How To Grow With a Twitter Townhall

Increasingly, Georgia residents are looking to Twitter to engage with state government. They come to ask questions about how to get driver's licenses, understand taxes, and connect with elected officials. As all these questions flood in, you'll have ample opportunities to engage in positive customer service interactions.

Among the most proactive steps you can take on Twitter to seek out those questions is to run a townhall meeting. You'll block out a stretch of time, generally between 30 minutes and an hour, to lead a discussion and answer your followers' questions.

From Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols to the team at the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, state communicators have already embraced the townhalls, and many who've done so have noticed significant spikes in their audiences and follower engagement.

So, where do you start? Well, with an idea, of course. What topic do you want to focus your chat around? For Commissioner Tim Echols, focus settled on expansion of solar energy. For the Emergency Management Agency, the conversation revolved around hurricane preparedness. What is your agency's expertise? Take advantage of that. The Governor's Office, for instance, could run a townhall about the budget. Georgia SHAPE could tackle childhood obesity. Meanwhile, the Clean Air Campaign could discuss telework options. Only after you brainstorm townhall topics should you look into the nitty gritty of running the event.

During the state's first Social Media Summit, Lisa Janak Newman, Public Information Officer for the Emergency Management Agency, and Carrie Gann, Health Communications Specialist for the Department of Public Health, offered some townhall prep tips in their presentation "Listening to Your Community."

• Pick a memorable hashtag for the townhall, and promote it for a week or more. The Emergency Management Agency selected #AskGEMA.
• Reach out to trusted partners and ask them to attend the townhall to help you field questions.
• Aim to answer all questions during the townhall itself. If you run over your slotted time, make sure to answer all questions promptly after.
• Write a recap of your townhall using a tool like Storify, and share that recap on your blog.
• Track your townhall's success with tools like Hashtracking.

With one great idea and a bit of planning, you can reach out to your answer hungry audience and provide memorable customer service. Oh, and you'll grow your audience on Twitter in a matter of hours. That's nice too.

Related to: 

• Social Media