Web 2.0 (Social Media)

Kettering Thesis for Genesee County Road Commission

Lee Knepper – Co-op

Social Media: What

Social Media: A web based technology to change media monologues to dialogues.

No longer is the web a one way conversation

Social Media: Why

• Get input from citizens before decisions are made.

• Give the citizens information quicker and easier.

• Create a relationship with citizens by interaction.

• Network with other road commissions and companies to discover ideas we may not have thought of, or technology we don't know about.

• Identify and correct misinformation.

Social Media Program: How

• Social media program: a system of websites and services to achieve the following objectives

– Receive updates while in a social networking site

– Get feedback from citizens

– Allow them to participate in questions, debates and decisions.

– Maintain a friendly personality

Social Media System: How (Implementation)

• Social media system was created using these sites

– Facebook: Discussion boards and provides updates

– Twitter: Provides short updates to those using Twitter

– YouTube: Video hosting

– Flickr: Image hosting

– Polldaddy: Polls and surveys

– RSS pages: News feed capable of replacing Notifier

– (All but RSS and Polldaddy can be commented on)

• Personality is provided by the users updating and monitoring.

Facebook Page

Twitter Profile

Flickr Profile

Poll Examples

• One of these is embedded into the side bar of the website, so everyone visiting the site will see them.

RSS Feed (as seen in Firefox)

Current Usage:

• Facebook: 56 followers

• Twitter: 42 followers

• Flickr: 6,829 Views, 57 commented on, 52 flagged as another users favorite image.

• YouTube: 233 channel views, 114 upload views

– February 4th 2010 TO May 25th

• Polldaddy: 393 responses over 5 polls.

• RSS:5,452 hits in April 2010 for 8 Feeds

Summery

• System allows interaction with citizens, and promotes goodwill.

• System can be used to proactively get the public's opinion on a decision or idea.

• Multiple sites give the public multiple ways to get the information they are interested in.

• Multiple media formats allow information to be given in the most efficient and interesting means possible.

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