15 social media tips for municipal parks and recreation departments. Emphasis on Facebook, but also mentions Twitter, Yelp, Foursquare, and others.

1. 15 SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS
FOR PARKS & REC IN 30
MINUTES
Carla Pendergraft
Carla Pendergraft Associates
www.carlapendergraft.com

2. About You
 How many are using social media personally?
 How many are using social in your job?
 How many have restrictions on use of social in
job?

3. About You
 How many are frustrated with how municipal
culture is the polar opposite of the culture of
the Internet and social media?
 Change-averse vs. embracing change
 Closed culture vs. open culture

4. Municipal Culture Roadblocks
 Social media may be seen as superfluous to
the mission
 Virus dangers
 Open Records, Open Meetings Acts
 Municipal managers often behind the curve on
technology

5. Your Mission
 To let go of the need for your city to “get it”
 To be the evangelist for social media
 To embrace and become comfortable with
constant change in the technologies
 To commit to lifelong self-teaching
 To purchase and use technology on your own
in order to learn it (e.g. iPhones)

6. Some Innovative Examples
 Pearland PARD Facebook Page
 Most posts are by citizens, not staff
 People use it like a rec center bulletin board
 Looking for basketball partners
 People asking questions of staff
 Maintenance complaints
 Dates of recurring events
 Requests

8. 15 SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS
FOR PARKS AND
RECREATION

9. 1. Ask for input from citizens.
 Name that park!
 Report maintenance problems – ask citizens
to be your eyes and ears
 Where should the next park be?
 What else?

10. 2. Conduct a photo contest
 Upload photos of their favorite park, activity,
etc.
 Include stipulation that you can use their
photos in your publications
 Ask them to upload directly to your Flickr
group, or your Facebook page if you prefer

11. 3. Create a group on Flickr,
encourage people to post photos of
your parks.
VisitAustinTx
invites you to
share your
photos of
Austin in their
Flickr group
pool, via
Twitter.

12. Round Rock’s Flickr Group -
>1,000 photos

13. 4. Video contest
 Video Contest - “Tell us how you have fun in
(your city’s) parks”
 Comedy is encouraged!
 Must be family-friendly
 Embed the best ones in your website.

14. Plano, Texas Parks and
Recreation
47 videos
posted by
the City on
YouTube

15. 5. Decentralize posting
responsibilities
 Have a team of people from your staff do the
posting.
 This creates a variety of voices
 Helps keep the content fresh and new
 Arlington PARD “signs” their posts: “Gary-APRD”

16. 6. Post Before and After Photos
 Before the flood and after the flood
 Before the park renovations and afterward
 Before the skate park and after
 Always have people in the shot! It’s not about the
parks, it’s about the people.

17. 7. Link all your web presences
 Home page of your Parks website should have
links to all your social media pages
 This is where people go to get the whole
picture
 Cross-post these links. On your Facebook
page, have links to all the others and so on.

18. 8. Conduct a Contest
 Ask people to tweet about one of your events
for a chance to win a prize.
 Example: Go to @wacopard and tweet, “I can’t
wait for #pawsinthepark in Waco this
Saturday!”
 Benefits: you get publicity for your event
among all their followers, Google will pick it
up, and the hash tag will indicate the level of
interest in the event and prize.

19. 9. Incent people to friend and follow
you
 Example: “Become a Facebook friend of the
Waco Parks and Rec Department. Each
month we will give away a prize. New winners
will be chosen exclusively from our fan base.”

20. 10. Monitor key searches on
Twitter.
 Use Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, etc. to create a
saved search
 “Waco Park” or “City of Waco” or “Cameron
Park” might be some typical ones
 Monitor the use of these terms and respond
where appropriate.

21. 11. Encourage Hashtags
 Decide what hashtags make sense for your
department, and start publicizing them. That
way, you can monitor the conversation and
give people a way to express themselves that
is less random than if they make them up
themselves.
 Examples: #wacoparks, #texasredsfestival,
etc.

22. 12. Use Foursquare
 Foursquare is a location-based social
networking site.
 Foursquare cross posts to Twitter and its
traffic is becoming hard to ignore.
 “Do you manage this venue? Claim here”
 Claim your listing, correct the information, post
tips, create specials

23. 13. Claim your offices on Google
Places
 Go to: www.google.com/places
 Will allow people to find your offices more
efficiently
 Positions your offices on Google Maps

24. 14. Use Yelp
 Review your parks and points of interest
 Encourage others to do the same

25. Yelp.com – “park” near 78701
Great job, Austin!
Many reviews of
Austin parks.

26. 15. Monitor your reputation and
online reviews
 Do regular Google searches on your key
terms and phrases
 Set a Google alert at www.google.com/alerts/
 Correct misinformation where you can
 Encourage positive reviews

27. Bonus Tip – Google Maps
 You can create custom Google maps of all
your recreational venues
 Embed them in your website
 Easily update them with changes
 Create different maps for different things

28. Waco CVB Recreation page
Google
map of
recreation-
al venues
in Waco