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September 11, 2012 By Noelle Knell
Chances are you've visited city Facebook pages for information on local events, city services or elected officials. But how can you be sure you've landed on the city's official page and not a look-a-like? With so many groups and organizations representing a municipality in some way, it can be confusing for a user to determine who can legitimately lay claim to the official city moniker.
The social media giant has been contacting cities and governments across the globe to get them to make adjustments to page names deemed too generic in order to help eliminate some of the confusion. On a webinar given by Facebook in conjunction with the National League of Cities (NLC) on Tuesday, Sept. 11, Facebook's Public Policy Manager Katie Harbath explained what cities must do to properly distinguish their Facebook page as the official hub of the city, such as adding “government" to its name to avoid confusion.
On the whole, the new rules are vague, and Facebook hasn’t effectively communicated the reasons for the change — apologies for which led the discussion. According to the NLC, Munich, Germany, lost access rights to its Facebook page for failing to comply with the new guidelines on the company's timetable.
According to Harbath, while many cities have been contacted, the company is still working its way through all pages potentially affected.
"People who were connecting to really generic page names, such as Australia, really weren't sufficiently informed about what they were connecting to and who was administering that page," Harbath said. "We were seeing a really bad user experience with these generic pages."
Because official city pages should have the word "government" incorporated into the page name, Facebook made a few recommendations for municipalities looking to satisfy this new requirement, using Denver as an example: City Government of Denver, City of Denver Government, or Denver, Colorado Government.
Facebook contends that users are likelier to engage with a page if its administrator is clearly represented. The "government" distinction differentiates a city's official page from other closely affiliated organizations, like tourism offices or chambers of commerce. Similarly, elected officials who use Facebook must clearly identify their pages, with a distinction like City of Denver — Mayor's Office.
Some government pages are opting to incorporate their tagline into their page name — also an acceptable differentiator from look-a-like pages, according to Facebook. The northern European country of Latvia, for example, calls its page "If You Like Latvia, Latvia Likes You."
Cities need not change the urls for their Facebook pages, and the company assures cities that changing the page names won't cause them to lose any fans or content. Facebook's page name change form is available here.
Harbath went on to offer practical guidance to municipalities looking to maximize citizen engagement via their presence on Facebook. Among the many features reviewed was the ability to time posts, so content is kept fresh even after office hours. This strategy will help encourage engagement between the hours of 9 and 10 p.m., the most active hour of the day on Facebook.
As the No. 1 social media platform in the world, Facebook's 900 million users have undoubtedly noticed a gradual evolution toward a more visually oriented layout. Cities are advised to focus energy on strong images and graphics, as both are likelier than simple links and text to encourage interaction from page visitors and fans.
The company offers several best practices for cities looking to increase the effectiveness of their organization's Facebook page:
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http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Cities-Must-Change-Facebook-Page-Names-or-Else.html
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I agree some standard need to be met. I have visited many pages that appear to be a Gov website only to find out it was some bogus site or some business site trying to cash in on a gov sounding name...
We need to have a meeting to set up the meeting, so we know what to say in the meeting.
"...Cities are advised to focus energy on strong images and graphics, as both are likelier than simple links and text " In other words.... Pretty Pictures and Small Words.
The link to the Facebook page name change form -- http://on.fb.me/fblocationname -- is broken/500. I can't find anything in FB help pages that address this issue. Will it extend to OTHER local government pages? We tried to change our FB page name (to make it more explicitly an agency) during the clemancy period (timeline rollout) and were summarily refused -- no appeal.
The rationale for FB's "policy" change on this topic is bogus. It's not about clearing up confusion for users. It's about maintaining FB's "place" pages to get users to "check in," which in turn increases traffic and increases what they can charge for ad rates. Adding "Government" to a city's page name is not engaging and inviting to users. Any city that has an established FB page will not increase engagement by calling it a government page. This is what happens when companies go public, the focus shifts from consumers to investors. FB is doing whatever it can to make money for its shareholders, plain and simple.
@Joyce 1
Not liking this. Our City page, although administrated by government personnel, was created to engage the community, and represent the community and its events, successes, failures and bring the community together as a whole...not just the government. Community building, not government building is the vision. Many people shy from the government stigma...
@ Charles Kerr: "...Cities are advised to focus energy on strong images and graphics, as both are likelier than simple links and text..." In other words.... Pretty Pictures and Small Words. . Exactly. Facebook is pretty much useless already if you actually want to get anything more than a shout out across to users. From the perspective of serious policy changes or the ability to explain a program or decision, this advice is why I loathe it, use it as little as possible and believe it is heading in the direction of Pinterest as far as value...which is about zero for getting real work done.