Mayor Steve Bach has made a big deal out of using social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, to communicate with Colorado Springs residents.
When he announced a town hall meeting for Wednesday night, Springs resident Justin Burns went on the mayor’s Facebook page and suggested that Twitter would be “a great Q & A tool” to use for the event.
At least 200 million people actively use Twitter.
“Thank you Justin, that’s a great idea,” was the response.
But the mayor’s Communications Office didn’t chirp a single tweet.
The Gazette asked Chief Communications Officer Cindy Aubrey how many of her employees were at the town hall meeting and why no one — including a recent addition with supposed social media expertise — didn’t tweet from the event.
Here’s her response:
For the Town Hall meeting, we had John Leavitt, Mary Scott, Laura Benjamin, Julie Smith, Bill Beagle and myself.
John – Front door greeter and usher – helped with set up.
Julie – Videographer – helped with set up.
Bill – Videographer
Laura – Collected questions, took pictures and co-emceed with Steve Cox – also helped with set up
Mary – Took notes to write a summary for Q & A – to get something posted today for those who were unable to attend
Cindy – Event producer
Given the hour and the event, was not sure how large of an audience we would have on Twitter. I have to think about return on investment. I have included an article about Twitter time – and listened to panel of three Twitter uber users today – they all concur that 8-5 is prime time. We will discuss and even post a poll to determine if we should have someone tweeting at all events – or if resources should be allocated differently. This was our first Town Hall, so we learned from it. Our goal is to provide excellent customer service always. If enough of our citizens would like to get tweets, we will provide. http://pinterest.com/pin/270286415106330645/
Cindy
Daniel I don’t understand the Pinterest link, what does the onfo there mean?
This blog post sparked the following letter from a young professional and prolific Twitter user to Mayor Steve Bach:
http://fauxleb.tumblr.com/post/18162476358/tweet-me-the-same-mayor-bach
When and if the mayor issues a response, I will do my best to get a copy and update readers.
Tim,
I’m trying to understand it myself. Cindy included that link in her email, so I shared it with everyone else.
I guess her point is that the best time to tweet if from noon to 6 p.m., so the question is: Does it make sense to engage people on Twitter after 6 p.m.?
I and a lot of people I know use Twitter after 6 p.m., but as she points out in the email, she has to think about her ROI.
I don’t know how much personnel time or money would exactly be required, but it seems to me that a town hall meeting could be economically streamed on the net(no matter what time it occurred), with little more than a fixed camera and web connection and tweeps could respond as inclined, real-time or later by twitter or email. Replies to tweets/emails could be real time on camera or after the fact as time allows. Somehow the ROI justification has an whiff of red herring.
I did ask about the livestream and the mayor’s office told me it was not possible due to certain music/footage being show in last night’s town hall. Apparently the licensing doesn’t cover that. -BT
The mayors official tweeter and facebook page builder who is paid annually close to 60 thousand dollars for facebook and twitter didnt do her job.
He nearly 60K for barely part time work apparently doesnt cover off hours tweeting.
Dont make it complicate people. This woman was a big volunteer on the mayors election campaign. She knows she doesnt have to do any real work because the mayor is a scumbag and his political payoffs are not contingent upon hard work.
Get that dead weight piece of garbage off the dole.
Since when is too much information, not a good thing. What is the total salaries of all those communication personal be there to set up a room? to hand pick questions for them? How much is Donna Nelson being paid to be a glorified event planner with Spirit of the Springs rally?
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