City of Calgary finds fans on Facebook

How government can get involved in social media and live to tell the tale

At first glance it’s a strange match: Government and social media.

Social media is vibrant, it’s connected and it’s the hip place to be. When I checked last, that was not the prevailing perception of government.

But the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.

After all, it’s a match made in cash-strapped heaven, as social media often offers extensive reach affordably combined with increased measurability—something that most other forms of media don’t offer.

For the city of Calgary, our foray into social media began in 2007, when our team launched a very successful online advertising campaign that greatly increased the number of people visiting our “careers”page. Following that, we were on the road to a social media strategy. Our goal was to establish the communication department as the “home” of social media for the corporation, where people could come to launch projects and find guidelines about social media.