Citywide Communications Strategy Update - Staff Report
STAFF REPORT
Meeting Date: April 11, 2023
Agency: City of Belmont
Staff Contact: Kellie Benz, Community Engagement Specialist, [email protected], 650-595- 7408
Agenda Title: Belmont Strategic Communications and Community Engagement Update Agenda Action: For Information Only
Recommendation
Receive update on the City of Belmont’s Strategic Communications and Community Engagement efforts since implementation. No action is required.
Strategic Focus Area
Quality of Life
Background
On March 11, 2020, the City Council and City’s Executive Leadership team participated in a community visioning and strategic planning workshop. One of the City Council’s goals and objectives was to establish consistent community outreach and engagement effort in the form of a Strategic Communications Plan and implementation. The City selected JPW Communications to consult with the City on this process. The firm engaged in an extensive research phase and provided a report with findings and recommendations.
On August 25, 2020, JPW provided an update on the Belmont Strategic Communications and Community Engagement efforts, including recommendations for the plan and ongoing outreach.
At a September 22, 2020, City Council Study Session, JPW provided a draft plan containing the first two phases of the Belmont Strategic Communications and Community Engagement Plan. The session was designed to present the key messaging platform and gather City Council feedback in order to inform the final portion of the plan.
In January 2021, Belmont City Council approved a 2020-2025 Strategic Communications Plan to focus and engage on the City’s five strategic focus areas:
• Economic Development & Housing
• Fiscal & Organizational Stability
• Infrastructure & Mobility
• Public Safety
• Quality of Life
In September 2019, the City created the position of the City Clerk/Communications Coordinator. In addition to general statutory duties and functions of the City Clerk, the position was also tasked to coordinate the City’s public communications/outreach, and interface with the departmental counterparts.
In June 2021, the City appointed the City Clerk/Communications Coordinator position after a recruitment 141
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process. In May 2022 the City, brought on a Community Engagement Specialist inhouse to work with our City Clerk/ Communications Coordinator to coordinate Belmont’s Strategic Communications and Public Engagement more effectively. This effort is meant to create a seamless communications and coordination of public engagement efforts. Communication responsibilities include media relations, community relations, intergovernmental relations, and internal communications. It seeks the best ways for the City to communicate its priorities and achieve its policy objectives and designs public education and community outreach initiatives to inform the community about City services, programs and policy. With a commitment to equity, professionalism, innovation and best practices, the City’s public engagement efforts seek to maximize participant access, understanding and experience.
Analysis
Implementation of the plan began in July 2021. Since implementation, the City has accomplished several of the key recommendations from the Strategic Communications Plan including developing a Belmont brand that is used consistently, producing branded creative content that is implemented across City platforms, creating compelling community campaigns and providing consistent content, to residents and stakeholders. Additionally, outreach efforts and themes are outlined in a master content calendar, and an internal community information network has been established with the city departments to coordinate a consistent engagement.
In collaboration with staff, we have updated and implemented various tools of communication to the public including reorganizing the City’s social media to reflect consistent, timely, and relevant messaging.
The City’s website, notifications, and newsletter delivery have been further improved. This effort entailed some heavy digital lifting, namely on restructuring the first impression on our website (and the ongoing effort to clean up or rebuild active webpages), ensuring that our citywide social media channels were verified on the platforms that offer that service, and that our popular Weekly ENews was easy to find and subscribe to.
Behind the scenes, much consideration went into how each department was participating in citywide communications planning, resulting in a new roll call on our communications team (formerly called our PIN group) as we worked to achieve internal communications fluidity.
As we aim to keep our community, and its diverse audiences, current on City news, communications expanded to non-social media platforms like Channel 27, the Highway 101 Clear Channel digital billboard, our Lobby slide show, parks and recreation community message boards, and the thrice yearly Activity Guide. These portals remain part of our communications package when announcing the City's news.
Belmont’s engagement with its residents showed a marked increase in 2022 through interdepartmental community outreach events like National Night Out, our first-ever City HALLoween, and our increasingly popular Santa Parade. In addition, popular department community events like Public Work’s Earth Day and Public Works Day events, and Parks and Recreation's Movies in the Park, Trunk and Treat, and Santa at the Firehouse events helped to build our relationship with the Belmont community. The goodwill and community participation even felt at more serious, but well attended meetings like the Zoom-based transportation and housing community listening session and the inter-agency, in-person, community workshops about the Alameda de las Pulgas project.
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While we don't have hard data to confirm at this point in time, we have enjoyed anecdotal data since the year started that is telling us about our reach with our community and that they feel informed about City happenings.
These touchpoints of connection, and the work we've done to ensure internal communication flow, was especially helpful during our 2023 winter storms. The January to March 2023 growth on our social media platforms outperformed all audience growth in 2022. We surmised that it was due to building our audience’s confidence and the communications team messaged timely, hyper-localized updates throughout the storms.
At the height of the storm, a new webpage was created www.belmont.gov/storms that served as a catchall for the many resources our residents needed during the worst of the weather.
Today, through collaboration in all departments, communications acumen, and an ever-present fingerson-the-keyboard approach our Communications team ensures that the City's messaging is reaching its Belmont residents and businesses.
To wit, the effort of streamlining our communications and refocusing our messaging on our strategic goals has delivered an increase of 3,000 visitors to our website since January 2022. With the platforms, channels, processes, and partners now identified and working efficiently, Belmont's communications will continue to fulfill the five-year strategic communications plan and can look ahead to the next iteration of the plan with confidence to deliver on its promises.
Alternatives
1. Refer to Staff for more information
Attachments
A. None
Fiscal Impact
☒ No Fiscal Impact
☐ Funding Source Confirmed:
Source: Purpose: Public Outreach:
Staff Council Vision/Priority Posting of Agenda
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