In 2011 the City of New York, set out on a mission to become a world leader in social media initiatives. Recognizing the importance of implementing an effective social media strategy to disseminate this information, the City of New York and more specifically NYC Digital, used HootSuite as their social media management tool. Find out how NYC Digital increased the City’s digital reach, built a social media audience of 2.8 million and made New York city a leading digital city. For more information about HootSuite Enterprise, please visit http://hootsuite.com/enterprise

1. Becoming a Digital City with HootSuite
Introduction
“Day to day,
Municipal, civic, state and federal governments strive to keep their citizens
NYC Digital
and visitors up to date with the information they need. In an attempt to
increase accessibility and transparency, these governments are turning to
streamlines digital
social media to amplify information that their citizens need. Using HootSuite, communication
these government groups are able to securely disseminate the right with the public and
information while at the same time listening and engaging with their citizens. creates meaningful
public-private
partnerships that
At HootSuite we offer a robust set of social serve New Yorkers
media tools to help government organizations and support local
effectively and securely manage their social industry.”
media strategies. Use HootSuite to listen
and track your social conversations, securely
collaborate with team members, engage with
your followers, schedule messages, and analyze
your social media metrics.
In January of 2011, the city of New York (NYC Digital) set out on a mission
– they wanted to provide New Yorkers with an easy way to stay informed
on the most critical information from City government in emergencies and
everyday life. NYC Digital recognized the importance of implementing an
effective social media strategy to disseminate this information, and saw
an opportunity for the City of New York to become a world leader in social
media initiatives. Through their Digital Roadmap initiative, NYC Digital set
out to make the city of New York, the world’s leading digital city.
NYC Digital RoadMap
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2. Case Study: Becoming a Digital City with HootSuite
The Challenge
“Crisis management
NYC Digital wanted to make the city of New York the world’s leading is about making
digital city. By creating their Digital RoadMap Initiative, they set out to sure the
reach the following goals:
information people
• Provide New York citizens an accessible and easy way to stay
need is consistent,
informed about news and information to do with their city through accurate, and easy
social media. to access.”
• Create a strong social media presence
• Maintain a consistent social media voice as one entity, while at
the same time decentralizing communication to all of the various
departments and agencies.
Facebook:
• Provide emergency information that is consistent, accurate, and easy
to access. New York City Fire
Department: 113,000 -
Stories and news from
the New York City Fire
Department
NYPD: 87,649 - Latest
news, information and crime
prevention tips from the New
York City Police Department
NYC: THE OFFICIAL GUIDE:
54,115 - Find tips on events,
things to do and places to
eat in the City.
Disaster Response
Twitter:
During Hurricane #Sandy, the City of New York met the storm with a
coordinated social media effort. The city used HootSuite to integrate all @NYCMAYORSOFFICE:
of its social media presence. Whereas previously during Hurricane Irene, 127,208 - Updates straight
it was separated on 5 different platforms. Streamlining the social media from the Mayor’s Office
presence allowed the different Government agencies, and emergency
@NYCGO: 69,189 - The
response teams to share accurate information with each other ensuring official guide to New York
messaging had a consistent voice. City
@NOTIFYNYC: 57,138 -
Emergency notifications
and alerts from the Office of
Emergency Management
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3. Case Study: Becoming a Digital City with HootSuite
Achieving Success
During the #Sandy
In order to accomplish all of the objectives of NYC Digitals initiative, they
storm recovery, the
relied on the following tools in the HootSuite Dashboard:
Mayor of NYC, issued
HootSuite Teams with Limited Permissions
an emergency order
The City of New York needed to be able to add team members with for a schedule of when
different levels of permissions. With HootSuite Teams, they were able to
gas was available to
give each user a different level of access and responsibility. For specific
individuals in their organization, they were given approval permission, purchase. NYC Digital
so that every message had to be approved before being sent out. Team used scheduling to
members with less responsibility were given a level of permissions pre-schedule tweets
where they could use HootSuite to monitor the conversation without
overwhelming them with the responsibility of publishing. Lastly, the team
that outlined when
members that had limited permissions used to HootSuite to flag and send citizens could purchase
tweets and comments to supervisors. gas. This made it easy
Scheduling / Publisher for morning commuters
For the dissemination of daily city information at certain times, the City
already checking for
of New York needed a functionality that could help them plan ahead and city updates, to now
schedule messages. Using the Scheduling functionality, they were able to find out which day they
schedule messages like daily tweets for Alternate Side Parking rules right
could purchase gas on.
when it was most effective - during the morning commute.
Analytics
The City of New York needed metrics on the most re-tweeted tweets
as well as snapshot of the level of engagement of their social media
engagement. HootSuite Analytics allowed the City to pull metrics on the
top most re-tweeted tweets. This information allowed them to gain
insight on what information was of most value to the public. NYC Digital
also compiled these metrics to measure account growth during the
Hurricane #Sandy.
Keyword and Hashtag Search Streams
NYC digital needed to track what was being said about certain topics.
They used Keyword Search Streams to track responses, monitor inquiries,
and correct misleading messages.
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4. Case Study: Becoming a Digital City with HootSuite
Results
Learn More
The 2012 Digital RoadMap continues to outline a path to realizing the
City of New York’s potential as the world’s leading digital city. Among an For more information on
impressive list of digital initiatives, NYC Digital has: HootSuite Enterprise, visit:
hootsuite.com/enterprise
• Increased the City’s digital reach each month to nearly 5.5 million
individuals through social media, managed by HootSuite, smartphone Follow us on Twitter:
apps, SMS programs, newsletters and NYC.gov. @HootBusiness
• Doubled their social media audience to 2.8 million (since May 2011)
with the launch of the central NYC Gov social media channels on
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube and Foursquare.
• Seen a social media growth of +180,657 followers/Likes
• Had a 71% increase in followers from 74,016 to 127,154 for the
@NYCMayorsOffice during and after Hurricane #Sandy.
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