Getting on Board

Like many large organizations, government bureaucracies can be slow to adopt new ideas. The Government of Canada is not immune to this phenomenon.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a panel discussion on social media in Government of Canada communications. The panel comprised a policy expert who is working on developing guidelines for official use of social media, a member of the Health Canada communications shop, which was a (relatively) early adopter of social media, a representative from the office of Canada's Privacy Commissioner, and two people who discussed the official languages implications of using social media in Government of Canada communications.

The language thing is an important consideration in our work, because Canada is officially bilingual, meaning that all government communications must occur simultaneously in both English and French. This makes real-time conversations on the Internet problematic, to say the least. We can get around it by responding to individual messages in the chosen language of the correspondent, but we have to Tweet in both languages, we have to respond to blog comments in both languages, and we have to make Youtube videos in both languages.

I would love to see how a country like Switzerland, which has four official languages, handles its official communications (or India, which has hundreds of languages and dialects). Doing everything in two languages is a challenge, but the contributions that both of Canada's founding cultures have made to this country outweigh the difficulties of communicating with all our citizens in their own language.

But despite the hurdles to doing social media well, there is broad recognition now that we have to do it. Our mandate as communicators is to reach Canadians in the media they're using to get their information. Twenty years ago TV spots, news releases, brochures, and newspaper ads were enough. Ten years ago adding a static web page was good enough. Now our web presence requires us to be interactive and responsive, because Canadians expect it of us. Canada has one of the highest rates of Internet use in the world. Its government has to keep pace or people will stop turning to us for information.

Fortunately, a few departments have caught onto the possibilities of social media and they are acting as a beacon for others. One of them is Health Canada. A previous Health Minister has for years been a strong advocate for Web 2.0 technology and was very supportive of efforts to improve the department's web presence. The Health Canada web specialist who addressed the panel advised those just getting into social media to follow the crawl-walk-run-fly model. Start by analyzing the public environment and seeing what others are saying about you. Next, start using social media channels to get out the messages we are already spreading by traditional channels. Thirdly, start soliciting feedback and holding two-way conversations with the public. The last stage (flying) involves using inbound marketing tactics such as putting your message out on public forums like message boards and other places where people gather to talk about your portfolio to offer advice, correct misinformation and generally add value to online conversations.

During the question and answer session, someone asked if there had been any major screw-ups committed by government employees using social media for official communications, and the answer was no. This was no surprise to me, since Government of Canada communications specialists are among the most dedicated and competent communicators you'll find anywhere.

All in all, the discussion was encouraging. There are a lot of people chomping at the bit to get behind social media communications, and the movers and shakers are starting to take notice. Ultimately, it will be a part of every communicator's job description and those who learn all they can about it now will have a definite advantage.