Dakota Valley Recycling/ City of Burnsville Social Media Outreach

1. Dakota Valley Recycling/City of Burnsville Social Media Outreach Leigh Behrens Recycling Assistant Dakota Valley Recycling (City of Eagan, Apple Valley & Burnsville) www.DakotaValleyRecycling.org November 18, 2010

2. Overview of A Social Media Campaign • Questions: asking the 5 Ws to target success • Who(is the target?): the residents & businesses we serve • What(is the message?): recycling/sustainability info • Where(is our audience?): using the internet • When(are we starting?): [set kick-off date here] • Why(use social media?): to disseminate information to sections of our audience we may be missing • Answering the Ws, then asking How: • How(do we implement this campaign?):

3. Current Social Media Campaign Twitter • www.twitter.com/DVRecycling • started in 12/2009 (nearly 1 year!) • Use HootSuite (www.hootsuite.com) to manage Facebook • Utilize the City of Burnsville fan page due to existing “fan” base • www.facebook.com/cityofburnsville • Added as administrator 1/2010 YouTube • www.youtube.com/DakValleyRecycling • Created account & uploaded 1st video 7/2010 Currently, there is no social media policy for Burnsville staff beyond our internet usage policy. However, this may change when our Comm. Dept finalizes its draft.

4. Social Media 101: A Conversation • Write 140 character messages called “tweets” • People subscribe to your message feed by subscribing or “following” • People can re-post your tweets, called “re-tweet” (RT) • People can respond to your tweets by mentioning you in their tweets, using an @ symbol (@DVRecycling) • An individual has a profile page, but an organization, product or public figures has a fan page • On your fan page, you can post status messages, photos, events, links and videos • If an individual is interested, they will “like” your page • Individuals that like your page will see your updates on their newsfeed • Upload videos to your YouTube channel • You see how many people viewed your video • Viewers can subscribe to your channel, which alerts them to new videos • Viewers can comment on your video, add it to their favorites, or respond with their own video

5. Our Social Media Reach at a Glance

6. Successes • Social media outreach is seemingly most effective at connecting with local businesses • Businesses are one of our more challenging sections to reach, so this was a very positive discovery • We have integrated our “traditional” outreach (newsletters, phone hotline, website, etc) with social media outreach, which has increased access to our services • Posted our recycling events on Facebook • Have gotten @ questions via Twitter that we reply to • We have saved money on event publicity by using web and social media promotion instead of direct mailing

7. Challenges and Hindsight • Maintaining Twitter posting frequency • Hootsuite.com mitigated this problem to an extent • Connecting our social media efforts to our target audience: local residents using the internet • Promoting on the Burnsville Facebook page has helped, and we expect the new YouTube page to add to this as well • Apple Valley and Eagan do not have Facebook fan pages, which makes their residents harder to reach • Would have been better to plan a launch date for a coordinated social media outreach campaign • Initially should have had more click-backs to our website as a means of promoting our services in more detail • Should have set up analytics on our website to more efficiently track success of each social media technique Challenges Hindsight

8. Why should you use Social Media? • Social media gives our residents & businesses access to our services in a new way • The internet is becoming more Americans’ preferred means of obtaining information • 80% of U.S. adults (18+) use the internet regularly • 70% of those adults use social media • Coinciding with this trend is the fact that less Americans prefer newspapers and other “traditional” media for obtaining information • There is a conversation about your organization going on NOW

9. The problem with avoiding social media • Social media users want to have conversations about the products, services, agencies, businesses, organizations and people they care about • These conversations will happen regardless of whether you are present • When you are not involved in the conversation, you lose the opportunity to engage your audience • Popular example: • Coca-Cola Co. and Facebook • Another example:

10. How to Start: Two Steps • Listen • Find out what’s being said about your agency • Listen for 3-4 weeks to understand the conversation, information-sharing and ground rules in your market • Create and Engage • Start an account with the application you’ve determined will be most effective • Start creating content • Use Hootsuite to manage dissemination of content • Pay attention to what your audience wants and deliver it!

11. Thank you!