Maryland Social Media

Social Media Monday (Vol. 5, No. 1)

January 5, 2015

“The Times They Are A-Changin’”

~ Bob Dylan

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

I love change and a new year makes me reflect on the decisions I have made in the prior 365 days and ways that I can improve in the coming year of opportunity. We state social media coordinators have made tremendous strides in the past few years, working collaboratively and sharing best practices. Our inability to keep up with the ad dollars of private industry has made our shared social reach vital and the growth of our state accounts is proof that our strategy has been successful. I am proud of the way that you have creatively supported each other by finding ways to push out information that may not align directly to your organization but is important to the goals of a sister agency. We have capitalized on these emerging tools together to better inform our Maryland neighbors but more importantly to listen to their concerns and suggestions. Yay, us!

HootSuite has been a great tool for us to enterprise our social activity. I am thrilled to let you know that we have procured 40 additional seats to further expand our number of active teams as well as team members within existing teams. Maryland is the first state in the nation to embed this social organization into their state communications packet and other states such as New York are rapidly following our lead.

We will be arranging a series of HootSuite webinars in the coming weeks for all new seat holders. I know of quite a few organizations that require more seats but please reach out to me and let me know how many seats you would like and the names of the seat holders so we can get moving.

Happy 2015, my friends! I can’t wait to see what this new year has in store!