Government Conversations via Twitter

This blog post response originally started off as a comment to Maxine Teller in her response to another blog [ The US Government Catches The Twitter Bug, And Amazingly, Does It Well ] from yesterday. I felt it only right to take my rant onto my blog as the comment was way too long and linky.

I wanted to really highlight one example of Government interaction on twitter that has been called out, but really point out in my opinion, why I think they are an exemplar case of interacting with their customers.

@TSAblogteam really is one of the better examples I have seen of Government caring, listening and responding. I relate this account and their related blog [ http://www.tsa.gov/blog ] as on par with @comcastcares on twitter. I also like the fact that whomever is the tweeter, they sign their name. I like the transparency in ownership.

The TSA blog team actively listen for complaints, compliments and feedback from travelers and direct policy change has resulted. I bring the case in point when it came to Macbook Air. When they first were on the market, TSA security checkpoints didn’t understand the new laptop when screening persons through the line. Someone blogged about their experience and TSA responded and the laptops were subsequently allowed through security checkpoints.

I was actually talking to a colleague the other day about how Government could engage via twitter to speak with those who mention their agency or organization. Trouble is, its a full time job, for more than one person just to keep up with the number of instances and mentions (just look at the Summize search for CIA, NSA, FBI, …. and so on), especially for the aforementioned beltway bandits. All Government organizations do have offices of public affairs, in which new media, to include twitter, should be in their plans if not now, but real soon to have some official presence, in my opinion. Would you, a citizen and taxpayer want a representative or team engaged on twitter, responding to your tweets? I’m curious to know.

Many times its the negative stories you hear in the press that get trickled down and reposted in blogs and tweets all over, but I would personally like to see more of the “successes” being disseminated in new media. A great example of that is the DoD New Media office (Google search DoD New Media and see the results and you’ll know what I mean) in which Maxine is a part of and @uknowjack. This office is really working with the abundance of information coming from various parts of the DoD and putting it together for you [See DoDLive as one example], the American Citizen to read in findable places on the web to get the real stories of War and being in the field, along with our military successes.

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2 Comments

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  By Martin Sullivan, October 16, 2008 @ 7:01 am

  There is huge potential for utilizing twitter to KIT w/ representatives etc. I call my elected officials a lot as it is. Problem there is accountability, they never address my issues or return the calls (called the president many times too with the same effect). The transparency alone would be hugely beneficial. You hit the nail on the head:

  “I also like the fact that whomever is the tweeter, they sign their name. I like the transparency in ownership.”

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  By mixtmedia, October 16, 2008 @ 1:47 pm

  Andrea,
  Thanks so much for picking up the conversation! (Thank you as well for positive shout-outs for DoD New Media's efforts.) I agree with you that TSA does a great job, as does Comcast. They each have the right spirit and right “face.” Sounds like we're talking about a whole new version of empowered customer service — perhaps customer service 2.0…? Tougher for some agencies– DoD especially–which deal with very sensitive and/or proprietary topics. Inbound requests and queries are currently handled by a centralized group called Public Inquiry. Info requests are then filtered to appropriate military service, etc. This brings up the issue where do customer care and Twitter care overlap? I suppose they are currenlty serving different audiences. As Millenials age, however, will Twitter (as well as other microblog and blog platforms become the future of customer care? If this is the way that things go, there are tremendous implications for a shift in agencies'/companies' customer care systems to monitoring services and tools.

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