Latest / Modern Gov Matters / Meeting Your "Silent Audience" with Frances La Rue
Transcript
- Frances La Rue: if you're on social media, you're there to be social. So you should be. You should be in the comment section building relationships and helping that silent audience know who you are, what you stand for, and what you believe and how you operate and the trust that you want. Let them see your heart and how you respond to negativity. Sarah Loyd: Welcome to Modern Gov Matters. I'm Sarah Loyd, and this show is all about honest conversations with public sector communicators about what's actually working, what's not, and the stuff that keeps you up at night. Modern Gov Matters is presented by CivAll, powered by Social News Desk. Frances La Rue spent years as the entire communication shop for the city of Anna, Texas, a fast-growing city where she handled everything from parks guides to police information all by herself. Now she's at Julie Parker Communications, helping cities and public safety agencies do the same job that she used to do alone. And she's got a theory about your engagement numbers that you're going to want to hear. So welcome to Modern Gov Matters, Frances. Frances La Rue: Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to jump into our conversation. Sarah Loyd: Yeah, so glad to have you here. So before we get into what you're seeing nowadays, you haven't always been on the consulting side. So can you give people the quick version of your work in Anna? Frances La Rue: Yeah, absolutely. So I was the communications manager for the city of Anna, and I was there for about four years. And when I started, I was the first one in my position. They never had anyone doing communications. And it really came about, and this is important to know, from they had a severe ice storm that knocked out the electricity in the city. water was a concern, pipes were freezing, their roads were extremely dangerous. It was just a really intense situation. And I believe it was in 2021, January, February of that year. And the city council looked at the city administration and said, you know, how are we getting information out? You guys have been scrambling to try and do this. You did the best that you could, but you have your other jobs that you were doing and you're stressed. Like, I think it's time for us to bring in someone. and so that is why they posted the position. And I was a local and a resident. And so I immediately applied for the position thinking if if there's anyone that should serve our community, it should be, it should be me. I want to do this, I want to take care of my neighbors, I want to make sure that they're they're staying informed. Within the first three months, I said, Well, we need a communications plan in place. We need to have strategic goals that are gonna drive the direction of everything that we do. So I wrote out a bunch of ideas of how I looked at the strategic plan that the city had, and then I said, how can I use communications to help them achieve those goals and keep the community informed with those? And so once I created that and got the city manager to approve it, then I started building social media. Sarah Loyd: Ha Frances La Rue: And we really ramped up how we were using our newsletter. And we started using it to really drive engagement into our programs, into our services that we had, subscribing people to our emergency alert system, because that's really important. And using social media to be social, to connect with our community. And we did a, I think we did a really great job of growing that. Sarah Loyd: Yeah. Frances La Rue: and I say we because while I was a one-person shop for a while, you really partner with every single department in communications to create good messaging. it was an incredible organization. Great people work there and still work there. And I I miss the camaraderie that we had every single day. But the place that I'm in right now is fantastic for me, for my family. And Julie Parker Communications is a great agency to work with. Sarah Loyd: Yeah, so that's a great transition. you've lived the, you know, government comms, you know, in the trenches, communicating for the whole city kind of thing. And man, coming in in the middle of an ice storm, like what a what a trial by fire that probably was for the city. So glad they were able to recognize the the need for that. And hopefully more cities will kind of take that to heart and understand like, don't wait for an emergency to put your comms plan in place. So moving on to what you're doing at Julie Parker Communications, what does the job look like day to day for you? Frances La Rue: So I'm the social media specialist. So my primary job is to communicate the brand for Julie Parker. So I partner with Julie Parker Communications to tell the story of what the agency does, the type of services that they provide, how they work with clients, the trainings that they offer, they're kind of like the robust collection of services that they have. But I also get to work with the different consultants and strategists that are with JPC to work with clients. And so one of the things that people may not know is that Julie Parker Communications offers social media retainers. And so you can contract with Julie Parker and we will help manage your social media in a lot of different ways. we offer everything from basically a four-hour retainer to full-time services if you need it. And I get to create content for those agencies. And I love doing it. And I love coaching them on different ways to reach their audience. So, you know, why we should do a video over a graphic or when is the best time to use a carousel? Or hey, I saw that you did this a few months ago. Let's repurpose this in a new format. I love helping them take an idea that they have or hey, we need to promote this and going, buckle up. We're gonna do something really awesome with this. Sarah Loyd: I love that you're still so tapped into that whole community and, you know, understand like you're really still on the front lines of government communications and social media. and you wrote a blog post recently about what you're calling the silent audience. So tell me more Frances La Rue: Mm-hmm. Sarah Loyd: about that. What are you seeing out there? Frances La Rue: I would say in the last year or two, agencies are probably noticing that their engagement seems to be down. Maybe their reach looks like it's down or they're not getting as many comments. And I would argue that your reach and your engagement is still there. It just looks different now. So a lot of people, they're scrolling on Instagram and on Facebook, they're they're lurking, you know, they're watching, they're reading, they're in the comment section. listening. They're not necessarily commenting. And so I would say that there's this huge silent audience out there in your community that is absorbing information. They're just not participating in the conversation online. That doesn't mean that they're not absorbing that and then going on their computer and registering for a program or they're not, you know, talking about it at dinner or sharing about it, you know, at their neighborhood, at the school pickup when they're picking up their kids from school or things like that. They're they're absorbing it and they're retaining the information. so I think that there's this misconception right now in social media where everyone's angry and everyone's so negative and they're not there's a there's a small group that is that may be vocal, that may be upset that That lives for the excitement of having someone engage with their comment and stirring the pot Sarah Loyd: Yeah. Frances La Rue: a little bit. And then there's a lot of other people that I think are that are probably a little tired, or they're content, they're happy people and they want to know what's going on, but they're content to not engage. They're online for hours a day, but they're just not contributing to it. So I like to say that people are still paying attention. They're just engaging more quietly. Sarah Loyd: So the engagement numbers go down, but the actual engagement really doesn't. And how long have you been Frances La Rue: No. Sarah Loyd: kind of noticing this trend? Frances La Rue: I've I've really noticed it in the last couple of years. I like to use my husband as a comparison because he he's not really active on social media. And I used to get really revved up about, you know, the community groups and things like that. And he'd be like, Happy people are not in those groups complaining. You know, happy residents, someone who's content in their community. As long as their water is working, their trash gets picked up on time, they love your city. They love where they live and they love their community. And as long as things are working the way that they should be, they're fine. And so you can't just Sarah Loyd: They don't have a lot to say about it. Frances La Rue: use social media as your only way of retaining information or getting public input. It's why other public engagement platforms are so important and why, you know, surveying is really important and having a robust and active newsletter subscriber list, because that's where you're going to be able to communicate and That passive silent audience is still retaining that information. They're still registering for events. They're still subscribing to things. They're still attending your city events. and I think that that's really important for people to acknowledge is that the loudest comments is not the full public opinion. Sarah Loyd: you made me think of something that's come up a couple of times on the podcast. Brian Ligon and Chris Shadrock have both mentioned Frances La Rue: Yes. Sarah Loyd: the importance of in in-person events as well, you know, as part of your overall communication strategy. And that's where they oftentimes Frances La Rue: Yes. Yeah. Sarah Loyd: will hear from the people who really love living there and, you know, who are loving their city and hearing the specific things that people really love and care about. but they're, you know, not the kind of people who are in the comments being being noisy about it. So Frances La Rue: Right. Sarah Loyd: if likes and comments nowadays aren't telling you the truth anymore, what what do you think a city should be measuring instead? Frances La Rue: the analytics that aren't necessarily on social media is a good pulse of whether you're being successful. So are people still registering for your events? Are they still participating in your surveys? Are they subscribing to your emergency alert system? Or are they receiving a reduction in calls in how you communicate? So let's say that you you your utility rates go up. And that's always a hot topic. Utility rates are going up. Sarah Loyd: Yeah. Yeah. Frances La Rue: but you communicate that out, you put all the information out, you notify people in lots of different ways, and then it's activated what's your call volume this time compared to the last time a rate went up, and maybe you didn't communicate it on social media. because that's a good way to gauge it. How many people called in upset, or how many people just didn't call because they went, Yeah, I already knew that was happening. It sucks, but I knew it was coming. there's lots of ways to track analytics and stuff. Like you could use QR codes, and you know, you Sarah Loyd: Mm-hmm. Frances La Rue: know how many people have clicked and visited your website. Definitely be tracking your website, that's your home base. but ultimately. how many like butts are in seats at your events or Sarah Loyd: Yeah. Frances La Rue: how many people are walking through? And those are great ways to just I always say, like you social media is a piece of the pie. It's not the whole pie. It's not the whole toolbox. It's one tool in the toolbox. You've got to be offering a robust communications. toolbox of lots of different things. Sarah Loyd: what do you see working better than it was, say, a year ago? Frances La Rue: I would definitely say reels and carousels are leaps and bounds performing so much better than just static posts on social media, especially graphics that are heavily designed. and AI graphics. gosh, I really hope that people are starting to realize that AI graphics are not necessarily the best things to be using right now. Sarah Loyd: Right. Frances La Rue: You but filming some content, creating a reel, and then repurposing that content. with a new hook there's three different hooks that you can use with reels that I think are really successful. You need a visual hook, you need an audio hook, and you need text, like something that they can read. And if you have those three things, you're gonna reach your audience. They're they're going to be seeing your content. And then you can tweak those three things, change them up just a little bit, and you're still sharing the same messaging. the same topic, you're just doing it in a slightly different way. and then tweaking those Hooks for the different segments of your audience. So are you are you reaching parents about the event? Are you reaching the you know, the slightly older community members that are, you know, maybe 50 plus in your community, maybe they have grown children. Are you reaching the singles? If all of your messaging is about the family activities, there's gonna be people there that are like, I don't wanna go and just be surrounded by kids. It's like, it's like the group Sarah Loyd: Yeah. Frances La Rue: of audience that That for a brewer, they're like, kids don't belong at a brewery. And then there's the parents with Sarah Loyd: Right. Frances La Rue: small kids that are like, but I like beer too. How Sarah Loyd: Yeah. Frances La Rue: are you communicating and reaching both to let them know about what's going on? this is where we're at right now. Instagram meta has this thing called your algorithm. And if you go into your content preferences on your settings. You can click on it, it says your algorithm and it shows you, it defines you. It says you have been interested in. for me, you've been interested in Disney vacations, book talk, and how to create engaging content. Like that's probably what mine is. It'll peg you. Yes. Sarah Loyd: my gosh, I'm scared to go look at mine, like gosh, I don't even know if I wanna know what Instagram thinks about me. Frances La Rue: And then if you ever like, I'm not interested in something on Instagram, it logs that and it says you don't like this type of content. It has put you in a box. Agencies can tap into those boxes. They can go, you just gave me a door to enter into with my message. So again, going back to I like to use like lock take hide as an example. So if you want to communicate lock, take hide, and maybe it's back to school season. And so a lot of moms are looking for like, you know, back to school hacks and lunchbox hacks. And shopping deals and things like that. Maybe they're clicking on links. Okay, well, lock take hide during the school season. Tap into that. You're at the you're at Walmart and you're pushing a grocery cart and you're saying, while you're loading up with all these bags Make sure when you put your bags in your car that you're locking them or you're hiding them. or maybe you're dropping them off back at home. You just entered that one door for the lock take hide message, the agencies that are being really successful on social media are tapping into that. They're going, how do I connect public information into relevant themes that people are most interested in, If you're not creating content about something in your arsenal of evergreen messaging around Sunday night football right now, you're missing out and you're behind and you need to get on it. Sarah Loyd: Yeah. So I'm curious about, you know, kind of your toolkit a little bit. what kind of tools genuinely help you, you know, stay on top of what's going on out in the community? What are people talking about? maybe outside of government Frances La Rue: Yeah, absolutely. So some of the things that I do to just stay on top of things is I like to follow a variety of like content creators. So, you know, NFL teams and other sports teams, I feel like they're doing a really good job about like tapping into trends but making it relevant to their audience. I like to follow, you know, a you know, restaurant reviewers and I like to follow them because I like to to evaluate their hooks. How are they doing text on screen at the beginning of their videos? How are they keeping me watching? I'm I'm I have a hard time just watching something for enjoyment. because Sarah Loyd: Ha ha. Frances La Rue: I'm always like analyzing, how can I use this for one of my clients? How can I use this for our own content? yeah, Sarah Loyd: That's why you're good at your job. Frances La Rue: but like really it don't just live in your own little world, like you need to see what else is out there. I love to follow a bunch of different just Facebook groups. So obviously I follow like GSM, I follow 3CMA, TAMIO, I'm in there, I'm seeing what people are talking about, what's what's their current conversations. Watching webinars, I love to watch a webinar and just hear how people are doing things. What works for them, what didn't work for them, what new tool are they using? I use Chat GPT to to throw ideas around or to to hash out some things, try some new hooks. It really just helps get my brain going. If I can see one thing, I can lead it to something else pretty quickly. you gotta stay in your community, you gotta stay current about what's going on. I know that Facebook groups can be a little toxic sometimes, but you Sarah Loyd: Ha Frances La Rue: gotta know the what your community's talking about. What restaurants are they talking about, what parks. Sarah Loyd: Just put on your boots and wade in there. Frances La Rue: Yeah, you just you just go be a silent audience participant and listen Sarah Loyd: There you go. Frances La Rue: to what's going on. So Sarah Loyd: Yeah, that's great advice. Frances, what else has your radar up right now in government communications? Frances La Rue: I think a hot topic right now that we're seeing a lot of, and I don't think it's going away anytime soon is whether or not you should keep your comments on or off. I approach it from the perspective of there are pros and cons for everything. And you have to weigh the risks and you have to weigh the benefits and you have to choose what's best for your organization and your leadership. A lot of the times when I see comments being turned off by agencies, it was a leadership decision that came down to the communicator. And so maybe they were like, well, no, social is supposed to be social. We should be there. But you have to do what's best for your organization. You got to keep your job. and here's what I see is I see that the agencies that turn their comments off are they're worn down and they're worn out from the negativity. And maybe people from outside their community constantly weighing into their community, and they'd rather have, you know, more one-on-one conversations. They'd rather drive people to other things. And so they turn off the comments on each individual post as they're posting it. That's the only way to do it. There's no on-off switch for the entire platform. The thing that I want to point out is just because you turned off the comments on your platform doesn't mean that the conversation stops, it's just going somewhere else. And so, where is it going? Is it going into the community Facebook groups that you also find so toxic? Well, now you're not a part of the conversation, you've removed yourself from the room. People are still talking about it and now you're not invited to the conversation, unfortunately, You are taking the power out of your hands and you're handing it to someone else that may be ill-informed, uneducated, or just doesn't care and they don't have your best interests at heart. There's so much positivity that can come. And when you turn off the comments, you lose that as well. And so I would say you need to do what's best for your organization. I won't speak on the legal aspect of it. I think there's too much unknown right now. My instincts tell me that it is illegal to be turning off comments and closing that. of it like that platform for communication, but we don't know where that's gonna fall yet. I would say if you're on social media, you're there to be social. So you should be. You should be in the comment section building relationships and helping that silent audience know who you are, what you stand for, and what you believe and how you operate and the trust that you want. Let them see your heart and how you respond to negativity. Sarah Loyd: So Frances, I can tell you're you're super passionate about the work. can you tell me about a recent moment Frances La Rue: Yeah. Sarah Loyd: that reminded you why this work matters so much? Frances La Rue: I was recently at a conference and I was sharing a lot of these things that I'm passionate about. And I had someone come up and go, we are on board. We just want to do all of this social media and we we want to do the trends, we want to get in there. And what do you think about doing trends? And I was like, Well, I think trends are a great way. They're a doorway that you can go in to reach your audience, but they should always have a strategic purpose behind them. You should always have a goal to why you're doing something. We don't just post to post. Engagement alone is not a strategic goal and it's not a probably not a council goal. and so you need to be strategic in that. And I loved having that conversation with them and having them kind of open their eyes to going, okay, so we're not just trying to be funny and show people that we're funny. I'm like, no, because people want to trust you. They want to be informed and they need to have a reason to follow you. And I love helping connect those dots. And if I can help you connect something fun, something trendy, something that helps you be creative and really breathes life into your job and you enjoy doing it, but match it with something strategic. So that your leadership in your organization also is really excited about it. I'm helping you have more job security. I'm helping you find you know, overall contentment in your position and hopefully keep you in this career longer and not get burnt out. And I find a lot of joy and happiness in that because I've been on the side where it's it's hard and you're tired and you just don't feel like you Sarah Loyd: Yeah. Frances La Rue: get to be creative anymore because you're just always checking boxes and you're trying to keep up. And so if I can connect. This can be a lot of fun and you can use your creative brain and connect it to a strategic goal so that your organization is like, yes, you're getting it. Marrying those two, that gets me really excited because it benefits everybody. Yeah. Sarah Loyd: Yeah. And you're just making the world a a little bit better by by helping Frances La Rue: Yeah, absolutely. Sarah Loyd: those communicators, you know, stay stay rejuvenated in their jobs. So all right, Frances, it's time for our lightning round. Frances La Rue: Yeah. Sarah Loyd: so quick fire, first thing that comes to mind, no wrong answers. first off, where are you based these days? Frances La Rue: I live I I like to say I'm 20 minutes south of Oklahoma. I can't really say I'm in the DFW area quite so much anymore because I keep getting further and further out, Sarah Loyd: I so what is your favorite local spot in the twenty minutes south of Oklahoma kind of area? Frances La Rue: Yeah, I love to go to McKenny to downtown McKenny. It is my happy place. There are so many amazing restaurants. great places to just pop into. I love some of the shops that are there. it's great walkability. I I love it. I love to go to the yard, which is a restaurant there. Cadillac, there's so many good places to to eat. filtered coffee, just I love it. Sarah Loyd: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I was just up there about a month ago and just love love McKinney. Yeah, it's such a great community. So, what would you say is the most underrated part of your community? Frances La Rue: the parks. We have fantastic parks in our area. in Anna, we had Slater Creek Park, which has a huge skate park that Tony Hawk has been to. I Sarah Loyd: what? Frances La Rue: have proof of that. I took a picture with him while he was there. so incredible skate park, splash pad, playground, a huge playground. I've got young kids, and so if I can hop into something like that and experience a lot of fun for free, I love it. And McKinney has great parks. Melissa, which is really close to us, just has a brand new splash pad that is so much fun with water with slides and everything. And so I think parks are so underrated. It's free entertainment. It gets you outside, it gets you active, you get the sunshine. I just I love parks. I sound so corny right now, but I do. I love a good park. Sarah Loyd: No, I mean, yeah, shout out to to all the parks. I mean, we when I when I ask this question of a lot of people, usually they will they will talk about a local park being underrated and you know, such a great Frances La Rue: Good. Sarah Loyd: opportunity for people to get out in their community, enjoy nature and you know, just some of what their city has to offer. Frances La Rue: Mm-hmm. Sarah Loyd: All right, so next up, if your community had a theme song, what would it be? Frances La Rue: I'm so bad at music. walking on sunshine. Cause Sarah Loyd: All right. Frances La Rue: I think that that's a fun song and I like our community and I think that our best days are ahead. Bright days are ahead. Sarah Loyd: Yeah, love it. All right, my very last question for you: What is one piece of advice that you give someone just starting out in government comms? Frances La Rue: build relationships, talk to people before you start coming in with a mission or a goal in mind. Get to know them, get to know their hangouts. What what aggravates them? What bothers them? What are what are the things that are difficult? And see if you can fix some of those things. Work with them on those. Go, let me bring a new idea. And if you can solve a problem that they see that exists, that they are agitated about, then you can come with ideas of go, hey, maybe I can improve this area that they weren't even looking at or wasn't on their radar. But relationships are so important. And I always say, when you get into local government, it takes a year in local communications, municipal government communications, it takes a year to get your feet like sturdy on the ground and to really feel like you have a handle on everything. Who is my go-to person that will be able to answer the question? Give me the time of day, call me back, email me back, and maybe isn't necessarily in the field, but can reach me. Those relationships take time and you really need to nurture those, you know. So, hey, can I bring you a drink from Starbucks? Can I meet you for lunch? Build those relationships with them and be a helper. So relationship, relationship, relationships. Sarah Loyd: Yeah, great advice. Well, Frances, what I'm going to take with me today is of course, quiet is not the same as gone when it comes to your audience. And the Frances La Rue: Mm-hmm. Sarah Loyd: people that you're trying to reach are still out there. They're just not making as much noise these days. So thank Frances La Rue: Yeah. Sarah Loyd: you so much for spending time with us today. we really enjoyed having you on and always a pleasure to talk to you. So I know we were catching up before the show too. Frances La Rue: I absolutely love this. It was so good to talk to you, Sarah. And thank you for having me. I really enjoyed talking about these things and I just appreciate the opportunity to share my heart and what I love to do about social media. Sarah Loyd: Yeah, thank you so much. Modern Gov Matters Frances La Rue: All right, after you. Sarah Loyd: is presented by CivAll, powered by Social News Desk. If you found this episode helpful or interesting, please share it. And for more episodes, visit moderngovmatters.com. I'm Sarah Loyd and we'll see you in two weeks.