U.S. Flag

Making a difference in how people find health information, today and into the future.

Building Public Engagement Using “Twitter Townhalls”

Site Tags: 
Public Engagement, Social Media
Deborah A. Temkin, Ph.D., Bullying Prevention Coordinator, U.S. Department of Education
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Building public engagement on Bullying Prevention by promoting Twitter Townhalls on the homepage of StopBullying.gov

StopBullying.gov Twitter Townhall

One of the challenges with social media in the federal government is how to interact directly with followers. Often, we have limited capacity to reply to direct questions. Holding events such as a twitter townhall, however, allows a set timeframe for followers to directly interact with government representatives.

On March 20, 2012 @StopBullyingGov Exit Disclaimer participated in its first Twitter Townhall hosted by the CDC and was joined in addition by the Anti-Defamation League. The “#VetoViolence” Exit Disclaimer townhall on bullying was one of a series held by CDC on topic relating to youth violence. Widely promoted during the weeks prior, the chat attracted many users asking questions about bullying and attracted 207 visits to StopBullying.gov using dedicated campaign links.

During the chat, the dedicated hashtag was seen trending worldwide. Engagement was high, with users asking questions using the hashtag, as well as users joining in on answering questions asked. In the preparations and throughout the chat itself, several best practices emerged in holding a Twitter Townhall:

  • Having both Federal and Non-Federal official participants is useful to be responsive to questions that may be beyond the government’s purview to respond.
  • Pre-preparing tweets is essential to responding quickly and accurately to inquiries. Using campaign tagged links to information on federal websites is especially helpful to understand the impact of the tweets.
  • When having multiple handles respond, it is critical to delineate topic responsibility and have as many of the tweeters gathered together in a central location or on a conference call to determine who will respond to what questions.
  • Allowing room for users to retweet is an important consideration in quickly crafting tweets
  • Not every question will be answered. Having multiple people viewing the twitter chat to help identify questions is especially useful with high levels of engagement.

We hope to repeat such engagement on our next Twitter Townhall, hosted by the Washington DC Office of Human Rights on October 5 at 3pm EST. That event, using hastag #BullyFreeDC Exit Disclaimer, will have @StopBullyingGov Exit Disclaimer, @GLSEN, @PACERCenter, @TrevorProject, and @SafeSchoolsNow as official participants in the chat.

For more information on how HHS is coordinating social media projects and public engagement, visit the Working Better and People First sections of this site.

Join the Conversation

By submitting this form, you accept the Mollom privacy policy.

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous on
CDC's National Prevention Information Network held a Twitter Townhall in 2010 for National HIV Testing Day. Our report, including a how-to guide, is at http://www.cdcnpin.org/scripts/display/MatlDisplay.asp?MatlNbr=34806
Submitted by Anonymous on
Don't forget Facebook. Some of us do not follow Twitter.
Submitted by Anonymous on
The govrnment shouldn't require us to use social media in order to comment on health care programs. We should have reliably neutral information on choosing health care programs.
Submitted by Anonymous on
I find the web articles invaluable. I do not use Twitter. It's on my iPhone, but being a baby boomer I have never been shown how to use it effectively. I know technology is rapidly inserting itself into emergency management and public health, but many of us seasoned vets haven't fully embraced it.
Submitted by Anonymous on
President Obama and his administration are doing a fantastic job in getting information out and making access to information more available.