Dealing With Social Media’s Engagement Decline by GovDelivery

DEALING WITH SOCIAL MEDIA’S ENGAGEMENT DECLINE Four tactics for getting your message to more of the right people, while navigating the rapid decline in organic social media reach.

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IF YOU HAVEN’T YET REALIZED THAT FACEBOOK AND TWITTER ARE THE TRUE OWNERS OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIENCE, FACEBOOK HAS SOUNDED THE ALARM BY ENDING ITS FREE RIDE. Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm has dropped organic page reach to 6% in the past two years, but predictably, that number will reach zero in no time. Twitter is following suit, implementing its own content filtering algorithm. And your organization is left with a virtual database of social media followers that may be here today and gone tomorrow. Add on the fact that you’ll have to pay each time you want to reach those followers who do remain, and driving your organization’s resources into social media has all but entirely lost its appeal.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS NO LONGER AN OPTION FOR CONSISTENTLY, EFFICIENTLY, AND COST-EFFECTIVELY ENGAGING CITIZENS AND CONTROLLING CONVERSATIONS WITH THE COMMUNITY YOUR ORGANIZATION HAS BUILT.

THIS GUIDE OFFERS TACTICS TO DEAL WITH THE DECLINE IN SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT, INCLUDING ALTERNATIVE AND MORE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION CHANNELS – SPECIFICALLY: EMAIL. Your organization can both build and own your database of email subscribers. And you can reach the entirety of those contacts at any time to achieve your organization’s objectives through effective, reliable communication with your audience. Also included in this guide is an example of public sector organizations successfully transitioning away from social media outlets to better engage with their communities, reaching more of their audience with their message.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS THE BANE OF THE BOOST WHAT YOU CAN DO • PRIORITIZING EMAIL FOR RELIABLE REACH • POST TO GROW YOUR DATABASE • TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PAGE TRAFFIC • DRIVE PARTICIPATION WITH CONTENTS REAL WORLD PROOF • RESULTS THE MORAL OF THE STORY

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THE BANE OF THE BOOST IF YOU’RE FRUSTRATED WITH FACEBOOK SEVERELY LIMITING YOUR ORGANIZATION’S ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE WHO LIKE YOUR PAGES, YOU’RE IN GOOD COMPANY. The free ride known as “organic reach” (the amount of people who naturally see your organization’s posts) is over. Facebook began throttling back the reach of these posts two years ago and it’s likely to continue its downward movement to zero. Officially, Facebook insists that its users are inundated with too much content. They claim they are increasingly filtering posts that show up in news feeds based on the data about thousands of factors in each user’s profile and their activity on Facebook. Content filtering is explained as an innocent move to ensuring

Facebook users receive relevant and

interesting content. Organizations like yours have spent precious resources getting Facebook users to Like their pages, and Facebook’s recent moves appear to be a money grab, forcing page owners to spend further precious resources to now speak to those Likes.

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ANY ORGANIZATION THAT WANTS TO OVERRIDE FACEBOOK’S CONTENT FILTERING SYSTEM AND PUSH THEIR POSTS IN FRONT OF A MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE LIKED THEIR ORGANIZATION’S PAGE CAN STILL DO SO, IF THEY’RE WILLING TO PAY. FACEBOOK’S TERM FOR PAYING TO HAVE CONTENT SEEN IS KNOWN AS A “BOOST.” The increase of paid (or “boosted”) content can quickly break the bank for an organization, and the only thing you can ensure is that users are seeing it – not necessarily interacting with it. But it’s Facebook’s party, as long as there are guests to entertain.

WHAT YOU CAN DO There’s no doubt that your organization has seen Facebook and Twitter interaction declining, and a limited return from your social media efforts. And that means it’s time to start building a social media exit strategy to deal with the ill effects of the changing face of social media, and seize control of your communications. Here are some immediate tactics your organization can use to change minds and practices:

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PRIORITIZE EMAIL FOR RELIABLE REACH What percentage of your Facebook audience do you reach with each post? If you have 1,000 fans, but can only reach 6-10% of them due to Facebook’s limited reach, is it worth investing time and resources to share information on Facebook? Can you ever count on it to reach people in an emergency? Are you sure you’re really getting your message out? With email, your organization can’t and won’t run into any of those walls that social media puts up. Public sector organizations that are building and nurturing an email list with the same 1,000 people can reach every person on that list every time they hit send. That direct line of communication is invaluable.

FACEBOOK REACH VS EMAIL REACH

Sending a Facebook Post

Reach 10%

Sending a Targeted Email

Reach 100%

It empowers your organization to continuously optimize your content, layout, or design and send communications to individuals in your community that drive increased engagement. Subject lines can be improved, and you can build on clarity and readability. But the first step is accepting that email must be your organization’s priority.

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POST TO GROW YOUR EMAIL DATABASE Paying to “boost” or sponsor content on social media outlets simply isn’t a practical method to increase viewership or engagement on a regular basis – even if it is less expensive than some other advertising channels. However, it might be worth an occasional effort if you use the feature to request the email addresses of people who have Liked your Facebook pages. These people have already signaled they want communications from you. Give them the opportunity to regularly receive more connected information, and there’s no question that some or more of your audience will take advantage of that. Here’s a few samples to get you thinking:

Then link to a landing or subscription page for your organization’s email options with a short, easy-to-complete form, that captures contact information and preferences. PAGE 7 | Dealing with Social Media’s Engagement Decline | LEARN MORE: GOVDELIVERY.COM ∙ EMAIL: INFO@GOVDELIVERY.COM

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PAGE TRAFFIC Let Facebook apps do the work for your organization. Many digital outreach providers (including GovDelivery) make it easy to add an app to your organization’ Facebook page that captures email addresses from a simple tab. Any visitors to your organization’s page will see this tab, and can quickly take advantage of becoming a lasting subscriber. Your organization should also add an email sign up link to your organization’s Twitter profile to capture traffic through that channel.

Then link to a landing or subscription page for your organization’s email options with a short, easy-to-complete form, that captures contact information and preferences.

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DRIVE PARTICIPATION WITH CONTESTS People love to get something in exchange for something else - with bragging rights and publicity on the line, ask your social media followers to share an experience, a picture, or a video, and ask them to submit an email address to enter. Entrants can also ask friends to vote on their uploaded entry, making contests a perfect way to reach the friends of your followers too, and potentially drive even more lasting email subscribers. Remember, entries that harness user-generated content (taking a picture, shooting a short video, sharing a story) drive more engagement, as photos and video content on Facebook or Twitter typically garner many more clicks and shares than plain text posts.

REAL WORLD PROOF To continue strengthening its reputation across their community, the City of Sacramento started leveraging their digital outreach platform to go beyond typical digital outreach push tactics and instead pull people in with its communications. In order to accomplish this, they’ve started doing the following:

• Leveraging blog post content for proactive automated alerts. • Allowing people to sign up for granular/relevant topics through their website. • Focusing on email, for a more reliable two-way communication tool than social media.

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Sacramento increased its focus on email as the primary driver of mass communications after stakeholder engagement with its Facebook page dropped drastically due to constantly changing social media algorithms.

“WE’VE REALLY KIND OF RE-DISCOVERED EMAIL AS ONE OF OUR STRONGEST TOOLS TO GET OUR MESSAGE OUT THERE. WHEN WE WERE PUTTING OUR BLOG TOGETHER, WE REALIZED THAT [EMAIL] WAS MORE EFFECTIVE THAN JUST RESPONDING ON SOCIAL MEDIA,” SAID CARLOS ELIASON, CREATIVE OUTREACH SPECIALIST FOR THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO. The city leveraged GovDelivery to help drive engagement with their web and blog content and get citizens more involved with the city’s programs. Sacramento uses email messages as the backbone of its communications, which range from marina updates, to messages on economic development initiatives, to alerts on water conservation efforts. The city also tracks and measures email performance to see what’s resonating with its target audience and to drive future digital outreach planning. “As a whole package, we get all of the digital communications bells and whistles, but we also have that great backend,” Eliason said. Additionally, internal customer service staff has played a key role in pushing the city to continue to produce better content for citizens.

RESULTS With the launch of its website redesign and corresponding blog, the City of Sacramento used GovDelivery to expand the reach of the content being produced by each department. The city now utilizes its quick communications system to automatically send out email digests of new blog posts, pulling in blog readership instead of relying on organic web traffic or social media.

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RESULTS

“[WITHOUT THOSE EMAILS] THE BLOG WOULD HAVE SAT STAGNANT AND NOT BE SHARED ACROSS OTHER PLATFORMS,” ELIASON SAID. “California, and Sacramento specifically, is in the midst of a historic drought right now. We’ve been using GovDelivery along with the blog to get information out about saving 20% water as mandated by council,” Eliason said.

THE RESULT? OPEN RATES AND ANALYTICS FOR WATER CONSERVATION MESSAGES ARE HIGH, AND ON A MORE ROUTINE BASIS, SACRAMENTO USES ITS COMMUNICATIONS TO DRIVE INCREASED EVENT REGISTRATION AND ATTENDANCE.

Recently, the city posted to the blog and sent out a corresponding email to publicize a City Archives event. The event then saw a substantial bump in registration. Sacramento also uses GovDelivery to drive increased views and downloads of multimedia content. The city posted a video on a day in the life of a code enforcement officer on Facebook, and it garnered only 300 views. Later, the city decided to repost the video to the blog and send out an email on it. The video’s popularity skyrocketed to more than 1500 views an increase of 400%. Further proof of the effect email can have, that social media simply can’t.

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THE MORAL OF THE STORY So what is the moral of the story? The lesson is simple, really:

KEEP USING SOCIAL MEDIA AS A SECONDARY CHANNEL, BUT NOTHING MORE. Relying solely on social media to build an engaged community is risky business. You have to play by their rules, and when they change those rules as Facebook and Twitter continue to do, your traffic and engagement can plummet – and if it doesn’t, you’re paying for it. Of course it’s smart to engage with your audience where they are by taking advantage of social media, but counting on it as a valid and primary connection with your community is simply bad practice.

THE SUREST WAY TO PROTECT YOUR CONNECTIONS AND ENGAGE YOUR COMMUNITY IS WITH EMAIL.

An email address sticks with a person in ways that social media simply can’t, and it’s a form of contact your organization truly owns. If you’re interested in improving your organization’s digital communications strategy, significantly growing your audience, and engaging your community over an extended period of time – let us know. GovDelivery continues to serve over 1,000 public sector organizations around the globe, and we can help serve yours too. Call us at (866) 276-5583 or email info@govdelivery.com today.

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