They’ve never had it so good.
I was asked to present this week at a policy officers conference. In Government I spent a relatively small amount of time with policy teams, usually when called in together to address a live issue. It was fascinating to have the chance to see the world through a different lens and I came away from the conference with the view that in terms of the potential for regular, quality engagement nowadays, policy teams have probably never had it so good.
Ten years ago, when I started in Government, policy changes and new initiatives were relatively simple to communicate. A state wide TV-led campaign could provide reach of large audiences, especially if complemented by tactical use of broadsheet papers and local radio. As long as I could rein in the creative agency’s ambitions to create mini Hollywood movies, we could do it all relatively inexpensively.
But of course a lot has changed since then. TV and newspaper audiences are declining. Advertisements aren’t being seen and if front page stories are chosen on their clickability, what chance do most government stories have? Is it only those politicians that threaten celebrity pets who will make the headlines?
While some nervously debate social media policy, the digital revolution is happening all around us. 90% of Australians have internet access and there are already more mobile phone accounts than people. Departments that used to research stakeholder sentiment through questionnaires and focus groups who would never have dreamed of launching their own engagement platforms now have the tools to do just that. Quite cheaply.
Despite a few government departments continuing to ignore the decline in mass media audience and continue to spend fortunes advertising Government messages on TV, the solution to deeper and improved engagement in future has to lie in some part with what some people call “owned media”. (I prefer to call it publishing).
I’m not aware of a single Government department that does not have their own website and each of them represent a ready made solution for publishing targeted news and rich content. All Government websites already receive preferential search treatment from Google and it’s estimated that’s where 85% of people start their search. Given that you’ve got the websites already, why not use your own media as the perfect publishing and consultation platform?
The stumbling block seems to be fear. It’s not surprising that risk averse organisations will be more focused on a fear of something different rather than imagining what better might look like.
And it’s in demonstrating better where the opportunity for growth lies. What if we could provide every policy officer with a social media dashboard showing stakeholder sentiment updated in real time. Wouldn’t that be better? What if people were able to respond in real time to our policy proposals? Better? What if we could get hundreds of thousands people to view our messages on You Tube…
Apart from a nervousness, the other stumbling block we’re finding isn’t cost or lack of tools. Instead, departments often report being stuck because they have too many tools. Multiple domains, CMS software, random legacy websites…all with different owners and advocates. And costs. Lots of costs.
To move forward with embracing all the opportunities of the digital age, departments must do a full independent review of all the various conflicting tools, channels, software contracts and systems they have in place. Delivering the vision of a single channel with integrated publishing tools and multi user access is often more a matter of removing unnecessary duplication rather than investment in new tools. And once the platform is in place, effective engagement can begin.
Our vision of a perfect future in the digital world is one where policy teams and senior management outline their key initiatives and corporate objectives to allow the specialist experts in Communications and IT to source the best tools for the job. Reporting tools and dashboards would be created to update information and systems put in place to ensure that content was responsive, updated and optimised for discovery by Google.
And from there, the voyage of discovery can really start…
FOOTNOTE:
GovCom have developed the “Triple C Audit” which inexpensively audits the various tools and engagements policies across departments. Assessing performance against 15 key criteria, the audits provided an independent snap shot of opportunities to improve performance. Our reviews commonly save money as well as creating a streamlined, future proofed and easily governable modern engagement platform.
We regularly hear opinions that there are no savings to be made from closing redundant websites. Frankly, with some CMS licences alone costing upwards of a quarter of a million per annum, that’s just wrong and we’re happy to put our fees on the line if we can’t prove it!
Give me a call….