By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The city is looking to step up its social media game with a new department and a slew of new hires, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The Department of Information Technology and Communications posted an ad for a Chief Digital Officer, in addition to more than two dozen other positions it hopes to fill, according to its job opportunities website.
The Chief Digital Officer is expected to bring digital media know-how to the department and will be charged with “managing and presenting a consistent and comprehensive new media face for the City of New York," the description reads.
The new hires are part of a larger effort by the city to engage with new tools, the Times said.
“It’s a completely new area,” Julianne Cho, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s television office, told the paper. It provides “a new way to get information to New Yorkers.”
In addition to the new-media initiatives, the mayor's office is encouraging city departments to use Facebook and Twitter, the Times said.
Mayor Bloomberg currently has more than 25,000 friends on Facebook and nearly 18,000 followers on Twitter.
