Does Your Agency Use A Solid Digital Strategy?

From developing a digital strategy to maintaining websites, mobile applications and a social media presence, there’s a lot on the plate for government leaders when it comes to digital experience.

As agencies expand their citizen-facing offerings into the digital realm, it’s important that they take steps to ensure their projects not only align with institutional goals, but also capture the attention of citizens.

Digital government is most powerful when it is useful, usable, engaging and efficient, says David Yang, Vice President of ICF International, a consulting company that works with many different public sector agencies on digital engagement strategy. Yang has had extensive experience working with digital government programs, both at ICF International and from his time as a federal employee at the Library of Congress, where he served as the chief web designer and advisor to digital initiatives. He knows firsthand the importance of citizen engagement, and how best to achieve it from a government perspective.

Simply put, citizen engagement is not easy, which is why Yang helped to compile a list of the five steps any agency can take to improve their citizen engagement with personalized and digital experiences.

1. Develop a digital communications strategy.

Each agency has a unique and distinct mission necessitating a digital communications strategy tailored specially to their needs. There’s no one strategy that’s right for everyone, yet often Yang sees agencies struggling with not having their own digital strategy in place.

“One of the most overlooked things when people embark on this is just having a solid digital strategy where everyone is aligned and moving the same direction,” he says.

No matter where they’re starting from, it’s important for agencies to develop a comprehensive digital communications strategy that spans both agency divisions and communications mediums. This ensures continuity across digital communications efforts, and makes sure that everyone is on the same page — both internally and externally.

“Let’s say the communications shop is doing digital outreach, but then the field offices and business functions are also doing their own sort of work and sometimes it’s a disjointed effort,” Yang says. “And then of course on the external side, if you don’t have a single sort of strategy, you can put out different brands, different messages, and that can be confusing to citizens.”

A comprehensive digital communications strategy ensures that an agency’s resources are best allocated, and that their digital messaging and experience is consistent and properly managed — key tenets of citizen engagement.

2. Engage with social media.

When developing a digital strategy, it’s important that agencies keep in mind the importance of social media. Although social media is a newer form of communication, it wields increasing power, especially when tied to other digital offerings.

“These days, especially with citizens who are used to dealing with just mobile apps and websites, you’ve got to be out there [on social media],” Yang says. “You’ve got to be monitoring and you’ve got to do active listening and have folks standing by waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

Properly executed, social media has the power to improve an agency’s visibility, promote new initiatives and keep citizens up-to-date on federal happenings. Social media can also be a great way for agencies to monitor citizen responses to existing programs and solicit feedback and engagement in an easy, approachable manner.

“It feeds into this concept of better digital government,” Yang says.

3. Don’t underestimate the importance of mobile.

According to Pew Research Center, 90 percent of adult Americans have a cell phone. 58 percent own a smartphone. Simply put: Virtually everyone today is on mobile, and agencies need to keep this in mind when building out their digital offerings.

As mobile becomes ubiquitous across both the federal and commercial sectors, agencies need to tailor their services to a mobile environment if they want to effectively engage citizens and take advantage of digital best practices.

But what does mobile strategy look like for the federal government?

It’s hard to pinpoint, because mobile includes just about everything from apps to mobile security to responsive websites, Yang says. Because agencies have varying missions they also have varying needs and parameters when it comes to mobile.

What’s key to remember is that, across all of these offerings, effective mobile offerings are often the best way to reach citizens.

4. Manage your operations on a single platform.

“I always tell my government agency clients — I say, ‘Look, your mission has to get done, and it has to get done quickly and effectively. You need to put in the best platform,’” Yang says.

As digital communication expands to include social, mobile, extensive websites and access to enormous databases, agencies need to take steps to ensure that they can easily maintain, update and modify their digital presence.

“It’s better to have everything in one place,” Yang says. “First of all, it’s just better data, and there’s better ability to share that data across the same platforms to maximize engagement. It’s also just easier to maintain.”

Managing these disparate offerings on a single platform makes is easier and more efficient than using multiple systems, he says. And, when internal operations work smoothly, agencies can spend more of their time focusing on creating engaging, personalized experiences — not struggling with technology on the back-end simply to get any communication out. Products such as Adobe Marketing Cloud and Adobe Experience Manager can help streamline this process, from content creation and management to mobilization and analytics.

“If commercial wants the best, shouldn’t federal government for very mission-critical websites have the best platform as well?” Yang says. “Because really the complexity of what they’re trying to do is no different than our commercial counterparts. So I always advocate as much as you can put into one platform, it would be more advantageous.”

5. Understand your citizens as customers.

Although it might seem counterintuitive, agencies need to shift towards thinking of citizens as customers of government services. What this comes down to is prioritizing user experience and keeping usability in mind when developing citizen-facing digital platforms.

“Sometimes agencies will go, ‘We’re not a business so don’t talk about customers, don’t talk about profit,’” Yang says. “And it’s like, well, if you change things like profit to ROI, if you change things like sales to engagement and you change customers to users, you’re trying to do the same thing.”

Increasingly, government is catching on to this idea. They understand that, before writing code for an innovative application, it is important to determine how citizens will actually engage with the application. A powerful program loses much of its effectiveness if it is not easily used, Yang says.

Walking a mile in the user’s shoes, which means soliciting feedback at all stages, has proven valuable for agencies seeking to create a strong, engaging and personalized digital experience. And, while this might sound like a fundamental change in government, it’s really just a new way of reaffirming the underlying goals of government: to serve citizens as best as possible.

“You want to engage better with citizens, you want to reduce the cost of business, and by the way you want to build a better brand which in turn gives citizens a better feel for their government, which itself in turn leads to a more positive outcome,” Yang says.

Read more about how government is creating unique and engaging digital experiences for citizens.​

This article was produced on behalf of Adobe by GEMG Custom Strategies, the marketing services division of Government Executive Media Group. The editorial staff of Nextgov was not involved in its preparation.