Social media is a lot of fun because it’s so new and no one seems to have a real process worked out for it just yet. The focus I am pushing with our Facebook page is interaction with the public, instead of the simple pushing out of news we have been doing with our websites.

Of course, we’ll need a user base to interact with so we’re working on getting the word out about the page and have targeted local media, as our main target audience is the county population. The Cincinnati Enquirer gave us a very helpful write up:

Clermont County government is now reaching out to citizens by utilizing Facebook, a social networking Web site that has over 350 million active users worldwide. Citizens can go to the Web site www.facebook.com/ClermontCounty for current information on a variety of events and issues that impact those living and working in the county and the region. “Visitors to the Facebook site can check out the latest local news releases, event calendars, videos, and pictures,” said Clermont County Communications Director Kathy Lehr, who updates the site, along with Clermont Web Master Tom Doepker. “We encourage the community to become fans of the site to keep posted on all the exciting things going on locally,” she said. “Social media is another great way to communicate with the citizens of Clermont County,” added Doepker.

Read the full article here and – more importantly – become our fan on Facebook!

“…we are doing a research project in which we are trying to learn why a few American counties stand out in using web technologies to inform citizens and provide better services. We started with a random sample of counties from across the nation and then learned that a handful of that sample are doing much more than most counties of comparable size.

Clermont County is certainly one of the very best “high performers” that we have identified. In a separate research project I have been teaming with a recent past president of the national Association of Government Accountants to study exceptional reports to citizens on the performance of their governments. It is evident that Clermont County is also a standout in that regard. I congratulate you and wish you well in continuing to be a leader in using technologies to better inform your citizens.

Sincerely,

Earle Klay

W. Earle Klay, Professor
Askew School of Public Administration and Policy

Download the full PDF of the awards.

I am pleased to announce that we have added another site to our Content Management System here in Clermont, ClermontSupportsKids.org. A bright redesign and some warm, engaging shots of children will really help to personalize their important mission.

While I did find some statistics (largely high-level web numbers), what I really found was people beginning to embrace the unknown.

It’s clear that online marketing is the way of the future, but there is no successful business model as of yet. This is why it is taking a lot of firms a long time to wade in to online advertising. My point that online advertising has to be credible was backed in both articles. Below is a quote from a Knowledge @ Wharton piece:

“How do you make the Corolla seem irreverent? You can’t fake that; you actually have to be that way,” Jonah Berger, Wharton marketing professor

The Numbers:

• In February of 2008, New York-based eMarketer released survey findings that 53% of all Americans (154 million people) will watch video online in 2008.
• General Motors plans to spend half of its $3 billion ad budget through 2011 online and through one-on-one marketing.
• H& R Block’s Truman Greene has had over 560,000 views on YouTube and has 160 subscribers. He has 3500 MySpace friends.

Global Neighbourhoods had a really good interview with Paula Drum, H & R Block’s VP of marketing for digital tax solutions. She makes some interesting points on how they are working with social media, including:

• They see social media as something just getting under way and are committing to it long-term.
• They do a lot of mini-test and “micro-measurements”. Keeping the pieces small allows them to scrap bad ideas or change mediocre ones almost on-the-fly.
• While they had a broad roll-out of the campaign, what they found was that they should have gone even bigger, leveraging their content across even more communities.
• They were forthright about Truman Greene being a manufactured character, giving him the freedom to simply be amusing and engaging. As long as they were honest, people didn’t seem to mind.

But the best part was a quote Ms. Drum had towards the end of the article:

“Finally, it is important to have a level of sincerity about the community. Brands that are not sincere and transparent in their motives are going to receive a negative reaction.”

In viral advertising, as in life, honesty is the best policy!