The City of Edina, MN has created a successful digital public engagement strategy that extends beyond social media. Edina, a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis, MN began it’s journey to expand online citizen feedback in it’s community with Facebook and Twitter, but quickly found that these tools did not foster the type of engagement they were looking for. In response, Communications Coordinator Jordan Gilgenbach began hosting monthly discussions using Granicus SpeakUp℠, which allows him to choose from a variety of tools to meet deeper levels of the engagement, such as: collecting feedback, gathering ideas, self education, and prioritization. Within a year of beginning these discussions, Edina increased it’s registered user base for the site by 130% and has been able to generate higher quality public feedback!
The use of free social media tools for citizen outreach is quickly expanding. However, Jordan quickly realized that social media is only one piece of a broader toolset. Although effective for informing the public, these sites do not foster a two-way conversion. “When you’re on Twitter, you only have 140 characters to deal with, and generally, that’s not going to be enough to convey a constructive, thoughtful idea. Facebook tends to be the same way–people are only on a post for a few minutes at a time”, he noted.
Now with SpeakUp, Edina is able to use social media as a way to inform citizens and to guide them to participate in the monthly SpeakUp discussions where real citizen engagement happens. Having participation occur in a focused and productive format increases citizens’ confidence that their feedback is being listened to and considered. Likewise, this format puts better tools in Edina’s hands to understand and respond to the top needs and concerns of their community.
Here are some of the success highlights featured in Edina’s story:
Created much broader demographic reach
Increased registered user base by 130% in a year
Established more meaningful discussions with the community
Holds monthly focused discussions
Generated higher quality public feedback
Goal for site user growth exceeded by 110%
You can check out the full story here, or watch Jordan talk about SpeakUp Edina on our recent webinar, “A New Level of Public Feedback: Going Beyond Social Media”.