Social Media: How One City Opens the Evidence Black Box

• Author: Staci M. Zavattaro,Warren Kagarise
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12696
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• Date: 01 July 2017

486 Public Administration Review • July | August 2017

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 4, pp. 486–488. © 2016 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12696.

Social Media: How One City Opens the Evidence Black Box

Staci M. Zavattaro is associate

professor of public administration at the

University of Central Florida. She serves as

managing editor of

Administrative Theory &

Praxis.

Her work focuses on public branding,

social media, and administrative theory.

E-mail: staci.zavattaro@ucf.edu

Warren Kagarise is communications

coordinator for the City of Issaquah,

Washington. He is responsible for the

city ’ s engagement through traditional

and digital media tools, including the

city ’ s website, social media platforms,

and e-newsletter. Previously, he worked

as a journalist at

Issaquah Press,

the

community ’ s newspaper of record.

E-mail: warrenk@issaquah.gov

Editors’ Note: Government agencies at all levels are launching social media strategies, but one area that

remains elusive is data to show what is “working.” In this essay, the authors detail how the City of Issaquah,

Washington, developed, implemented, and now continually evaluates its social media programming.

– Kimberley R. Isett, Brian W. Head, and Gary VanLandingham

Kimberley R. Isett, Brian W. Head, and Gary VanLandingham , Editors

Warren Kagarise

City of Issaquah, Washington

Staci M. Zavattaro

University of Central Florida

“How do we know it ’ s working?” Public officials

often ask this question when it comes to measuring

social media outcomes, given the staff time, money,

and resources allocated to developing robust social

strategies that, ideally, foster increased government–

citizen interactions, transparency, and trust

(Campbell, Lambright, and Wells 2014 ). While

public organizations might struggle with what exactly

to measure, we offer here an example of how the City

of Issaquah, Washington, measures organizational

awareness, follower engagement, “word of mouse,”

and sentiment by combining what we call breadth and

depth measures. Breadth measures include numbers

of likes, shares, friends, or followers, while depth

measures provide evidence for emotional connections

made and dialogue achieved through social media.

The measures together provide a picture that moves

social media success beyond a one-dimensional,

economically driven “return on investment” view to

one that captures the necessary affective dimension

needed for social media engagement. This case, a

practice assessment between a practitioner and scholar

(Isett, Head, and VanLandingham 2016 ), offers

administrators guidance on how they can begin to

measure social media success in their organizations.

Social media are digital tools that can foster

collaboration, knowledge sharing, and dialogue.

There was hope that social media could create more

open and transparent government, yet some agencies

still struggle with this by pushing information

rather than interacting with followers (Mergel and

Bretschneider 2013 ). Given that organizations

invest time and money in social media strategies,

political leaders want a return on investment (ROI).

Problematically, there is no standard measure of ROI,

and the logic of cost versus benefits loses strength

when applied in a public sector setting, in which

the ideal focus is on engagement rather than profit.

Evidence needs to capture the relationship-oriented

nature of social media in addition to common

financial metrics.

The Case: How Issaquah Uses Evidence

beyond Traditional ROI

Issaquah is a city of 33,000 people located

15 minutes east of Seattle. The City-County

Communications and Marketing Association

recognized the city for its use of social media to

interact with residents and visitors. To reach the

broadest possible audience and increase opportunities

for dialogue, the city launched seven social media

platforms in 2013. In addition to Facebook, Twitter,

YouTube, and Instagram, the city also experimented

with platforms that were less well known at the time,

such as Pinterest. The city now maintains a presence

on 10 social media platforms. (All of the city ’ s social

sites can be found at http://issaquahwa.gov/index.

aspx?nid=1299.)

Measure 1: Organizational Awareness (Breadth)

Organizational awareness reflects the traditional

measures of social media presence, such as the number

of followers, number of page views, and number of

organizational mentions. Managers can easily track

these over time, as political officials will want to

know these measures to see “is this working?” Starting

from 2013, the city ’ s Facebook account has grown

to 5,926 followers and its Twitter account to 4,280

followers. In the first year of the launch, follower

Evidence in Public

Administration