Before you begin downloading, installing and customising, take a look at the principles for public sector social media, these will give you a pretty good overview of the operating framework for any social media platform in government.

The blog

I am an unabashed fan of WordPress. Why? Firstly, because it is open source. The philosophy of open source software is, I believe, a natural fit for the public sector. It also has an amazing support network, and an array of functionality that is without equal. And it is dead simple to setup and run.

You will need to install it on a server: the current version requires PHP version 4.2 or greater and MySQL version 4.0 or greater. Talk to your IT people about what you are currently running, or are paying a provider for.

Support tools

The basics

Once you have installed it you, or someone you contract, will need to theme it, ie., give it an appropriate look and feel. Even if you don’t do this yourself, you will want, from time-to-time, to tweak the way the site looks, and this is where these tools will come in handy.

If possible, run Firefox as your web browser. Not only because it renders pages accurately, but because – like WordPress – there are a range of incredibly useful tools that have been developed for it, including a few that will make working with your theme so much easier. Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar are two extensions that I would recommend you install to help you run your blog effectively and to the requisite web standards.

If all this is starting to sound like too much hard work, it’s not really. While it is not necessary to understand HTML as WordPress has a solid wysiwyg editor, if you are interested in social media then it would be a good idea to get your head around it.

As well as the basics, you will also require a little more social functionality:

• a web statistic package, like AW Stats
• an RSS feed statistics analyzer
• Plugins for subscriptions, tagging and bookmarking (I use subscribe2, simpletags and sociable, respectively)

For the monster list of WordPress plugins, see this Mashable post: WordPress God.

Images

You should think about the judicious use of images in your posts: they definitely can add to the post and will make the blog a lot more approachable and usable (particularly for those who read your posts via RSS).

You will need some sort of image editing software to resize, crop and/or tidy up your images. I use Photoshop, but apparently the GIMP is just as good (and free).

Networking tools

Of course, running a blog is not just about posting to your pre-determined schedule. It is just as much about the way you interact with other bloggers and commenters in your niche. Track other blogs that are also in your field of interest, leave comments and post in response to their posts: be part of the conversation. To do this, you will need some of these tools.

RSS

Without RSS, you are doomed. It’s that simple. You will need an RSS aggregator (either a desktop client or a web-based one like Google Reader) to track blogs and to follow comments. Yes, you could do it all through laboriously visiting each site in your Favourites, but you would be clinically insane after a couple of weeks…

Collect feeds of all the blogs that you read or monitor, search results from the various blog search tools that help you track what is being said about your agency and you can access it all from one interface. Genius.

Comment tracking

You also need a tool to keep track of the comments you leave on other blogs. Again, you don’t want to have to keep randomly returning to the post page to see if anyone has responded to one of your comments. Tools like co.mments make it easy for you to follow all your comments from one spot. Naturally, you can subscribe to a feed from your account page so this just shows up in your RSS reader as well.

Bookmarking

I have posted before about the importance of social bookmarking tools like del.icio.us for public affairs and these tools are equally as important when you begin to blog. Not just for syndicating links to your blog, but for tracking how your posts are being bookmarked by others. Open an account and start bookmarking your posts, this allows you to discover more about your readers and their content preferences.

SEO

Public sector communicators often overlook the importance of search engine optimisation, probably because in the .govt.nz namespace we are already pulling quite hefty page ranks. There are, however, some techniques that you may want to consider to ensure that your posts are well indexed and easily discoverable. There are also some pitfalls you may want to avoid.

Conclusion

This should get you started. I am sure there is stuff that I have missed — feel free to add your suggestions in the comments. What this should give you is a (hopefully not too daunting) feel for exactly what is involved in running a public sector blog. As I have said before, the easiest way to tackle this is incrementally; launch it as an internal tool, iron out all the bugs and then you will be ready to take it to the world.

Photo: eshm

Written by David C. Wyld, a Professor of Management and Director of the Strategic e-Commerce/e-Government Initiative at Southeastern Louisiana University, it is a comprehensive (if scholarly) introduction to:

the phenomenon of blogging in the context of the larger revolutionary forces at play in the development—or redevelopment— of a second generation Internet.
p6.

For me, however, I found the experience of reading the document to be something of an anti-climax. I had downloaded it with high expectations, but as I read through it these expectations were steadily deflated by (principally) two factors.

First and foremost, despite the impressive bibliography at the back of the report – as you would expect for an academic work, Professor Wyld doesn’t actually seem to have read any of the blogs that are written by, for want of a better word, bureaucrats (and no, I wasn’t expecting a citation).

His focus is almost entirely on the use of blogs by elected officials. There is a case study on the military’s use of a strategic blog, but otherwise we see examples of congressional, gubernatorial, mayoral and civic leaders who blog. Which in itself is fine, but it is not exactly representative of the public sector, is it?

The second aspect of the report that annoyed me was the fact that, while the research was impressive enough, it was just that, research. It may be unfair to criticize an academic for doing his job, but if you are going to publish a document that includes ‘Tips for Blogging by Public Sector Executives,’ then you would be well advised to rack up some experience blogging.

There is nothing in here about the relational aspects of blogging. There is lots of references to blogging as a tool for engagement, for getting in touch with your constituents, etc., but no real understanding of how that is supposed to happen. Link love, commenting on other blogs and furthering the discussion: the actual mechanics of engagement.

With those quibbles aside, there is a lot of sound advice in the paper and, for that reason, I would recommend it as a starting point for your colleagues, staff and managers. If nothing else, it may help senior managers to turn their minds to the question of how we bureaucrats are going to effectively engage in the age of social media.

That is when we are not busy at the ramparts, in our rumpled suits, defending the integrity of our system of government…

These posts are both well worth reading, as are the comments (and the follow up post from Adam) because they spell out a number of the issues that are relevant to communicators in this social media age – and because it might just help you land a better job.

I agree with pretty much everything Adam and Joshua have to say on the matter. I think that your online presence is an integral part of your professional reputation, and you had better treat it as such, ie., with discretion. But I am not necessarily convinced that your blog, or your social media profile in general, is ever going to replace your CV. Not in the public sector, and not in the next short while anyway.

Why not? I can think of a couple of reasons. One, unless you follow Rohit Bhargava’s lead and include a social media bio on your blog, there simply won’t be enough supporting information there. Your blog will enhance your CV, but it won’t replace it (unless your CV is online, but I tried that with a couple of senior managers across the public service, and they were either perplexed or dismissive of the concept — all of them wanted a hard copy).

Senior managers could also regard a potential employee’s blog as a risk to manage, rather than an example of their initiative. They may be worried that the blogger will (inadvertently) drop their organization in it, or that the blog is a time sink that will divert their attention from what they are hired to do.

These, particularly the latter, are valid concerns.

So how do you balance your increasing presence on the ‘net with the traditional demands of recruitment, all in the age of Google? First up, if you have a blog that intersects with your professional life (even tangentially), tell your prospective employer. If it is about your cat, don’t bother them, but if there is a remote possibility that you may post about something that could be perceived as being related to your job, then you should disclose this.

If you have a Myspace page, make sure it is not the first thing that comes up when you google your name: that would just be embarrassing. You are much better off setting up a LinkedIn profile or a Facebook page if you want to appear professional.

Having said that, I provide links to this blog and the other I have contributed to, as well as to my del.icio.us page because I think that this stuff is integral to what I want to do.

Photo: N!(K

The results of the survey started me thinking about how social media is fundamentally changing our profession. It is, however, not just this survey that leads me to this conclusion, rather the survey confirms a growing suspicion that the game is changing. The authors of the survey note that the sample is non-representative, acknowledging that

there is a bias towards professionals with higher education and those working in hi-tech and consulting…therefore we can assume that a significant proportion of the sample are early adopters of new (technological and social) trends.

So perhaps rather than seeing the results as indicative of our own working environment, they might better be interpreted as a look at what the future holds for us.

What role will social media play in our professional future? According to the respondents, 89% agreed or strongly agreed that in a few years social software will be as widespread and integrated into communications as websites are today, while only 20% thought that social software is overhyped and not relevant to their business. (Where do you fit into this picture?)

The uses of social software was particularly telling, especially when compared against the results from the previous year:

The authors draw from this that

…many professionals now regard weblogs as part of their daily routine…PR professionals are more active (than last year) in their engagement with social media, with half commenting on other blogs.

They go on to note that only 7% never read blogs, down from 25% last year, highlighting their perceived relevance. European PR professionals are reading blogs primarily for environmental scanning (81%), fast reaction time to issues (74%), an opportunity for authentic, personal communications (77%) and to receive feedback from their audience (73%).

Drilling down into what tools the respondents use on a daily basis to monitor social media also yields some interesting results:

These results certainly resonate when filtered through our experience here. How may of us have access to RSS readers? And of those who do, how many rely on them to the same extent that the europeans who responded to the survey do?

I pose these questions because I believe that we are undergoing a profound and fundamental shift in the way that we operate. All of us are being forced to learn new skills, adapt to new technologies and think differently about the core functions of our profession. It is an exciting time.

This was confirmed when I read a whitepaper by James Clark and Jason Cormier, Fire your PR Firm [PDF 127KB], where the authors include a job description for what they describe as a ‘Conversation Analyst,’ a PR professional who specialises in social media:

Must have mainstream media experience as a journalist or communications practitioner. Strong social and analytical capabilities. Has experience with and enthusiasm for blogging, podcasting, RSS feeds, tagging, wikis, e-mail publishing, web analytics, cross-campaign management, adserving, affiliate marketing and online news aggregators. Has maintained a personal or corporate blog for at least one year. Has managed pay-per-click search marketing campaigns across Google, Yahoo, Looksmart, and other services. Can read and understand web analytics and tell a client with confidence what market to speak to. Applicants please submit a brief resume with links to your current and past sites or blogs, as well as your del.icio.us bookmarks. HTML skills required.

I quote it in full because I think that it perfectly captures the changing face of public affairs. Yes, this is still a professional niche, but if the figures in the Euroblog survey and the growing importance of the Internet as a communications channel are any guide –and I believe they are– then this niche will rapidly expand to cover a significant amount of our professional territory.

How prepared are you for this shift? Do you rate it is important, or are you one of the 7% that never reads blogs (except this one, naturally) and thinks the whole social media thing is just hype and the excited babble of technophiles and socially inept early adopters?