NEW ROCHELLE, NY — The City of New Rochelle has reached an important milestone in its effort to expands its use of social media to reach residents with important information about local government and the community.
Thanks to everyone for helping us reach 1000 Likes! #CityOfNewRochelle #HappyFriday
— New Rochelle, NY (@NewRochelleNY) August 21, 2015
Talk of the Sound spoke with New Rochelle Director of Communications Kathy Gilwit about the milestone and more.
When did you launch the Facebook page?
When we launched our new website in 2010 the Facebook page was tied into the News Flash module and started to populate content from there, which we supplemented with posts as urgency dictated and time allowed. We really didn’t have the staffing for anything further. Parks and Recreation, Youth Bureau, Office for the Aging and the New Rochelle Police Department started their pages afterwards and their audiences have grown steadily. Now thanks to our hiring a part time assistant we’re posting more consistently on our main City page and have seen a related increase in followers.
What else are you doing with social media?
We launched a Facebook page for the New Rochelle Street Fair in September. That page already has almost 60 members and we’re doing a 30 day countdown.
We’re starting an Instagram account.
We are launching a new website later this fall that will feature more images and videos. Our Twitter feed will appear directly on the home page.
The rest is “in development”.
Where do want to take the social media aspect of your communications strategy?
The first step is consistency in what we’re already doing, then expanding content. We are looking to bring out more stories about City services, accomplishments and issues- as well as features. Social media gives an opportunity for a steady stream of light touches, a great complement to the more in-depth news releases, etc. As far as specifics, that’s “TBD”- we’re creating a content calendar now and want to see what will work best. We don’t want to start something unless we can maintain it over time.
How can people best stay connected to the City of New Rochelle?
They can Like us on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/cityofnewrochelle
https://www.facebook.com/newroparks
https://www.facebook.com/newroseniors
https://www.facebook.com/newroyouth
https://www.facebook.com/NewRochellePD
https://www.facebook.comnewrochellestreetfair
They can follow us on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/newroseniors
Of course, the website www.newrochelleny.com contains direct signup for emergency notification through our New Ro Connect provider www.newrochelleny.com/alerts and folks can subscribe to feeds from calendars and news flashes for departments of interest.