Use of Social Media for the Montgomery County, Office of Community Use of Public Facilities (CUPF) Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Qianye Yang, and I am a second-year public policy student. My project is “Use of Social Media for the MoCo, Office of Community Use of Public Facilities”. And the Office is also known as CUPF. Even before I start, I would like to say thank you to people who have helped me a lot. Ginny Gong, Liz Habermann, Ron Maxson from the Rockville Office, and Eric Rasch from Silver Spring Civic Building. Qianye Yang May 16th 2017

Introduction CUPF’s role Need for social media Research questions First, the introduction part, and four topics will be covered. CUPF’s role Need for social media Research questions Methodology

The Role of CUPF CUPF issues use permits for public access to community facilities at scheduled times after business hours, and at affordable rates. MoCo Public Schools Grass Fields Silver Spring Civic Building CUPF implements policies set by the Interagency Coordinating Board (ICB), which is made up of the very prominent members of the County. County Executive Board of Education County Council CUPF issues use permit for the community to use public facilities, such as public schools, grass fields, and the Silver Spring Civic Building. The community can use them after the business hours at affordable rates. CUPF implements policies set by ICB, the Interagency Coordinating Board. And the Board is made up of the very prominent members of the County. Some are appointed by the County Executive, and some are designated by the Board of Education, and the County Council. When we think about CUPF’S work, ICB should be a key factor.

Need for Social Media Reach out to community Deliver information Timely and frequently To wider users Reach out to community Dispel misconceptions Respond to customers’ inquiries efficiently In the process of working, CUPF finds it necessary to use social media. First, it wants to deliver information timely and frequently to wider users. Now, it has a monthly newsletter, and alerts to the subscribers. But compared to social media, the current two tools cannot meet CUPF’s need. Second, CUPF wants to reach out to community to dispel misconceptions. Now, many customers think it easy to use county facilities, like booking a seat on an airplane. However, to get things done, CUPF needs to think and do more, such as considering the conditions of a school. Third, social media also makes it possible for CUPF to.

Research Questions What social media platforms shall we use? How many employees should be designated towards social media? How much time is needed per day? How to improve social media performance? (strategies or tactics) How to respond to inquiries? But how to do use social media? Here, we have some questions to answer? Such as: And to answer these questions, we did the social media project. It is like a benchmarking study. By looking at how similar jurisdictions use social media, we hope we can learn something.

Methodology Interviews Fulton County, GA DC Public Schools, Montgomery County Public Schools, Baltimore County Public Schools Montgomery College MoCo, Office of Consumer Protection, Department of Recreation Social media pages (Facebook and Twitter) of the jurisdictions interviewed Social media policies I need to mention that Fulton County is far from here, but it is included because of the similarity in the size and population.

Findings Social media platforms to use Staff designation options Time needed Performance Improvement inquiries or comments responding

Social Media Platforms to Use Social media platforms used by the jurisdictions interviewed Facebook Twitter Instagram & Flickr & Pinterest (photos, pictures, and flyers) Blog (news) YouTube (videos) As you can see, jurisdictions use all kinds of social media platforms. Facebook and Twitter are the most common ones. YouTube, possibly in the future, we would like to make some videos in foreign languages for our customers. So, YouTube would make things better.

Staff Designation Options Responsibility Access to the accounts 1 Social media person To post, monitor, and respond Yes Assistant To help when the social media person cannot do the job timely 2 To draft, and monitor No The current IT staff To check, post, and respond or transfer 3 To provide topics and information, monitor, and respond Contractor To post The second option is similar to what we do with the newletter.

Time Needed Three to four hours per day DCPS: large amounts of issues to deal with Fulton County: six social media platforms One to two hours per day is the most common situation

Performance Improvement Make more people know the Office’s social media pages: Add linkages to the pages On the Office’s website In employee’s email signature Keep posting contents frequently with quality Make use of ”events” Festivals, trends on social media, or add “#” Check before posting Evaluate the performance bi-weekly or monthly What kind of posts gain more “likes”, “shares”, “comments” and “reaches” When to post? The contents Keep increasing the “good” posts Set quantitative goals to increase followers annual and monthly The second one is what is being done at the civic building, festivals and a lot of topics.

Respond to Inquiries Respond directly via social media The way to respond varies Respond directly via social media A form for customers to fill in Employee’s contact information Reply with “Thank you for the inquiry” + related staff’s title or name + phone number or email address

Challenges How to deal with some public comments? Whom are we speaking for?

Public Comments on Social Media Negative comments or complaints are totally fine Concern I some issues are beyond CUPF’s control CUPF depends on school site staff to do what needs to be done Concern II: CUPF responses need to be sensitive to interests of many stakeholders Some responses to issues may be too personal or sensitive to post publicly Is it possible to screenshot how we answer such kinds of questions and share it on social media? A “Q & A” section on social media?

Whom Are We Speaking for? So many stakeholders School staff More than 5,000 user groups Parks ICB members …… When a response if put down in writing, it means we are speaking for all of them when that may or may not be the case. 

Questions? That’s my presentation, and thank you for listening. Do you have any questions?