Staff Report
City Council
Item No. {{section.number}}.B
Meeting Date: October 9, 2024
From: Ryan Hunt, Communications & Events Manager
Title: Social Media Strategic Plan Update
RECOMMENDATION:
This item is presented for information, discussion, and direction only.
BACKGROUND:
The City of Cathedral City recently participated in a short-term, two-week engagement in July 2024 with CiviSocial, a new firm focused on helping local government Public Information Officers (PIOs) and communication shops with developing a strategic plan for social media engagement.
CiviSocial was founded by Sam Toles, the former Chief Content Officer of Bleacher Report / House of Highlights, General Manager of Vimeo, Head of Digital for MGM Studios and most recently launched a new channel with some of YouTube superstar Mr. Beast’s team. He’s an accomplished storyteller, and his focus in this engagement was to help the City of Cathedral City better tell our story on social media and refocus internal staff resources to provide more content, increased engagement, and greater efficiency.
DISCUSSION:
With limited staff resources and only one full-time PIO, the program has helped the Communications & Events Department build a team of social media ambassadors across multiple departments to provide greater content and increase the types of stories we’re able to tell. This strategic plan will allow staff (particularly Communications) to better inform residents about the exciting things happening in Cathedral City and the high-quality services we’re providing. Using this team, the strategic plan also outlines a posting frequency schedule on the City’s Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor and the City’s newly created TikTok account. CiviSocial also helped provide suggestions for editing tools/software to make the process of distributing and publishing video content more efficient and more focused on impactful storytelling.
The city had more than 20 participants attend the CiviSocial story workshops:
• The staff were highly engaged and developed dozens of relevant social stories • This will form the foundation of content to kick-off our new strategy • The participants encompassed all relevant departments The City and CiviSocial also held a special workshop for resident advocates:
• They were highly engaged and committed to create content on the city’s behalf FISCAL IMPACT:
The two-week engagement in July 2024 with CiviSocial was $20,000, which was paid out of the Communications & Events Department’s general marketing budget.
FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN:
Goal F-4: Develop and implement a plan to improve and diversify methods to communicate with residents