8:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m.

Chairperson’s Welcome & Speed Networking

Become acquainted with your fellow conference attendees in this fun and fast-paced forum!

Gadi Ben-Yehuda, Social Media Director
IBM CENTER FOR THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
Conference Chairperson

9:15 a.m.

How To Deliver Your Messages Among The Chatter: Content Aggregation And Its Importance In Having A Successful Social Presence

With the rise of public involvement in social media and the emergence of new social avenues, the volume of online content continues to grow. In early 2009, Twitter users sent 2 million tweets per day, by mid-2011 Twitter users were sending 200 million tweets per day. The explosion of information exchanged through social networks makes consuming it all virtually impossible. Finding a way to make your digital voice heard among this chaos is becoming increasingly difficult.

So where do you begin? How do you find your place among the chatter? One of the first and most valuable steps is determining where your online communities already exist. Most likely people are already talking about you, whether you have a virtual presence or not. It’s important to establish where people are talking about you, what you do, and what’s important to you.

After you have established where you belong in the social-sphere it is important to develop your content niche. One of the easiest strategies for success is to become a portal of information, a content aggregator. Become the authority within your niche that not only provides content created by your organization, but also content created by your community.

Content aggregation is the future of successful social presence! The overwhelming mass of digital information available to citizens lends to the paramount importance of finding a way to make your agency stand out among the noise.

• Find your niche community to ensure that your digital voice is heard
• How content aggregation plays an important role in the future of social media
• Ways to communication with your audience in an effective way
• Why content aggregation is important and how it creates success

Sally Dadjou, New Media Specialist
RECOVERY ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY BOARD
@Recoverydotgov

9:45 a.m.

Social Media Trends And Uses In Government: How The Public Sector As A Whole Is Using Social Media

In October 2011, Market Connections, Inc. released the findings of the Pubic Sector Social Media Study, which explores the use of social media among government agencies and their suppliers. The study was made up of 884 participants which included 352 Federal Government and 181 state and local. The study was created to gain insight on who in government is using social media and how, including:

• Top devices and locations for accessing social media
• Key social media tools agencies and contractors are using in business and personal communications
• Most popular commercial and government-specific social media sites
• Top tools used to inform decision-making
• How organizations are measuring social media ROI
• Perceived benefits, challenges and risks of using social media
• How social media policies are implemented and enforced within the public sector

Lisa Dezzutti, President & CEO
MARKET CONNECTIONS, INC.

10:15 a.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

10:25 a.m.

Morning Refreshment & Networking Break

10:45 a.m.

Digest Session: Your Conference Goals

This is your chance to discuss with fellow attendees and speakers what your most pressing social media concerns are and what solutions you hope to gain during this training.

11:15 a.m.

How To Utilize Social Media Tools To Change The Public’s Perception Of Your Agency: Giving a Voice To Citizens, Expanding Your Outreach, And Monitoring Responses

The NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) is a public housing agency, the largest in North America. With 654,657 New York residents residing in NYCHA's Public Housing and Section 8 Programs, they occupy 13.2% of the city's rental apartments; they comprise almost 8% of New York City's population. To put it in to perspective, NYCHA’s population is larger than Atlanta’s.

As with many other government agencies, NYCHA is often in the eye of the storm in the media and is often mistrusted by its residents. Residents are from disadvantaged backgrounds; 49.5% are below the poverty line. The building stock is aging, infrastructure renovation budgets are shrinking, and crime stories are abounding in the media. This is an environment where the problems being faced by NYCHA are stories typically portrayed in a negative light within the public media.

• How to expand your outreach and bring a creative voice to a population that didn’t necessarily have one before
• Benefits of micro-sites to complement your main governmental site
• Writing a new social media policy and revamping your internet policy
• Digital brand monitoring and response
• Providing the right tools to engage your audience

Diane Chehab, Project Manager, Office of the CIO
NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY

11:45 a.m.

How To Choose The Right Social Media Tools
To Get Your Message Out

Genome Alberta is a not-for-profit research organization based in Alberta, Canada. They use social media extensively to raise awareness with the general public, reach key influencers, and engage the science community. Their efforts have earned them a nomination for an Alberta Science and Technology Award and they ran a live BioRadio ‘broadcast’ from the International BIO Convention in Washington recently.

You’ll hear how they have integrated a variety of social media platforms with their web presence, outreach activities and print communications, and have worked with an Open Source community to develop their own 3rd party social media application.

You will leave this session with ideas, tactics and strategies on how to get your message heard through the clutter on social media, including how to:

• Select the right social media course for your audience and for the task at hand
• Make efficient use of your content and resources
• Pull together both social and mainstream media in your communications strategy toget the best return on your communications dollar

Mike Spear, Director of Corporate Communications
GENOME ALBERTA
@mikesgene

12:15 p.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

12:25 p.m.
Lunch On Your Own -- But Not Alone!

Join a group of your colleagues for a themed lunch with an informal discussion surrounding a specific social media hot topic. Take this opportunity to join others in a small, interactive group setting to network and brainstorm solutions to your most pressing communication concerns.

2:00 p.m.

Digest Session: Connect The Content

You’ve heard from a number of speakers, now we’d like to hear from you. Network and discuss with fellow conference attendees and speakers what social media tools you’re using to communicate with citizens and where you have found the most success.

2:30 p.m.

Utilizing Social Media Tools To Increase Your Reach Without Increasing Your Costs

Injuries are the leading cause of death for young people from birth to age 19 in the United States. The Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention (DUIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is intent on raising awareness of this fact, as well as letting as many people as possible know what we can all do to protect the children we care about.

CDC staff set out to generate media coverage about this issue and what can be done to help keep more children safe.  In addition to media outreach, which included a press release and a media telebriefing by CDC leadership, social and digital media were central to the communication plan.  This outreach included:

• Three podcasts, syndicated through iTunes, and several posts and tweets from CDC’s Facebook and Twitter profile that helped get messages out to several thousand subscribers, fans and followers.
• A button that highlighted the issue was made available for everyone to use and post to their own blogs and websites
• Google ads helped get the message out with more than 6,300 people clicking through for more information
• Mommy blogger outreach helped successfully encourage posts from prominent bloggers who have more than 10,000 Twitter followers

You will leave this session with evidence and a clear understanding that social and digital media can effectively increase your reach without increasing your costs, including how to:

• Incorporate social media into your communication plans and strategies
• Reinforce print messages and broaden your reach by using Twitter, Facebook, Google ads, buttons, badges, and blogger outreach
• Use internal resources to accomplish increased reach without increased costs
• Use metrics to track your social media return-on-investment

Shelley Sheremata Hammond, MMC, Health Communications Specialist
U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION
@CDCinjury

3:00 p.m.

How To Improve Customer Service And Response Time In Just 140 Characters

The U.S. Geological Survey has successfully managed and used their Twitter and Facebook accounts to not only push out messages, but to improve customer service by being responsive. In this session you’ll get a glimpse into how the @USGS Twitter account has sustained continued growth in followers and reach, as well as gaining a better understanding for what it takes to run the account.

Too many times we think of social media as a way to push out messages never fully grasping how we can pull information, just as valuable, from them. You will leave this session with an understanding of techniques used to improve your customer service skills through the use of social media, including how to:

• Instill passion in your employees that will motivate them to take customer service to the next level
• Manage your Twitter account allowing you to responds to concerns and questions in a timely manner
• Push out messages to your audience that are relevant, memorable, and worthwhile

Scott Horvath, Web and Social Media Chief
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
@S_Horv

3:30 p.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

4:00 p.m.

Digest Session: Your Experience With Social Media

Thinking back to the presentations you’ve heard, and your personal experience, discuss with your fellow attendee’s and speakers an example of the most successful engagement you’ve experienced over social media.

4:30 p.m.
Day One Wrap Up

Gadi Ben-Yehuda, Social Media Director
IBM CENTER FOR THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
Conference Chairperson

4:50 p.m.

End of Day One

5:00 p.m.

Networking Reception: Please Join Us!

We invite you to join us for a drink as you relax with your peers. All conference attendees and speakers are welcome to join us for this special opportunity to continue networking. Don't miss this chance to benchmark new ideas over complimentary drinks!

Sign up during the day for dinner with a group. Take advantage of Washington, DC's fine dining while you continue to network with your colleagues.