iCompass Technologies Blog

10 Ways to Connect With Your Citizens Online

  

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• Blogs - produce regular blog posts that give a more 'personal appeal' on news, events and pressing issues facing the municipality (some examples: 'Councillors Corner', 'Green Tip of the Week', 'Community Caring Insights')

• Virtual Library - provide a searchable online library, such as FilePro, for all key documents to truly foster open governance and transparency

• Social Media - setting up Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites are an excellent way to ensure citizens have multiple mediums to follow the municipality. Keeping your social media sites simple and current will keep readers coming back for more...  

• Digital Forms - drive first class customer service through tools, such as InTouch, that enable citizens to fill out service requests, information requests, and more from the comfort of their home computer 

• Weekly Surveys - place surveys into the interactive parts of your website to get feedback. Have a mix of serious and fun topics to rotate through, and always remember to post the previous week's results!  

• Interactive Forums - engage your residents by providing interactive forums on hot topics

• SEO Optimization - check your ranking on Google to ensure your municipality is in the top ten search results. Using keywords, reports and links are essential to building this online status...

• RSS Feeds - incorporate RSS feeds to instantly alert citizens via their smart phone, iPad, iPod, etc., whenever key web pages are updated 

• Open Calendars - provide an interactive calendar where community groups can post their own events for public awareness 

• Public Photo Albums - pictures have more impact than a 1000 words, and continually adding great pictures of events and faces within the community will foster and grow that civic pride

See examples of government connecting with citizens online

The key to all 10 of these strategies is ongoing and current content. The right tools help to manage these updates quickly and seamlessly. iCompass' CivicWeb CMS makes it easy to update, and easy to maintain. CivicWeb CMS is empowering municipalities across Canada to engage with every member of their community. 

See CivicWeb CMS in Action!

Barry B. Byrne iCompass Graphic Designer & Customer Account Manager Barry B. Byrne joined the iCompass Technologies team in 2007. He holds a diploma of Digital Arts & Design from Kamloops' Thompson Rivers University (TRU).  As a graphic designer and website developer, Barry oversees all aspects of CivicWeb CMS implementations. Barry's focus on driving the iCompass brand throughout the company's marketing and customer materials, assessing new technologies, and ensuring all customers have an amazing website offer true value for company and customers alike.