Board wins national social media award

Human trafficking awareness effort honored

The Oakland County Board of Commissioners received the 2015 Golden Post Award for their 2014 Human Trafficking Awareness event titled “Learn About the Impact of Human Trafficking” which placed third in the national competition out of 171 nominations. The comprehensive multi-faceted media approach of using some traditional marketing, media and public relations’ principles to communicate the effort while incorporating social media into the promotion of the event resulted in the board receiving this achievement.

Out of Oakland County’s 9 submissions of which all were nominated for 9 Golden Post Awards, presented by Government Social Media an affiliate with Government Technology, the board’s human trafficking event won third place in the national Government Social Media Campaign Category.

In other categories, county departments were listed as finalists in the Social Media in Solving Crime category and in the Social Media in an Emergency category. An honorable mention was given for Oakland County’s Social Media Policy that the Board of Commissioners approved.

All nominations were submitted by the Oakland County Information Technology Social Media division and featured many departments’ social media efforts, but the Oakland County Board was the only department to receive an award.

The Golden Post Award is the first awards program that focuses on the United States and local government social media efforts. Local and state government agencies from around the country were invited to submit nominations. 171 were submitted with 42 finalists and 3 honorable mentions. The public voted on finalists’ entries with more than 6,000 public votes being cast and hundreds of comments made. The awards were presented at the first annual Government Social Media Conference with more than 360 representatives from across the nation in attendance.

“I am honored that we received the Golden Post Award which demonstrates how important social media is when promoting events such as the Oakland County Board of Commissioners Human Trafficking seminars,” stated Oakland County Commissioner Shelley Goodman Taub, who served as the chairperson for the Human Trafficking event.

“Oakland County’s elected officials and county departments, under the leadership of Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, are able to collaborate with and engage residents online because of our innovative approach to social media. The integrated social media strategy to promote the Board of Commissioners’ Human Trafficking Awareness Event is one example. We are thrilled the inaugural Government Social Media conference recognized those efforts with a Golden Post Award,” Oakland County Deputy Executive/Chief Information Officer Phil Bertolini said.

“I would like to recognize our county’s social media team and our senior community liaison for working with our study group to devise such an outstanding media plan that resulted in this national recognition for the Board’s ‘Learn About the Impact of Human Trafficking’ forum. By developing a social media campaign to market the event, we were able to successfully reach various audiences to attend the forum,” stated Oakland County Commissioner Janet Jackson, who also served as a co-chairperson for the Oakland County Human Trafficking Workshop Study Group.

Oakland County’s Information Technology e-Government representatives Kaitlin Keeler and Cassy Zakens attended the Government Social Media Conference on behalf of the county and received the award.

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