PlannovationPlanning data & tools that don't suck

The NASA Twitter Bird. Even NASA uses social media websites.

Ryan Link, a Planner with Michael Baker Jr. Inc’s (Baker) Richmond, Virginia office, got hooked on social media over a year ago when working with the non-profit Athletes for a Cure.  He immediately made the connection that sites such as Twitter and Facebook could increase public engagement, involvement and outreach for NEPA and just about any planning project.

Recently, Baker has had the opportunity to use these social media sites for the Loop 1604 EIS in San Antonio, TX.  The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) is undergoing a 3 year environmental study for Loop 1604 around San Antonio, Texas.  In addition to traditional public involvement and outreach like a “More for 1604” website and public meetings, Baker and the Alamo RMA are using 4 popular social media sites to communicate about the EIS: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.  Below is a little more information about these sites and how they are being used by Baker and the Alamo RMA to increase engagement during public involvement for the Loop 1604 EIS project.

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world, boasting 300 million users. Users stay current with friends and colleagues via messages, status updates, blog posts and photo galleries.  Facebook provides one of the most efficient and free services to stay current in your social world and in the outside world.

The “More for 1604” page Facebook page invites visitors to “Become a Fan”, and join 257 other fans. The “About Me” section tells me that the purpose of the Facebook page is to enhance communication in the community and to make their EIS process transparent.

Scrolling down the news feed, I can find pictures of the meetings or submit my own photos. Status updates include invites to submit articles, blogs, and editorials about the Loop. There are polls and “Questions of the Week”, one of which was “What are your to 3 reasons for using Loop 1604?” The page also cross-references their Twitter page.

Twitter is another successful free social networking site that provides a mini-blogging service. Users set up profiles, add “followers,” and then send messages to their followers. The 140-character mass messages to followers, called “tweets,” vary in purpose: announcements, questions, answers. Tweets can be passed along (”re-tweets”) and replied to creating distributed conversations.

The More for 1604 Twitter page gives their bio as, “The latest on the Loop 1604 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).” The project has 36 tweeps or Tweeter followers as of today.  A recent tweet, from only a few hours ago, gives a link to some materials that will be available at an upcoming meeting:

All Loop 1604 Public Scoping meeting materials can be found  at http://bit.ly/4C1N2I Comments will be accepted… http://bit.ly/qEYZL4:12 AM Oct 29th from Facebook

Flickr is a free picture-sharing website, on which users sign up, upload pictures, and share them in a “photostream”. “Geo-tagged” photos may be displayed on a map. Flickr users have the ability to comment on photos, bookmark them and share with others.

Public Scoping Meeting from More for 1604 Flickr website

The More for 1604 photostream on Flickr displays a large grid with 38 photos of recent public meetings and the project study area. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, this website does not provide links to their website or any other social media site. Poking around, I find that the account has only been set up in August 2009, so time will most likely bring a more developed site.

YouTube is another extremely popular website that enables users to upload and share videos. Again, you can create a profile, upload your videos, and others can save them as favorites, comment on them and share them.

The More for 1604 Videos page encourages community participation.  It displays a video screen with a 19-second clip of a recent public scoping meeting with 22 views as of today.

On the right side, there are more videos of the scoping meetings, showing more interactions with the public, as well as videos of the current traffic conditions of Loop 1604. I scroll down, and there is their profile, showing the number of channels and videos watched, as well as subscribers.  The most popular video on the site has over 70 views.

So, Is It Working?

Ryan Link

Link is pleased with the follower and fan counts for the different sites.  Residents seem to be using social media to stay informed about the project.  Link hopes that residents will use social media channels to communicate and engage with the project team more in the future.

Administrative Record

It is interesting to note that none of the comments made using these methods will be included in the administrative record.  Recent discussion about this controversial subject on the Re: NEPA website debates whether the the public discourse contained in such media outlets should be considered for the administrative record.  The Federal Highway Administraion (FHWA) is still working on an official policy to address the use of social media in the EIS process.  Hopefully, FHWA and other government agencies will expand their public involvement guidance to address social media in the near future.

But for now, The More for 1604 website provides a disclaimer on “usage of social media websites and tools”:

“Comments made on these sites (Twitter, Facebook, Socializer, blogs), herein called ‘social media sites’ will be not be included or evaluated as part of the ongoing Environmental Impact Statement decision-making process… These social networking tools are only intended to encourage public dialogue about the project.”

This statement means that these comments will not be recorded or officially included in the administrative record for the EIS. Only the traditional ways like calling their hotline, sending an email, or submitting a comment at a meeting or at their office, will provide official documentation of the public’s thoughts and input.

HELPFUL RESOURCES PROVIDED BY ALAMO RMA

• Social Media Training Guides: One for Facebook, one for Twitter, and one for Flickr.  Each guide give links to how to get started with these sites, how to set up accounts and how to use them.

• Are You In the Loop?: A small tutorial about these social media sites for those unaware of what they are and how they can be useful. Click on “Social Media 101 Classroom: Handouts” and download the .pdf.

Twitter Bird

Recently, the Social Media and the Administrative Record discussion on Re:NEPA suggested that if a planner sets up a social media site/service for a project, then the comments from the social media site must be included in the Administrative Record (AR).  Including comments from social media sites in the AR could be a time-consuming, thankless task—adding yet one more step to the already massive process of compiling an AR.  But as Ryan Link states in the  Social Media and the Administrative Record discussion on Re:NEPA, “As the use and availability of social media increases it no longer becomes an option but a requirement for effective public involvement in planning and transportation.”

Thankfully, there are a number of free, simple social media services available for planners, like Facebook, Ning or WordPress.  Each of these services varies in the amount of time it takes to learn and set up.  If you have decided to take the plunge and use a social media outlet as part of your public involvement plan, you can save a massive amount of time and headache by selecting the right social media service to do the job.  Consider dipping your toe in the social media water with Twitter.

Twitterbama

Twitter is a mini-blog service.  It’s easy to get started, simple by design and quite popular.  All Twitter posts, called tweets, are limited to 140 characters.  Tweets are read by subscribers, called followers.  According to this Compete blog post in February 2009, Twitter was the 3^rd most popular social networking site after Facebook and MySpace based on number of monthly visits.  Even President Obama is on Twitter here!

Here are a few tips and tricks for planners who want to use Twitter as part of their public outreach as well as an easy way to quickly incorporate tweets into the AR.

So what is Twitter?

If you’ve never tweeted before, Twitter might seem a little like Beanie Babies—cute but without substance.  But people in your community are having real conversations on Twitter today.  In fact, yesterday @david_smet tweeted that “With Facebook, your goal is to find your “friends.” With Twitter, you find new people to “follow”.”  As a planner, Twitter offers a short, simple way to communication with people who are actively seeking interesting conversations.  Talk about win-win.  If the concept of Twitter is still fuzzy, check out the sub-3 minute video Twitter in Plain English.

How do you actually use Twitter?

The folks at Howcast have put together an excellent sub-4 minute video on How To Use Twitter.  Following their step-by-step instructions, you can sign up for a free Twitter account and start tweeting about your project right now.

Easily include tweets in the AR by “Favoriting” them

Not all of your tweets or your follower’s tweets should appear in the AR.  For example, you might tweet about “Traffic Congestion Costing U.S. $87.2 Billion a Year”—interesting to your tweeps and perhaps an important factor in your project’s purpose and need but not appropriate for the AR. So when you send tweets that are appropriate for the AR or when people mention your project or reply to your tweets, favorite those tweets. Here’s how to favorite tweets.

Connect with humans

So after you’ve created your account, sent your first tweet about your project and marked it as a favorite for inclusion into the AR, start following people in your area.  Following other people let’s them know that you’re interested.  Know that it’s good Twitter etiquette to follow people who are following you.

So where to start?  To find government agencies on Twitter, check out GovTwit. Localtweeps offers zip code searching, so you can search for residents tweeting within the same zip code as your project.  And consider searching for local politicians and elected officials in your area on Twitter on sites such as TweetCongress.  If you want to search for people already talking about your project, you can search for your project by name using Twitter Search.

Back up your tweets

Currently, Twitter only lets you see your most recent 3,200 tweets.  Consider using a free service such as www.backupmytweets.com to back up your tweets.

Ready to include your tweets into the AR?

Go to your Twitter account, and click on Favorites.  You will have a list of tweets and replies ready to be included into the AR.  Highlight these tweets, and right click to Copy.  You can paste these Favorite tweets into Excel or Word for quick formatting.  There are applications that can make this task easier, but that is a discussion for a different day.

Why Planners Should Use Twitter

So if you decide to use social media as part of your public outreach, check out Twitter, because Twitter is:

• Free,
• Easy to Use,
• Limited to 140 characters, and
• The 3^rd most popular social media service.

And using the steps above, you can easily incorporate tweets into the Administrative Record.  There are dozens of other tips and tricks for Twitter.  Let me know if you have any questions or want some help setting up a twitter account for your planning project.