A Guest Post by:@Againer
@Bcicero wrote about Obama's use of Social Media effectively becoming the first “Internet” President. Obama has effectively used social media to reach his constitutients and ultimately launched himself into the presidency. Obama has created a community with his Web site and given supporters the free exchange of ideas and information. This is a well proven and effective model, so why doesn't local government look to mirror this change in public engagement?
Local government is a prime candidate for the use of social media. It already has a built in community! Government at the local level needs to respond to the needs of it's “users”, the every day citizen. Lets face it, most of us are far too busy to attend local government meetings. This means that we are not being properly represented and our needs are not being addressed. Government meetings are rarely attended and often occur at times when we citizens are usually either at work, or getting home from work. This is a problem that social media can easily address.
Governments can run public forums where voters can discuss what is important to them as well as be able to vote to show their concern over an issue. This would provide a free and timely method for voters to voice their opinions. This would also be one of the truest forms of democracy. Powerfully informed citizens able to share ideas and opinions with their legislators would lead to beneficial policy making.
While virtual town hall meetings are just one aspect of social media the government can use, another would be, Twitter. In my use of twitter I have found that many European and major cities in the United States usetwitter for traffic updates. I know I'm not alone in wanting to know traffic by the minute, and it would be so easy and free for government to implement this strategy. While twitter does have limitations ( i.e. outages, cell phone coverage) it could be used in combination with local traffic broadcasts. Who wouldn't like to know about traffic delays the moment they happen?
There are so many more uses for social media in local government that I could write about, but I'll leave that for the comments section. So what is your addition to this idea? I would love to hear it. Comment below or come check out my blog www.adamgainer.com. Or follow me on twitter.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment, showing us some social love or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.
tagged as change.gov, government, Government 2.0, government in social media, Social Media, social media through governance
