3 Digital Comm Trends In State And Local Gov

In the past few years the scope of digital communications in government has gone through a tremendous change. Gone are the days when a simple press release would suffice. Now governments at all levels are responsible for communications outreach through many different channels; emails, social media, text messaging etc.

For a local Parks and Recreation’s department posting a bulletin in the newspaper is no longer the best way to reach out to the community. They have to go digital and send emails, post to Twitter and Facebook, if they want to reach their community.

So how can state and local government’s succeed in these changing times? And what is on the horizon?

GovDelivery surveyed more than 250 government communicators across the state, local and transit authorities in the beginning of 2014 to compile some of the top priorities trending this year. You can download the white paper here.

Three major trends emerged from the survey:

• Boost Engagement:
  • 40% of respondents said that the most important digital communication objective is to boost engagement.
  • Second was improving messages by quickly reaching large audiences with significant information.
    • GovDelivery’s Take: Both of those engagement boosts could have a profound impact on a government’s ability to achieve its mission. More than 71% said growing a digital audience was a priority.
• Multichannel Approach:
  • 75% of respondents said email and social media were the top digital communication platforms for 2014.
  • 25% said SMS text messaging.
    • GovDelivery’s Take: “Implementing a multichannel strategy enables organizations to significantly increase engagement by connecting with more stakeholders via the channels they prefer, but email should remain at the core of your strategy because social media can often be unpredictable. Email allows you a safety net to remain in place.
• Increasing Outreach
  • GovDelivery’s Tips: One way to increase outreach is to add an email subscription box to your website homepage. You can also add overlays that are clear, unobtrusive and clean. GovDelivery has seen a growth of 250-500% after adding overlays.

Bonus Trend: Go Mobile

50% of respondents said they wanted to add or increase their mobile messaging and another 30% said they were strongly considering SMS text messaging features.

You can download the GovDelivery white paper on trends here.