Interior Wants To Know How To Manage Its Huge Social Media Presence

A guide at Yosemite National Park, Calif., talks to tourists with Yosemite Falls behind her.

A guide at Yosemite National Park, Calif., talks to tourists with Yosemite Falls behind her. Scott Smith/AP

The department issued a sources sought notice seeking tools to manage its 1,500 social media accounts.

The Interior Department has more than 1,500 social media accounts and needs to be able to manage them all through one central portal.

Interior has a large social media presence through its many components. The National Park Service alone manages 45 percent of the federal government’s Instagram accounts, according to a November 2016 post on Spredfast, a blog on social media.

The department released a notice of sources sought Monday seeking information on tactics for managing social accounts enterprisewide, as well as companies who have experience in this area. This information will be used to construct a future contract to acquire a tool or management service.

Specifically, Interior is looking for a single platform—either a tool or “suite of tools”—to manage social accounts across platforms. The notice mentions Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest, but adds the tool should be able to interact with others, as well. The tool should also enable Interior employees to manage all accounts centrally while providing unique access to some 1,000 users across the department.

Ideally, the tool would be able to meet all of these core requirements:

  • Schedule and publish content directly to social media sites.
  • Include analytics and reporting.
  • Provide archives of social media accounts.
  • Provide listening, monitoring and engagement functions.
  • Meet necessary security requirements.
  • Be accessible by mobile devices.
  • Meet 508 requirements for disabled persons and other accessibility concerns.
  • Be capable of posting material to social media sites in the most 508-compliant manner.
  • Include technical support and training.

Responses are due by March 23.