As social media has grown in popularity and continued to encompass more citizens, the government has made effective use of its outbound reach by using the medium to get information to the citizens. Whether it is used for warnings and instructions during an emergency, or to gauge support for a particular pending protocol or bill, the social media communication channel is one that the government has taken full advantage of to push information out. However as it is with so many other innovations, the governments use of social media is slowly beginning to evolve to a more passive connection.
While the social media channel has proved huge for the purpose of giving out information, officials realized that this was only taking advantage of half of the channels abilities. So now, not only is information going out, the government has now turned their ears towards the social media channels, using the medium to monitor information and hear concerns from its constituents. Many government agencies are now sifting through “mentions” and “chatter” with the sole purpose of identifying these buzz topics and pave the way for a better response to its citizens.
By making the channel a two-way street of outgoing and incoming information, government agencies have increased their ability to serve the citizens. A perfect example was seen in the Hurricane Sandy disaster relief area when social media mentions were used by the Red Cross to create visual mappings identifying areas of the most concern.
As more and more agencies implement this two way social media channel, effective methods of managing all the incoming and outgoing information will be at a premium.
