Social Media

USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov have been engaging with the public on social media long before Mayor Cory Booker underscored the need at this year’s SXSW. In January 2010, we began to respond to questions and comments on our Facebook and Twitter accounts. We never advertised the service, but people naturally

Michelle Chronister

Jul 02, 2013

Guest post by Mario Damiani, Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) at the Department of Labor. ODEP spearheads the Social Media Accessibility Working Group within the Federal Social Media Community of Practice. The working group recently released a toolkit for agencies to make their content more accessible for citizens with disabilities, including recommendations from agencies

Mario Damiani

Jun 26, 2013

Are you a small or even one-deep government social media team who wonders how with limited resources you can still deliver the program citizens need? Do you have a larger team but still want to know how you can roll up your sleeves and make a change? If either

Justin Herman

Jun 12, 2013

YouTube Releases New Features

YouTube recently upgraded to the new One Channel design. The new design emphasizes responsive layouts for mobile devices, tablets, desktops and laptops, and TVs. A single banner on a white background replaces a customizable background and color scheme. YouTube recommends using a single 2560 x 1440 px image that fits

Jason Kelly

Jun 07, 2013

Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report

Techcrunch. com reports Mary Meeker’s much anticipated annual Internet Trends report released at the D11 Conference last week shows astounding growth regarding use of smartphones and tablets. Among the highlights; Mobile Internet users have reached 1.5 billion, up from 1.1 billion a year ago,

Jacob Parcell

Jun 05, 2013

Twitter’s Two Step Verification Process

To enhance security, Twitter now offers two-step verification. The release of the new feature follows several high-profile account breaches – including a false tweet sent from the Associated Press’s Twitter account in April. If you chose to enable the two-step verification feature, Twitter sends a text message with a unique code to a cell phone that must be

Jason Kelly

May 31, 2013

Apple’s iOS Terms of Service & Developer Program License Agreement

The Apple iTunes App store is the only marketplace for downloading apps for the Apple platform. In order to put apps in the iTunes store, agencies or their contractors have signed agreements with Apple to use Apple Software to produce mobile apps that can later

May 30, 2013

NIH Twitter Chats: Collaborations Multiply Successes

Twitter Chat discussing anxiety, stress, and complementary health practices December 18, 2012

Lisa Nelson

May 10, 2013

The hacking of an Associated Press news account on Twitter this week, and its fallout, underscored the need for agencies

Justin Herman

Apr 25, 2013

Social media is transforming how government engages with citizens and how it delivers service. Agencies are using social media to share information and deliver service more quickly and effectively than ever before. Increasingly, these tools are also being used for predictive and sentiment analysis—using the vast

Justin Herman

Apr 19, 2013

Using Gamification in Federal Projects

Gamification is the practice of using game technology or design principles for something that is not inherently game-like. Some examples include: bronze, silver, and gold badges for reading a set number of books, progress bars in online surveys, leader boards for top grades on an exam, or rewards for attending in-person events. As gamification projects are

Mike Kruger

Nov 30, 2012

#SocialGov Summit Highlights Accessibility Challenges

The recent #SocialGov Summit on accessibility of government social media raised emerging issues faced by agencies in their effort to make sure the information citizens need is communicated to them when and how they need it. For many, the most eye opening exercise was simply to hear their tweets read back to them through an iPhone VoiceOver screen reader,

Justin Herman

Nov 30, 2012

In September, the General Services Administration (GSA) launched a registry of all federally-managed social media accounts. We want to explain a little of the history behind the registry and talk about a few things that make it a truly remarkable innovation from GSA. Before I start, I want to emphasize when I say “we” from

Jed Sundwall

Gray Brooks

Nov 19, 2012

“Dark Social” media took the web by storm this week, unveiling to many the shadows in measuring your social media impact. This accounts for the majority of your traffic and yet lives untraced where standard metrics fear to tread (or simply cannot) — places like email and instant

Justin Herman

Oct 19, 2012

Today at the #SocialGov Summit for Social Media Week DC, we’ll showcase two new initiatives for citizens, agencies and small businesses that help unlock the full potential of social data for the next generation of government services and engagement. Leading innovators in government will also be on hand to show

Justin Herman

Feb 19, 2012

News and Events on Social Media