The City of Tempe has implemented a social media program to communicate with audiences as traditional media outlets have declined. The program aims to provide accurate information through various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs. It seeks to match the fun, smart and progressive personality of Tempe. About 10 staff manage the accounts and provide expert content on topics they cover. The social media presence allows Tempe to continue reaching audiences in a friendly tone while also addressing issues like infrastructure repairs during emergencies. The program has grown Tempe's online audiences and generated feedback to improve city services.

1. THE CITY OF TEMPE SOCIAL MEDIA PROGRAM

2. Social media has become a primary communications tool for Tempe With newspapers becoming smaller and covering fewer stories and stretched TV crews, it became an opportunity for us to become our own communication outlet. We provide written and visual stories with accurate information to our audiences. We also greatly cut our advertising budget, like most other cities. Social media has allowed us to continue to reach our audiences. WHY SOCIAL MEDIA FOR TEMPE?

5. COMPONENTS Social Media Accounts YouTube http://www.youtube.com/Tempe11Video Facebook www.tempe.gov/cityoftempe Twitter @tempegov -frequent user of Twitpic Posterous http://www.tempegov.posterous.com/ Blogspot.com http://blogwithonnie.blogspot.com/ ; http://www.tempemanager.blogspot.com/ Twitpic, Twitterfall and many other items are used. We manage our Twitterfeed with CoTweet.

9. SIDE EFFECTS … People who would never call City Hall let us know about burned out light bulbs on basketball courts, potholes in public parking lots They Tweet about seeing our public officials in public places They treat us like friends, not Big Brother. They treat us like heroes when we fix something fast.

11. YouTube 80,500 views Facebook +/- 1500 ‘likes’ Twitter +/- 2,800 followers Posterous NEW – will launch in February Odd stat: we get about one RT per Twitter post and about three comments per Facebook post. Our most popular YouTube video is a spoof about a yellow slide and a city pool. It has more than 11,500 views. THE STATS

12. WHAT’S NEXT? Don’t know yet. We will use whatever mechanisms come out that allow us to communicate with our audiences more easily and are conducive to public sector use. Want to share this with someone? Download this presentation at slideshare.net/tempegov