Jump-start your training experience by attending these interactive, practical workshops and embrace the promise of social media. These information-packed sessions are a great opportunity to network with fellow attendees while taking a hands-on, common sense approach to understanding social initiatives that will enhance your understanding of the informative, case study presentations throughout the training.

*** Choose A or B or BOTH for Maximum Value and Learning ***

Learn How To Utilize Social Media Tools Effectively In Your Organization — Set Up Your Profiles, Manage A Variety of Tools, And Implement A Step-By-Step Strategy

This workshop will walk you through from beginner to social media expert; we will work on your social media strategy live! Get the hands-on training you need to be able to succeed today. Setting up social media accounts is easy, maintaining them is harder. Ensuring that you know both the extent of your content and how engaging that content is can be harder yet, but those two tasks—social content management and social metrics—are critical to achieve and communicate the success of your social media activities.

Efficient social content management means that your agency will create content only once and then share it across bureaucratic boundaries and geographic borders. Video created in a branch office can be repurposed in Washington or in another far-flung location. Social media metrics means you know which images are being shared, which videos are drawing the most comments, which status updates, tweets, and blog posts are resonating with your audiences. And through hard numbers, you can communicate the effectiveness of your social media activities up through your agency, out to the public, and across the table to critical stakeholders.

This workshop will teach you how to:

• Setup all your social media profiles the right way
• Update all of your social media profiles with just a few clicks every day
• Understand the purpose of Twitter lists and why you need to start creating them now
• Know how to appear to be everywhere
• Have a step-by-step strategy you can implement immediately without having to hire an expensive social media manager
• Know how to grow your twitter followers and Facebook fans in a natural and real way

WORKSHOP LEADER: Jenna Hoffman Ben-Yehuda, Director, Wittenberg Weiner Consulting, LLC.

11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Afternoon break/lunch on your own

12:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
PRE-TRAINING WORKSHOP B

Building Better Community Engagement: Using Social Media To Develop Engaging Content, Monitor Citizen Feedback, And Ensure A Two- Way Conversation

Just because you have a presence on Twitter and Facebook doesn't mean you're truly engaging with your stakeholders. True engagement is so much more than squeezing your press release into 140 characters, friending fellow agencies, or only linking to “approved” content.

True engagement means being an active part of the community—answering questions, responding to criticism, sharing content that’s not self-promotional, and generally revealing a personality behind the profile.

This interactive workshop will help you to engage your stakeholders sincerely and substantively through a simple, four-step process:

• You will outline the capabilities and objectives of your organization
  
• We’ll review the Gov 2.0 social media toolbox. For example, should you be pitching bloggers or blogging yourself? Should you be tweeting or Facebooking—or perhaps Google Plusing? Maybe you should employ an old-fashioned e-newsletter? Perhaps it's time for an IdeaScale?
  
• We’ll brainstorm strategies for infusing your organizational objectives with Gov 2.0 greatness
  
• We’ll vote on the best project and develop a plan to put it in action when you return to the office

WORKSHOP LEADERS: Joshua Greenberg is a Senior Account Supervisor at Edelman.

Lori Kifer Johnson is the Senior Vice President at Edelman. Lori is seasoned communications professional with 14 years of experience serving as an agency consultant and manager, consistently demonstrating business growth for clients and, in turn, developing overall agency expansion. She is responsible for opening the first US-facing Florida office of Edelman, Inc., the world’s largest independent public relations firm. Contributes to Edelman’s thought leadership and global capabilities to advance the profession to a public engagement model in Florida. Sample client roster includes: Pfizer, Publix Supermarkets, Sandvik, Florida’s High Speed Rail, Brasfield & Gorrie and GrayRobinson

2:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Stretch Break & Refreshments

2:45 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.
PRE-TRAINING WORKSHOP C

Essential Elements For Creating An Effective Government Social Media Policy

As government agencies we are increasingly looking to leverage social media to improve the quality of our services and elicit greater citizen engagement. Developing a social media policy can be an important first step for government agencies considering using social media and can ultimately serve as a key enabler for responsibly and effectively leveraging social media tools. Yet, many government agencies are struggling with what such a policy should encompass and convey.

This workshop will outline and describe essential elements for a government social media policy, including:

• The importance of having a social media policy
• Differences between personal, professional, and agency use of social media
• The essential elements of government social media policy
• Structuring a policy-drafting process for your agency
• The importance of involving key stakeholders in the policy drafting process

WORKSHOP LEADER: Jana Hrdinova is a Program Associate at the Center of Technology for Government, University Albany. Jana began working at CTG as a program assistant in January 2006. She came with an extensive expertise in the field of immigration policy and policy analysis, and has built expertise in conducting current practice research, survey design, and project development and administration. In most recent years, she has managed CTG’s Exploratory Social Media Project.

Making The Most Of Your Social Media: A Step-By-Step Process For Using Social Media To Advance Your Agency From The Inside Out

Bring along your laptop or smartphone – this interactive workshop will get as “hands-on as possible”!

Specifically, we will discuss how your agency can:

• Utilize Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and other social media services
  
• Leverage your social media technology to engage and collaborate with stakeholders
  
• Successfully find your audience and choose the most effective social media tool for the specific message being communicated
  
• Empower existing supporters to spread your message within their own networks

WORKSHOP LEADER: Alex Flugel is a Multi-Cultural Video Professional Consultant at Transmedia Group.