The Sound Green

One of the most interesting challenges that I have run into with my project is working with a government agency - Seattle Parks & Recreation.  From day one at my internship in social media marketing, I was so surprised that people would just trust me not to post inappropriate or irrelevant information through Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, etc, accounts.  I hold in my hands the passwords to dozens of accounts of big-named clients!  Working with the government is an entirely different story.  I thought it would be as simple as creating a Facebook page and Twitter account, making it look pretty, coming up with a good strategy, and approving it before going live.  In reality, the page has to be set up and branded as seattle.gov by one person for every single government organization that wants to go on FB, and after that's done, I have to go to their office and edit it from their computer on their account.  They are toying with giving me access temporarily as an admin of the fanpage.  They are advanced enough to have a social media policy, and I hate to challenge our government (Ok, no, I really don't) but Facebook changes every few months and they are not up-to-date to deal with it.  I realize now that it's a struggle because they have to bring up policy changes in official meetings which might be laden with pressing issues... but seriously, if they have a social media addict and professional come in to help for free, you've got to be able to accept their help!  This project might be more than just a temporary nice Facebook page... jobs in the parks department are just waiting to be cut, and if we can build a shown fanbase and outreach for events and classes at the Camp Long Environmental Learning Center, who knows, a few more naturalist jobs might be able to stay after all.  Get with the program, and accept my help already, Seattle, WA!