First in a series of courses for Morris County NJ municipalities. This course offers a step by step guide for setting up a Facebook page, Twitter account and posting to both at once using Hootsuite. This presentation, originally give in January 2012, was updated in May 2012 for the Timeline layout of FB pages.

1. Building a Municipal
Social Media Presence January 2012
Carol A Spencer, Web Manager
County of Morris, NJNJ • BuildingMunicipal Social Media Presence
County of Morris, • Building a a Municipal Social Media Presence
Facebook • Twitter • Hootsuite 1

2. What you’ll learn today
• Considerations before getting started
• How to get a Google account & Gmail address
• What are the differences between a Facebook page and profile
• How to set up a Facebook page
• What Twitter is and why you should use it
• How to set up a Twitter account
• What Hootsuite is and why you should use it
• How to send one message many places, all at once
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 2

3. One Post: Many Channels
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4. Considerations before getting started
A little planning goes a long way
• Seriously consider having a single Social Media presence online
(1 Facebook page, 1 Twitter account, etc)
• Use a consistent, generic email address for all social media
• Use a consistent “vanity” name
• Have multiple admins for each application
• Adopt “Use” and “Commenting” policies
• BACK UP (Backupify.com)
EVERYTHING is subject to records retention laws, including comments
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5. Considerations before getting started
A little planning goes a long way
• Decide on a “communications tone”
• Don’t post original material on Facebook
• Anyone can comment on your FB posts
• Assign a team member to monitor comments
• Secure your Facebook profile so no one can see it
• Never let fans / followers upload photos or videos without moderation
• Think about how you’ll market your social presence
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6. Choose an email address
Generic Local or Generic Gmail
• Facebook requires a real name: webmaster@, admin@ are not
acceptable.
• Gmail: We use MC[town]NJ@gmail.com if we set up your email.
• Gmail.com
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7. Check Your Chosen Vanity URL
• Morris County is MorrisCountyNJ
Facebook.com/MorrisCountyNJ
Twitter.com/MorrisCountyNJ
YouTube.com/MorrisCountyNJ
Flickr.com/MorrisCountyNJ
Scribd.com/MorrisCountyNJ
MorrisCountyNJ.gov
• Choose a name.
Check it everywhere.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Scribd, LinkedIn, FourSquare
• Denville is already DenvilleNJ on Twitter, YouTube, Scribd
• DenvilleNJ – Available on Flickr (go grab it), but gone on Facebook
• What to do…..
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8. Check Your Chosen Vanity URL
Chatham Borough
@ChathamNJ is a real estate company
Chester Township
@ChesterNJ is a woman who cooks for food allergies.
@ChesterBoroNJ (official borough page for public safety information)
Lincoln Park
@lincolnpark_nj
Mendham Borough
@MendhamFireDept; @MendhamNJ (hasn’t tweeted yet, unknown)
Parsippany:
@ParPolice; @ParTroyLibrary – library; @BigReadParTroy - library
Riverdale
@RiverdaleNJ
Rockaway Township
nothing
Roxbury
nothing
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 8

9. BUILDING A MUNICIPAL
SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE: FACEBOOK
MAY 2012 (Timeline)
Carol A Spencer, Web Manager
Facebook • Twitter • Hootsuite
County Morris, NJ • • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence
County of of Morris, NJBuilding a Municipal Social Media Presence 9

10. FACEBOOK Profiles vs Pages (Timeline)
Businesses now use “Timeline” (below).
Individuals continue to use a “Profile” as
well as a “Timeline” view.
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11. FACEBOOK Timeline: each person sees it differently
Each person’s
view of a
business timeline
will be different
because when
their friends
reference the
business page in
a post, that post
appears on the
individual’s view
of the business
“Timeline” page.
Others, who are
not friends with
that person, will
not see that post.
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12. FACEBOOK Profiles vs Pages
If you are not active on FB, the profile to
which the government page is tied
should be locked down: no friends, no
profile photo, etc.
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13. CREATING YOUR PAGE Login later
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14. GOVERNMENT PAGE TYPE Company, Organization, Institution
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15. GOVERNMENT PAGE TYPE Government Organization
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16. GOVERNMENT PAGE NAME [Jurisdiction Name] Government
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17. FACEBOOK TOU You must agree to have a page
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18. FACEBOOK TOU Special Government Terms
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19. CREATE AN ACCOUNT Or log in with an existing account
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20. PROFILE PICTURE Logo, seal, or local branding
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21. ADD YOUR WEBSITE Add some info about your jurisdiction
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22. VANITY URL Direct, easy access to your page
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23. TIMELINE Like your own page
Facebook will open these various
windows when you first try to create a
page, encouraging you to invite your
friends, etc. Skip as many of these as
you can to avoid tying your personal
information to the government page.
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24. TIMELINE Admin Panel
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25. TIMELINE Admin Panel
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26. UNPUBLISH THE PAGE Only Admins can see it
Do this FIRST, so as you’re
working on your page, it isn’t live.
Facebook defaults to a live page.
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27. EDIT THE PAGE Your Settings
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28. EDIT THE PAGE Manage Permissions
UNCHECK:
Everyone can post to my timeline
Everyone can add photos and videos
Show the box for “Recent Posts by
Others”
Update the level of profanity you
want blocked.
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29. EDIT THE PAGE Basic Information
Information
you enter here
shows up in
the “About”
section of the
Timeline.
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30. EDIT THE PAGE Basic Information (con’t)
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31. EDIT THE PAGE Profile Picture
Use your town or
county seal… some
photo that says this
is an official site.
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 31

32. EDIT THE PAGE Featured
Once you “like”
other government
pages, if you want to
feature one, you do
it here.
For example, FEMA
during a weather
emergency.
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33. EDIT THE PAGE Use Facebook as….
When posting as
your town, you’ll
want to use FB as
the page, not the
person.
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34. EDIT THE PAGE Resources
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35. THIS IS THE PAGE TITLE And this is the subtitle
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36. PROMOTE YOUR PAGE Like Box, Like Button
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37. EDIT THE PAGE Manage Admins
Have at least two admins.
Each admin must have a FB profile page,
however you can lock it down if they
don’t use FB.
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38. EDIT THE PAGE Manage Apps
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39. EDIT THE PAGE Mobile
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40. MOBILE POSTING Via Email or Via Text Message
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41. EDIT THE PAGE Insights
Insights are stats.
Use these to see
what people are
looking at the
most, what time of
day your page is
most active.
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42. EDIT THE PAGE Insights
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43. EDIT THE PAGE Help
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44. ACCOUNT SETTINGS Lock down the profile
To do this, you must be using FB as a
person, not as a page.
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45. ACCOUNT SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 45

46. ACCOUNT SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 46

47. ACCOUNT SETTINGS Lock down the profile
Since you have your profile locked down,
there is no reason to allow subscribers.
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48. ACCOUNT SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 48

49. ACCOUNT SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 49

50. ACCOUNT SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 50

51. ACCOUNT SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 51

52. ACCOUNT SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 52

53. PRIVACY SETTINGS Lock down the profile
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54. PRIVACY SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 54

55. PRIVACY SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 55

56. PRIVACY SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 56

57. PRIVACY SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 57

58. PRIVACY SETTINGS Lock down the profile
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 58

59. PRIVACY SETTINGS Lock down the profile
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60. FINAL THOUGHTS Before publishing
•Get your “vanity” URL
Facebook.com/username
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61. Be sure to identify
your page as the
“Official Page”
Otherwise, you
could have this.
Note the failure to
post for well over a
year.
Next slide shows
how this looks with
the Timeline layout.
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62. Be sure to post relatively
frequently or this is how
your government page
will look.
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 62

63. Get creative!
Add photos in your
Flickr gallery, then
pull into Facebook.
Communicate with:
Residents
Visitors
Businesses
The next slide shows
what Ocean City MD
had to do with the
mandated Timeline
layout of FB.
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64. County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence 64

65. BUILDING A MUNICIPAL
SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE: TWITTER
JANUARY 2012
Carol A Spencer, Web Manager
Facebook • Twitter • Hootsuite
County Morris, NJ • • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence
County of of Morris, NJBuilding a Municipal Social Media Presence 65

66. TWITTER 140 Powerful Characters 66
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

67. TWITTER Signing up 67
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

68. TWITTER Setting up an account 68
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

69. TWITTER Setting up an account 69
You’ll have to do this a few times….
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

70. TWITTER Setting up an account 70
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

71. TWITTER Setting up an account 71
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

72. TWITTER Setting up an account 72
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

73. TWITTER Setting up an account 73
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

74. TWITTER Setting up an account 74
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

75. TWITTER Setting up an account 75
Click PHOTO to change. BRAND. Use the one from your FB page.
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

76. TWITTER Tweeting 76
• 140 characters. Try to use less. Link to more details.
• Learn Twitter lingo.
• Use abbreviations. Eliminate punctuation where possible.
• ALL CAPS is shouting. Don’t shout.
• Write your message, then start eliminating words and using abbreviations
to say the same thing in 140 characters.
• RT is re-tweet.
• @TwitterHandle is a public message to TwitterHandle
• DM TwitterHandle (note the space) is a direct message (private)
to TwitterHandle. You can only DM your followers.
• Mention means someone used your Twitter handle in a tweet.
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

77. TWITTER Tweeting 77
• Tweet valuable content:
Road closures, meeting reminders, budgets are posted, fields are closed,
events, important web postings, chamber events, celebrations, honorees,
good press.
• If someone asks you a public question, answer publicly.
• If someone asks you a public question, answer it.
• If someone DMs you, and you need more information to answer,
give them a link to your feedback form.
• If someone DMs you, answer them.
• If people RT your tweets, thank them with an @ message.
• Create a Twitter widget for your website.
Put it on your home page.
(https://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets)
County of Morris, NJ • Building a Municipal Social Media Presence

78. Tying it Together
Using Hootsuite
Carol A Spencer, Web Manager
County of Morris, NJNJ • BuildingMunicipal Social Media Presence
County of Morris, • Building a a Municipal Social Media Presence
Facebook • Twitter • Hootsuite 78

79. Sign up for Hootsuite FREE version
Use the same email as Facebook & Twitter
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80. Hootsuite Dashboard
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81. Hootsuite Dashboard
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82. Hootsuite Dashboard
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83. Hootsuite Dashboard
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84. Hootsuite Dashboard
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85. Hootsuite Tools
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86. Hootsuite Tools
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87. Hootsuite Tools
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88. Hootsuite Tools
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89. Before Posting
Double check before you post
Information is accurate
Information is authorized for public release
Post is 140 characters or less
Spelling is accurate
Link is accurate
Copy it into a new browser window to be sure it goes where you want
Date and time are correct if scheduling into the future
Selected social networks are the correct ones
Once it’s out there, you can delete it but anyone who has read it,
has read it.
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90. A few more things…
Searching, deleting, filtering
To search Twitter, enter the search criteria in the search box and
click the magnifying glass.
To create a stream of a particular search term, click “+Add Stream”.
Choose a search term or use logic as per examples
To create a stream of keywords, enter the terms. Tweets using any
of the keywords will be returned.
To use hashtags so your comments will be included in a stream using
that term, precede your term with a #. Example: #MCLibrary;
#Jan25; #gov20; #superbowl, #SOTU
To be sure your tweet ends up in someone’s mentions stream,
use @ before their Twitter handle.
To delete in Hootsuite, hover over the tweet in the ‘sent tweets’
stream and click the x.
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91. What you’ve learned today
• How to get a Google account & Gmail address
• How to set up Facebook, Twitter and Hootsuite
• About commenting
• How to post to all your social channels at once with Hootsuite
• How to schedule postings in the future
• What to check before posting (you can’t take it back)
• How to delete a post if you must
• How to backup so you have records
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92. Contacting me
Carol A Spencer
Web Manager
cspencer@co.morris.nj.us
webmaster@co.morris.nj.us
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93. Building a Municipal
Social Media Presence January 2012
Carol A Spencer, Web Manager
County of Morris, NJNJ • BuildingMunicipal Social Media Presence
County of Morris, • Building a a Municipal Social Media Presence
Facebook • Twitter • Hootsuite 93