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Bill 'BuzzFeed' de Blasio Taps Power of Social Media for Public Outreach

By Jeff Mays | March 3, 2015 7:35am
 Since taking office, Mayor Bill de Blasio's office has used a variety of social media tools to reach the public. "We are trying to reach New Yorkers where they are," said the city's Digital Director Jessica Singleton.
De Blasio Administration's Use of Social Media
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CITY HALL — Just before Bill de Blasio hit the stage at Baruch College earlier this month to give his second State of the City address, the mayor recorded his first-ever Vine video to let New Yorkers know about the event.

The six-second video has been watched or embedded in other sites across the web more than 397,000 times.

And when satirical news site The Onion wrote an article about de Blasio's handling of last month's blizzard, the mayor staged a dramatic reading and posted it to the city's SoundCloud account, which has been played close to 54,000 times.

From Flickr and Instagram to the city of New York's posts on BuzzFeed Community as well as first lady Chirlane McCray's #FLONYC Tumblr account, the de Blasio administration has made it a point to take their message directly to New Yorkers through as many digital social media platforms as possible. 

"We are trying to reach New Yorkers where they are," said the city's Digital Director Jessica Singleton.

While Mayor Michael Bloomberg was the first to create a chief digital officer position, de Blasio upgraded it and created a chief technology officer.

The city has already amassed about 1.3 million followers on the digital platforms it uses to engage the public such as Twitter and Facebook. And de Blasio's team is looking to grow that number through viral posts that spread far beyond the scope of existing users, according to Singleton.

The idea behind the pre-State of the City Vine was to make sure the audience knew that "the mayor was thinking about the importance of an online audience also when he's delivering a major annual address," Singleton said.

Putting the Onion reading on SoundCloud was an opportunity to reach a new audience, she added.

 

"As soon as we heard the recording we said we need to put this online and make sure that everyone can hear this," Singleton said.

The city's Valentine's Day listicle, which it posted on the NYC page on BuzzFeed's user-generated community section, took a look at de Blasio's accomplishments during his first year in office.

"Like love, pre-K is universal," read item four on the list, which featured a picture of first lady Chirlane McCray reading to pre-school children.

"Who needs Netflix when you have the municipal budget?" read another.

However, there are risks with extending the use of social media.

Of the 87 comments on de Blasio's Vine, some include name-calling and cursing.

There are also criticisms of the mayor, including some that blame him for the shooting deaths of two officers last year, an idea first put forward by the city's police unions.

"Instead of teaching his son to be a good person, he taught him how to 'act' around police," wrote one user about the mayor's comments following the grand jury decision not to indict a police officer in the death of Staten Island man Eric Garner.

Some Twitter users criticized de Blasio when a BuzzFeed Community list about an earlier snowstorm was tweeted during a messy day with lots of weather-related transit delays.

A tweet of the list "Things We Learned From #Blizzard2015" featured a picture of de Blasio in a "Game of Thrones" outfit and holding a sword with the words "Winter is Coming."

"The City is prepared for anything that comes our way," the mayor's office wrote on the Twitter feed.

Twitter user @PayAttentionNYC wrote: "Why are you getting paid for this? What part of the City Charter do you feel speaks to this "outreach?"

Scott Talan, a communications professor at American University who studies social media, said some blowback can be expected once you open the door of two-way communication, but that doesn't override the benefits.

"If you don't engage on these platforms you risk not being relevant or part of the discussion," Talan said.

Singleton said the city's philosophy on social media use is guided by just a few principles.

"Is it useful? Is this fun? Is it a combination of both" she said.

"I'm not going to like or share or even look at something if there's not something that brings me in. It's either...'I didn't know New York City government can do this,' or 'Oh my God that is too funny."

Talan said it makes sense for politicians to evolve beyond just the use of Facebook for social media outreach.

"Politicians need people and therefore its no surprise that de Blasio is using newer ways — and surprising ways — to reach people," said Talan, a former journalist and former mayor of a small city in California.

"The analogy is if de Blasio was walking around New York City and saw a bunch of people gathered at a park he would walk up and talk to them. These platforms provide a way to do that with a larger number of people."

The de Blasio administration's focus on social media is in keeping with their stance on increasing the city's technological savvy. The mayor's office is currently working on making its websites even more accessible to New Yorkers by making them compatible for people to access using smartphones, Singleton said.

De Blasio's team created a mobile-friendly app that allowed people to locate pre-K's based on their home address and begin the application process as part of his universal pre-K initiative. Previously, the only way to apply for pre-K was to print out a form and fax it in or to call in.

"We said this is not going to work for all New Yorkers just given how crazy the day can get. This process can be much easier," Singleton said.

Bruce Lincoln, co-executive producer of Silicon Harlem, said he's been impressed with how de Blasio has linked his administration's efforts to fight income inequality to tech issues.

Lincoln, a member of the city's Broadband Advisory Task Force under de Blasio counsel Maya Wiley, said the group is talking about ways to get all New Yorkers access to high-speed Internet but also about ways in which to link young people in communities of color to the well-paying job opportunities in the tech sector.

"The mayor and his wife Chirlane McCray are all over social media and the people he has surrounded himself with in his administration are tech savvy," said Lincoln. "He has made a commitment to the tech sector and not just Silicon Alley but throughout the city so there is digital inclusion."