Boston Celebrates Social Media Day

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino releases proclamation of official Social Media Day, held Sunday, June 30.

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To embrace modern technologies and the art of social media, the city of Boston celebrated Sunday, June 30, as its official Social Media Day. 

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino released an official proclamation stating the city’s interest and support of social media use, and how it improves communication with constituents for improving city operations.

“Through dozens of ever-growing social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Pinterest and much more, the city of Boston invites constituents to join the conversation, and take a firsthand role in improving their city using these technologies,” the official proclamation states.
Using the hashtag #SMDay, Boston’s Department of Information Technology, citizens and other organizations shared on Twitter about efforts to drive social media.

For example, Boston’s DoIT tweeted out some of the Boston Marathon memorial messages:

A selection of Boston marathon memorial messages, digitized and blogged via @tumblr here: http://t.co/yI0tkWMgfY #OneBoston #SMDay — City of Boston DoIT (@DoITBoston) June 30, 2013
The department also tweeted about a city’s archaeologist who posted in real time about discoveries during a dig.

The City's own archaeologist posts discoveries in real-time mid-dig. Join him: http://t.co/mXeGSMxdtU #SMDay — City of Boston DoIT (@DoITBoston) June 30, 2013
 And the city shared a story about how it invited residents to help locate potholes -- and ramped up those efforts using social media.

 

This spring, you helped us fill >2K potholes via #SpotHoles. Here's how we did it, via @storify: http://t.co/X39fwQT3wt #SMday — City of Boston DoIT (@DoITBoston) June 30, 2013
 

But Boston isn't the only one with an official Social Media day -- Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder also has proclaimed June 30 as the entire state's Social Media day:

Happy #SMDay #Michigan! Don't forget to tell us what #socialmediais to you for a chance to win @PureMichigan gifts! pic.twitter.com/28EEWgPALz — Michigan.gov (@migov) June 30, 2013
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Sarah Rich is a former staff writer for Government Technology.