Pacific Strategies

Government Agencies Grappling With Social Media Policies

An article in today’s Los Angeles Times examines the challenges facing California local governments as they attempt to integrate social media into their public information efforts:

Fearing liability from posted comments, Redondo Beach put the city’s Facebook page on hold in August. Yolo County in Northern California adopted a social media policy in April, and San Francisco abandoned its effort to archive posts on its Facebook page.

“Everybody sees the benefit and there’s an early rush and then you begin seeing the problems that come up,” said Redondo Beach City Atty. Michael Webb. “Law by its very nature progresses much slower than technology … we need to let the law catch up with the technology.”

In a National Assn. of Counties survey of member counties, 41% said they used Twitter and 36% said they had a Facebook page. Yet almost 80% said they had no social media policies. But that may be changing.

Public records law and other factors necessarily make using social media somewhat more complicated for public agencies, but it is worth the investment. Pacific Strategies puts its extensive social media experience to work assisting local agencies in crafting social media policies and development public communications strategies that make the best use of social media.  Contact us at matt@pacific-strategies.com for more information on how we can help you successfully utilize social media.