City of Morgan Hill Communications Assessment

• Currently, the Police Department is the only City agency/Department using Nixle. There are only 1,059 total unique people/businesses in the Nixle contact database— roughly 2.5% of the City population. Summarized Recommendations Based on the observations above, Tripepi Smith formulated the following recommendations to help the City enhance its communications and create/optimize platforms to further engage its residents. These recommendations have been formed with both a general goal as well as specific Action Steps to take to achieve the goal. The recommendations have been geared around improving the execution, delivery and impact of the City’s outreach and messaging efforts. 1. Continue to Optimize Website and Define Governance While the City’s communication efforts have advanced on social media platforms, these all generally drive traffic to or link back to the core repository of the City’s website, which typically receives 40,000-60,000 Visits per month. The CivicPlus website organizes content into sensible categories and most webpage content is easy for City staff to update. Tripepi Smith identified several Action Steps to improve the website experience for users, as well as formalizing processes for website admins. 2. Develop a Social Media Strategy & Policy Social media is an integral part of any Communications plan for cities today. Staff realizes residents have come to expect their government to engage via social media channels and has established a presence on a number of social media platforms. However, all platforms have relatively modest followings and some are being managed by multiple staff members, which can lead to confusion over who is responsible for posting content and when. Tripepi Smith has suggested that the City adopt a formal Social Media Policy, develop a long-term strategy that harmonizes with the City’s goals, and establish regular “social media team” meetings to review future content. 3. Optimize Social Media Sites The City has invested time, energy and resources into establishing an official Facebook Page, Twitter Profile, Instagram account and YouTube Channel. There is room for improvement on each of these assets in terms of fleshing out Bio/About sections and optimizing the way posts are displayed to make themmore engaging to Fans/Followers. 4. Drive Social Media Audience Growth The social media audience being reached—while growing—is not large. The fixed cost of producing these communications are not being sufficiently leveraged across a larger audience. To that end, the City should invest in audience growth tactics and long-term strategies that may cost more in the near future but yield higher outreach results and better leverage Maureen’s time. 5. Integrate Cohesive Communications Strategy Throughout Departments Morgan Hill’s communication efforts currently happen on a somewhat “decentralized” basis where Department heads are largely responsible for their Department’s external communication efforts. As a result, there has been some variation in Departments’

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