Social media in government: how to handle a mishap.

• Position: Best Practices

The information in this article is from a report by the New Zealand Government Information Services Department of Internal Affairs.

Social media mishaps--such as when a message is misinterpreted or when there is backlash from a social media community--can cause damage to a government's online reputation and need to be managed carefully. An important difference between social media and traditional media is speed; therefore, working through such issues requires new approaches, judgments, and responses to work.

This article starts with the "business as usual" activities a jurisdiction should undertake to prevent issues from arising, and discusses ways to establish an early warning system. It then provides guidelines for dealing with an even. It discusses post-event analysis, which is an opportunity to review and amend processes and procedures as necessary. Finally, the article gives some tips on what should be done after the event in order to move forward.

TYPES OF MISHAPS

Governments face a number of potential social media challenges:

* Directed Abuse. Abuse directed at the agency or an individual at the agency.

* Leak/Early Release. Information that is shared before its official release date, either maliciously or by mistake.

* Unwanted Intrusion. Entering into a social media conversation when the audience does not want the jurisdiction's participation.

* Heated Topic. Discussion of a topic with strongly opposed viewpoints.

* Misinterpreted Message. A message that is intended one way but interpreted in another, creating confusion or ill will.

* Misaligned Expectations. The expectation of the audience is different from the expectations of the agency.

* Hack or Wrong Account Posting. An account's security is compromised and inappropriate messages are posted, or a user accidentally posts on the agency account rather than his or her personal account.

* Questionable Humor. Humor that the entire audience might not find funny, and might instead find inappropriate.

* Insensitive Statement or Opinion. A posting that the might be offensive to at least a certain portion of the audience.

Exhibit 1 illustrates shows the relative difficulty of resolving these issues and the impact they have on brand and reputation. The four outlying problems--hacking or a wrong account posting (low impact/easy to remedy), directed abuse (low impact/hard to remedy), insensitive statement or opinion (high impact/easy to remedy), and leak or early release (high impact/hard to remedy)--require specific responses. The center cluster of issues--unwanted intrusion, heated topic, misinterpreted message, and misaligned expectations--have moderate impacts that are moderately easy or difficult to remedy. These issues are often challenging for governments because there are no specific rules and processes to follow. The employees who respond to social media on behalf of the jurisdiction need to rely on a set of general behavioral guidelines and judgments made at the time. The diagram also identifies the questionable humor issue as low on the ease of remedy scale, but having a moderate impact on reputation.

BEFORE THE EVENT

Putting basic business as usual processes in place is the most effective way of avoiding social media mishaps, The best way to be aware of what people are saying and when is to spend time monitoring and listening, so checking in on as many platforms as...