Mayor Walsh has taken to social media in intuitive fashion, much like the rest of us do. Sure the Irish, blue-collar former union official turned state Representative wasn’t particularly good at it at first, but the more he endeavored, the more he succeeded. Now with a handful successful conversations in the digital realm secured tightly under his belt – of the Facebook, Twitter and Reddit variety, having also dabbled in Vine – the mayor has realized and harnessed the power of social media and the benefits it provides for both his administration and Bostonians alike. To that end, he has Lindsay Crudele to thank.
Back in April I sat down with Crudele, Community and Social Technology Strategist for the City of Boston, to find out how she and her team was working to make City Hall more social media literate. For Mayor Walsh, a man who prefers to keep his finger on the pulse of all things Boston, picking up social media was without question.
We want to turn City Hall inside out. In doing so, that invites the public in
But Crudele had already helped launch the city’s inaugural social media strategy, even swaying late Mayor Tom Menino, who was notorious for refusing to have a computer in his office, to register a Twitter handle. So helping guide Mayor Walsh through 140 characters was less of a chore.
On Tuesday, November 18, Crudele co-hosted a webinar along with media mavens from the City of Las Vegas and the California Department of Motor Vehicles to give viewers a glimpse into a day in the life of a government social media manager.
Compared to Las Vegas and the California DMV, Boston’s social media team and strategy is massive. Not only does she manage 100 social media liaisons, but she helps coordinate communications efforts across 51 municipal departments, teaches strategy to her constituent officials and, when the occasion strikes, switches Boston’s efforts into emergency mode.
“I’ve made it a big piece of my mission to become a bit of a story teller but also to help empower those stationed across the city as our internal journalists,” said Crudele. “We want to turn City Hall inside out. In doing so, that invites the public in; reverse the relationship between Boston and residents so that it’s no a complaint-based conversation.”
Social media for Boston is more deeply faceted than teaching its chief executives learning what a hashtag is. It’s about establishing a direct line of communication so that residents can enjoy one of Mayor Walsh’s overriding campaign themes: transparency.
And then, of course, there’s New England’s fickle, if not downright dreadful, winter weather. Storm warnings and road closures run rampant during the season, and for a city where 18-year olds and younger constitute 16.8 percent of the population per the 2010 U.S. Census (a number that’s surely ballooned over the past four years), they rely on most of their news to come from social media. After all, they’re demographic that’s more tech-savvy than older millennials.
That’s why another one of Crudele’s priorities is for her team to remain dexterous, easily adaptable on the fly.
“If there’s weather breaking or major news, we need to be responsive toward it,” she said. “That’ll change the mode and we’ll be a bit more about rapid response. We try to be creative about partnerships for a Plan B, and work with other departments about safety information. We’ll pare down, put everything into enterprise management mode.”
Social media is a much deeper dive than just dispatching Tweets, uploading photos and posting to Facebook. It’s about giving Bostonians a new way of digesting city information in a more direct, and though over various platforms, personal way. Sure you may not be shaking hands with Mayor Walsh directly as he tells you of the city’s imminent plans to keep the city above the snow.
At least with social media, you’ll be hearing directly from the mayor, or those closest to him.
“Social media has been the agent for communicating above traditional means.” said Crudele. “[We want] to speak with the same voice during vital moments.”
