Social media can be a powerful tool for the public sector when it comes to community engagement. It’s cost-effective, has a wide reach and is easily accessible for your audience.

While the benefits are obvious, the options can be overwhelming. With so many social media channels available, there seems to be a different one in vogue each week. So how do you decide which is the right one for your organisation?

The right social media channel for the public sector

It pays to do some research to find out what is most likely to work for your organisation. Keep in mind that while a comparable brand may have had massive success with one channel, that doesn’t necessarily mean yours will follow suit, so be prepared to be flexible in your approach. By choosing the wrong channel, you not only run the risk of not engaging with your audience – which is your intended outcome – you may negatively impact your brand, which is not the outcome you want.

 Find the right channels, set some goals, follow a content plan and use your budget and resources to get the best outcomes for you.

How to choose

Start with these three steps when deciding on your approach to social media:

1. What are your business goals? Do you want greater engagement with your audience, a two-way dialogue or even just positive brand enforcement? Work out what you’d like to achieve in the first 90 days of your social media journey, what your budget is and what resources you have available to get you there.
2. Research your audience. Where does your target audience go to consume their content online? If you have the capacity, survey your audience to discover their online behaviours. Once you know a little more about where your fish swim, lure them in with ‘bait’ – in this case, key words that attract their attention. These resources will help you discover what your audience is looking for:

• Twitter Advanced Search
• Facebook Search
• Pinterest Search
• LinkedIn Groups
• Instagram Search

3. How much time and resources can you afford to invest in the maintenance of your social media? Each platform has different content needs that need to be taken into account. For example, if you choose YouTube as your primary social media channel, you’ll need to film, edit and upload the content, which is far more time-consuming than simply updating a Facebook post. Who is going to look after the scheduling, responses and interactions both during business hours and after hours?

Quality over quantity

There’s so much more to social media than simply creating a post and waiting for success and engagement to follow. You need to learn where your audience is and how to connect with them through the kind of content they’re already effectively engaging with.
Doing two or three channels very well is far better than spreading across several channels and being mediocre. Quantity is important, but quality is even more so, so don’t scrimp.
Find the right channels, set some goals, follow a content plan and use your budget and resources to get the best outcomes for you.

Which channels connect most with your audience?

Have you tried a variety of platforms and found that some work better than others? Which worked for you and why? Let us know. We’d love to hear from you.