Increasing the Reach of Government Social Media: A Case Study in Modeling Government-Citizen Interaction on Facebook

Abstract

Facebook posts compete for human attention in a zero-sum game; this makes it a challenge for government organizations to engage with their citizens through this medium. In a large-scale longitudinal study we investigate what makes Facebook posts popular (seen by many) and effective (commented, liked, or shared by many) in a nonprofit context: the official Facebook page of a midsized city (Oulu, Finland). We model the competition dynamics that shape the fate of Facebook posts using Structural Equation Modeling. Our analysis reveals that audience demographics, the timing of posts, and the media type of post are significant factors in post reach and effectiveness, and argue that our method can be applied to other contexts to determine which factors can lead to improved government-citizen communication and engagement. Finally, we argue for more actionable research to be conducted on the use of social media by government.

Use of Social Media in Citizen-Centric Electronic Government Services

“…Driven by rising citizen prospects and the need for government innovation, social media has become a key component of electronic government (hereafter, e-government) in a very short period of time (Bertot et al, 2012). Given the substantial evidence to suggest a steady rise in the predominance of social media among citizens of all walks of life, government organisations are now increasingly experimenting with social technology to communicate with their citizens (Chui et al, 2012;Goncalves et al, 2015). Such efforts and others have given rise to great anticipations in terms of reaching out to new audiences, building a relationship with constituents and other stakeholders, creating new patterns of communication, refining openness, transparency and participatory democracy, crowdsourcing solutions and innovation and above all lowering government costs (Kavanaugh et al, 2012;Picazo-Vela et al, 2012).…”

How Mayors Perceive the Influence of Social Media on the Policy Cycle

“…Worldwide, there is a growing inclination to voice distrust for governments that are considered ineffective and even inefficient. While the top-down relationship between public administrations and social media has been the object of the recent study, the bottom-up side of this stream has been largely overlooked (Goncalves et al 2015).…”

What You Post is What You Get: The Mediator Role of Reached Individuals in the Causal Relationship among Posted Content Types and Follower Counts on Facebook

“…Social media usage has become an economic, social and cultural phenomenon, wherein not only civil individuals but also various organizations, firms and self-marketed brand personalities (Goncalves et al, 2015) are present. Facebook, being the most frequently used online social media platform (We Are Social, Hootsuite, & DataReportal, 2019), is used not merely by individuals but also for online marketing campaigns, raising brand awareness, online word-of-mouth communication, retailing and consumer engagement (Goncalves et al, 2015).…”