusations may have some merit.
The other important point that I think we should consider is that, in the work that public servants do, we will make mistakes. While we all work to ensure that these are minimised, there will be times (especially when you consider the powers invested in some agencies) when those mistakes will have a significant, and potentially traumatic, impact upon the lives of New Zealanders. We need to do as much as possible to ensure that we retain the trust of the public to exercise these powers fairly, and we need to effectively communicate with them about the ways in which we are upholding that trust.
The blog critical of CYF is a good example of a situation that has obviously spiralled way out of control. Opening up new lines of communication, engaging with public across a variety of media particularly those that support transparent dialogue means that some of these situations can be averted before they reach a crisis point. And those that do escalate to a crisis can be more effectively managed.
The people we serve are choosing, in increasing numbers, to use social media. We need to be engaging them on their terms.
5 Comments
something else that struck me is the amount of hysteria this website (it’s not technically a ‘blog’ as such) generated relative to it content.
sure, publishing trenchant criticism online is a new phenomena, but how is it any worse than an expose by a major paper?
do you think that it’s maybe the medium that’s getting people over-excited? certainly newspapers have filters that prevent many mistakes and outright lies getting into the media, but if the recent content of the NZ Herald and North and South are anything to go by then these filters aren’t working so well.
so i reckon that you’re right on the money with the need to engage these people. in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, it’s a ‘crisa-tunity’. if these geezers are annoyed enough to be putting their frustrations up on the web, then you have a clearly defined set of interests you can address.
this would suggest less ‘waving of the arms’ about content, and more finding out who these people are, and why they’re so upset. just treat it like any other ministerial correspondence or letter to the editor.
Definitely, Che. There is a whiff of the MSM keen to sensationalise a medium they don’t really understand, pace Russell’s post.
The advantage of engagement is that people with grievances have a vehicle to express them. So immediately you have some steam let off because people are empowered by the fact that there is some way for them to vent.
Also, because you are engaged in a dialogue, hopefully built up over time, there is more of a shared understanding about both individual expectations and what an agency can realistically achieve.
indeed, there’s also the fact that this is a new medium to find out what people think. spending valuable R&E money will likely turn up exactly the same result, i.e. “some people are frustrated with CYFS and need to get it off their chest”.
just because this medium is unregulated (and possibly slightly unhinged in this instance), it doesn’t mean it’s not something we need take cognizance of. in fact, the unregulated medium means we get to see what the man in the street thinks without the filters (or blinkers).
I really agree. If agencies can work out ways of understanding what frustrates people most about dealing with them, then they can take steps (where possible and practical) to relieve those frustrations with better systems. In fact, they may even find they have a ready group who’s willing to help co-design the new system to make sure it works well for them and others in similar situations.
Happily, this has the bonus effect of separating members of the public that just want to criticize from those who are prepared to do something so that others don’t have to go through the same, difficult, experience.
Good point, David. Engagement provides benefits to both parties that far outweigh the (inevitable) growing pains experienced by agencies as they come to terms with these media.