GovWire

A playbook is a notional range of possible tactics in any sphere of activity, and part of a good social media strategy that meets the needs of an organisation. This will be a useful resource for anyone managing social media accounts in the UK government.

We discuss:

• setting objectives
• social listening
• community management
• creating accessible content
• social media at events
• evaluation
• tips and advice
• our own approaches with examples

GDS approaches social media in the same way as it builds its services: to meet user needs.

Were interested in connecting with the people who care about what were doing. We want to share what weve learned from our work and meet the needs of our audience in a prompt and effective way.

If you want to get in touch with us about anything you read here, tweet @gdsteam or email socialmedia@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.

The case for social media

In the UK, Facebook has more than 44 million users. There are more than 14 million UK users who scroll through Twitters news feed. LinkedIn gains 2 new users every second. There are nearly 24 million Instagram users in the UK.

Snapchat has notched up more than 18 million users in the UK and over a quarter of smartphone users in the UK are using TikTok. YouTube watchers constitute 95% of the global internet population.

Thats to say nothing of the new platforms that continue to emerge each year, and the global events that affect social media usage (PDF, 652KB). While the use of social media by younger age groups is unsurprisingly high, initiatives that increase digital confidence such as the Digital Eagles programme may be contributing to more older people using social media.

From open policy-making through to customer service and user insight, social media is a valuable tool for the public sector.

Making the most of social media

To ensure youre making the most of social media, its important to undertake planning and research to:

• establish the objectives of your channels
• identify your audience
• build your strategy

Social media campaigns should follow the OASIS model - a framework used across government to ensure campaigns are planned, implemented and evaluated effectively.

Weve outlined some steps to follow so youll end up with a clear social media strategy that will allow you to demonstrate the benefits of social media to your organisation.

Establishing objectives

Objectives may change over time but should be defined at the start. They underpin your social media strategy and inform your key performance indicators (KPIs). Start by identifying the role you want social media to play across your organisation and ensure objectives are measurable.

At GDS we use social media to inform and engage. We want to raise awareness of the digital transformation of government services. We also want to share best practice across government. We use several channels to do this.

Social media listening

Finding conversations that matter to you, but might not include your account (for example, when you are not tagged) through social listening can help to shape your objectives, give you a deeper understanding of your audience, and help determine your approach.

Government departments use different commercial social media listening tools to monitor for specific mentions of words or phrases to learn what people are saying online. Pricing models vary from product to product, and often depend on the volume of mentions you want to analyse or the number of user accounts you need.

Social listening insight can be used to:

• plan a social media strategy and inform its focus and processes
• provide a real-time overview of the perception and performance of government services, which enables product teams to react quickly and community managers to provide swift responses to users
• evaluate campaigns and programmes of work

If youre interested in using social listening tools, we recommend chatting to your Information Assurance or Data Protection team early in the procurement process. They can help you to make sure that how you want to use social listening, and the supplier youve chosen, are both compliant with relevant legislation.

The Cabinet Office has a specialised Media Monitoring Unit that supports government departments with their monitoring and evaluation queries.

Audience insight

Monitoring tools provide audience insights including demographic data, location and interests.

Each social media platform has built-in analytics for insights into your audience. Some will give you more detailed insights that can help you to reach new communities and improve how you communicate with your existing followers.

Facebook and Instagram are owned by the same company so its not surprising they offer similar analytics, such as telling you what time your users are online, which can be useful when deciding when to post content.

LinkedIns analytics can tell you which industries your users work in, their seniority and job functions. This can help you to create more effective and targeted company updates.

Twitters native analytics tools for business accounts allow you to identify new or potential audiences for paid campaigns using interest and follower look-alike targeting as well as traditional demographic targeting like age or gender. Twitter iterates its interest categories but, at any given time, they can include anything from an interest in music, film or sports through to life stage interests like parenthood or being a student.

Follower look-alike targeting allows you to create a target audience by identifying accounts who attract a similar audience to who you want to reach. For example, if you were running a campaign to reach people with a particular health condition, you might explore follower look-alike targeting around accounts linked to specialist charities or support groups related to the condition.

You can also target using language on Twitter but right now, this isnt comprehensive and doesnt include Welsh.

You can also use audience insights to identify influencers and opportunities for collaboration.

Influencer engagement

Influencers can help you reach a bigger audience and create more engagement online but remember - its important to only partner with people who match your organisations values and aims.

In the past, when teams worked with low-to-no budgets, networks of influencers were used to help boost profiles or amplify campaigns. Now, more influencers are treating their blogs and channels as a primary source of income, with approximately 30% of influencer content receiving some form of financial compensation (PDF, 761KB). This might make unpaid partnerships rarer.

The influencer industry is predicted to more than quadruple by 2024, so expect influencers to play an ongoing role in integrated, multi-channel PESO (Paid, Earned, Shared,

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