As is the case in many industries, the private sector has a tendency to adopt more pioneering roles than the public sector. The same can be said for social media.
Brand and organisation utilization of social networking (particularly Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) has exploded within the last 5 years, with many brands now boasting fans and followers in their millions. Certainly, brands have experienced an opportunity to stay prior to the competition and allow us thorough strategies of engagement and acquisition across their social networking profiles, including orchestrated social outreach through wall posts and tweets, planned and executed from a strategic content calendar, often featuring competitions or incentives to draw in additional fans or through social apps or games Adin Ross. Indeed, many brands now regard their social networking profiles as the primary vehicle for consumer engagement which includes resulted in the kind of Facebook and Twitter being utilised as launch vehicles for new services and services.
So, if social networking has been so wholeheartedly adopted by the private sector, exactly why is the public sector (apart from high-profile cases such as for instance Barack Obama on Twitter) lagging behind? One possible factor is the press and media. Whilst both public and private sectors are open to press enquiries and reporting, the private sector is chiefly accountable to its shareholders, whereas the public sector is chiefly accountable to the public, albeit through governmental channels - and that is a significant difference. Equally, it is just a difference that the press and media exploit with a view to providing their individual public service. As a result of this increased scrutiny, there's understandable concern from public sector bodies to empower a long network of commentators to publish news and comment in publicly available spaces for fear that it takes only one errant remark to spark negative press coverage or enquiry.
Furthermore, as social support systems really are a two-way street, public sector businesses also have to consider the sheer level of feedback they'll receive from everyone, often incited by negative press and media reports and demanding feedback or improvements from a human anatomy they rightly feel part ownership of.
For social networking marketers at public sector bodies, they're very real and understandable concerns. However, there's a similarly strong counter argument that sooner or later they are going to have to take the plunge. Consumers now expect a cultural media presence and not to possess one is only going to serve to guide the negative view that the public sector is lagging behind the private sector.