09-26-2012 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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✓ An excerpt from a report entitled "Designing Social Media Policy for Government: Eight Essential Elements" (pages 73 -81) ✓ Statistics from the City's website showing Page Views by Section as well as Unique IP addresses (visitors) (pages 82 -85) ✓ E -mail Update sign -up page from our website (page 86) ✓ Some sample Social Media pages from other Ramsey County cities. You will note that I have hand written user stats (likes) comparing the numbers of July 20th with September 20th for comparison purposes. (pages 87 -111) From my perspective, I believe the City's website does an excellent job of providing current information and good reference material to visitors. In reviewing the usage reports, you will note that we have had 1,876 unique IP addresses that visited our home page in a one month period. (I'm not able to access totals from a broader date range.) There is also a good dispersal of users among our various "sections" of the website. It is also important to note that people can sign up for automatic updates (they get an e -mail message from us when something new posts in the listed categories (see page 86 of the agenda materials). The City's website is hosted by GovOffice. Avenet developed GovOffice in association with the League of Minnesota Cities. In my opinion, it has been an excellent system that makes it relatively easy for us to keep up to date. It does have some formatting limitations, but for the overall is an excellent value. When considering the usage of social media, I'm trying not to be a wet blanket. However, when I look at how other cities are using these tools and how many people are "following" these communities, I'ni less than impressed. Most seem to make general information announcements such as "hydrant flushing" or notices of community events. From my standpoint, Twitter may be the better mechanism for this versus Facebook. Perhaps overtime, this will become an expected information delivery tool, but it doesn't appear to be overly important today. While our website does contain this information, someone would have to visit it to find updated information versus receiving a "tweet" or Facebook posting notice. That being said, it would not be difficult to establish a social media presence if the goal is to match what other cities in our area seem to be going. In undertaking these types of tasks, I have two main concerns. First, will it be of acceptable quality, i.e. properly maintained so as to represent us well? Second, do we have the staff time and capabilities to do it properly? In both cases, depending on your expectations, I believe the answer is "yes ". Terre Heiser may also be able to provide some guidance in this area as well. Otherwise, direction from the Council is needed to decide how to proceed, especially in light of some of the issues raised in the League of Minnesota Cities memo (pages 57 -68). Redevelopment Update: I will have verbal updates on the NE Redevelopment Area and the Public Works Garage area for Wednesday's meeting.