2011 Represents Record Year for Government-to-Citizen Communications

Report reveals that Health, Business, and Jobs account for one-half of government communication

Today, GovDelivery released the 2011 Federal Digital Communications Report, revealing that 2011 was a record year for government communications. The report is available in an infographic and can be seen at http://bit.ly/GD2011infographic.

The report, based on data from GovDelivery’s clients representing more than 450 government clients including over half of Federal government agencies, shows the breadth and depth of communications that government agencies sent to millions of people throughout 2011. The report unveils key trends across four categories:

• Keywords and Subjects Driving Government Communications – the top keywords and subjects of information communicated to the public were health and healthcare, business and small business, and jobs and employment.
• Agencies Seeing the Most Sharing from the Public – the three agencies seeing content shared the most across email and social media by the public in 2011 were the Department of Defense, the IRS and FoodSafety.gov.
• Specific Messages the Public Shared the Most in Digital Media – the most frequently shared updates through email and social media came from the IRS, USA.gov, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and revolved around very specific information such as mileage rate increases and suicide prevention.
• Federal Government Topics with Fastest Growing Public Interest – the topics showing the largest increase in subscribers in 2011, demonstrating the kind of information that was most important to the public included W-2 news from the Social Security Administration, disaster updates from FEMA and monthly newsletter information from USA.gov.

The report also provides insight into Federal agencies’ ability to accelerate outreach through the GovDelivery Network, which allows government organizations to cross-promote content with other agencies. This offering dramatically expands government communications outreach without any additional strain on valuable agency resources. Federal agencies leveraging the GovDelivery Network saw a minimum average increase of 20% in new subscribers, with the top performing one-third of these agencies enjoying an average increase of more than 85% in expanded outreach.