By the Tweets: GovDelivery’s Digital Communications Tour

GovDelivery's digital communications tour is in full swing! Over the last month the tour has visited Oakland, CA and Austin, TX, sparking conversations on the value of technology, outreach, and communications in government, as well as strategies to increase that value. The tour has hosted many innovative, successful speakers, from private sector thought leaders with successful social media start-ups to public sector communicators working in state, city, and county government. Tour speakers have presented on trends, strategies and tactics to connect with more stakeholders and inspire them to take action - online or offline - to drive mission value.

But the tour isn't over! In April, GovDelivery will be taking the tour to three more cities, Raleigh, NC and Washington, D.C., before hosting the final stop in St. Paul, MN. If you haven't already, make sure to register for the event in your city today, space is limited!

Continue reading

When “Liking” Isn’t Enough

In this age of and focus on social media it may seem counterintuitive to say "you need to turn likes into email." But that was precisely the message during a panel at Potomac Tech Wire's Social Media Outlook.  When you stop and think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense.

Facebook is a great medium for distributing information and connecting with your customers and community. But, Facebook is a third party app. They control the data as it relates to your "friends." They are the owners of the demographics and details on your Facebook community. You can of course get this intelligence, for a fee. With all of your careful curation of news and interactions, shouldn't you own some of the data about your audience? Of course you should.

Continue reading

On the Right Track? Tracking your Event Campaigns

Of course all smart event organizers track key metrics like registrants, attendance, budget, and profit but many times those metrics are never tied back to the individual marketing campaigns. While it may be easy to smile and say the overall goals were met - we were a success, it is important to take another look at how they were met. As much as possible each piece of public outreach should be able to be measured.

Emails -- Which emails got the most opens? Was there something different in those subject lines? What was the offer within the email? Was there a certain time of day or week that performed better? Find the common ties between the high opens as well as the commonalities among the low opens. For future events, do more of what worked and less of what did not.

Continue reading

No Matter the Reason, Event Cancellations Are Bad News for Everyone

Between an incredibly harsh winter (by most  standards), budget pressures, and the government shut down, the government event industry has seen more than its fair share of event cancellations over the past 12 months. A number of reports have come out detailing the impact of dwindling face-to-face networking on both event planners, attendees, and the economy in general.

First, to put the event industry in context, a report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers looked to define the "economic significance of meetings to the U.S. economy." The report found that overall the meetings industry was growing in response to increased demand. In 2012, there were nearly 225 million participants at meetings. That's approximately 20 million more than 2009. These meetings and attendee spending contributed $115 billion to the U.S. GDP and $28 billion to federal, state and local taxes. With that context, it is clear that meetings have an impact on the overall economy. If the rate of in-person events drops, even in just one sector like government, there will be an economic impact.

Continue reading

Kitchener city councillor wants cap on conference spending

Originally posted by CBC News

SCOTT DAVEY PROPOSES $14,500 LIMIT OVER FOUR-YEAR TERM

Kitchener city councillor Scott Davey wants to put a cap on funds available for council members in order to attend seminars and conferences.

Davey says that currently all of council shares a pool fund of $41,000 a year, but there's no limit on how much individual councillors can use.

Continue reading