Municipal World has released my newest book: Digital Connections. It came out this week.
This book is about the benefits and challenges of using social media for municipalities and municipal politicians. The target audience is politicians, staff, boards and committees, but a lot of what I wrote can apply to anyone in business or industry.
The sell sheet says:
Social media: everyone’s using it today. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, blogs, and photo/video sharing sites. These and other services have literally hundreds of millions of users. But what does it mean for your municipality? Or for you as a municipal politician?
Is it a potentially huge audience for marketing, business attraction, staff recruitment and even votes? Or is it all hype?
What services should you use? What are the rewards and what are the risks? How do you measure success and failure in social media? How do you measure activity and response rates? Who owns and controls usernames and passwords? How do staff update and monitor your municipal pages in social media?
Social media is both a boon and a minefield for municipalities. For newcomers, this book is a practical guide about where to start. For municipalities already using social media, it offers thought-provoking issues: liability, staff access, compensation, security and crafting social media policies.
I am currently working on my next book for Municipal World, about e-government and the impact of technology on municipal governance and politics, due out in December.
My other book, The Municipal Machiavelli, has been finished, but has not got a publisher yet. Personally, I think it’s the best book I’ve ever written.
