Paris rolls out coordinated social-media strategy and launches community survey

Public Information Officer John McFadden told the Paris City Council on Feb. 9 that the city is adopting a coordinated social-media strategy focused on video and consolidated accounts to increase engagement. McFadden said the city worked with consultant Sam Tolles in stakeholder sessions and plans to create topic-based Instagram profiles, a single YouTube account with playlists and a public safety account for police, fire and EMS.

McFadden said the consultant emphasized the importance of video and shares for algorithmic reach, saying, "Video is primary." He said engagement benchmarks in the rubric provided by Tolles set 4% or higher as excellent, and that four recent videos recorded engagement scores between 11% and 42% with roughly 7,400 followers before the ice storm increased viewership.

The presentation also announced the launch of the National Community Survey, which McFadden said opened Friday and will remain available through March 20 at Paristexas.gov/survey. He asked council members to encourage constituents to participate.

Council members asked about the rollout schedule and access to Tolles' presentation decks. McFadden said he will share the slide decks this week and estimated it will take at least six months to fully implement the creative teams, review processes and content schedules. He described the plan as a staff-led effort with department-based creative teams producing content for review and scheduling by social media managers.

Next steps: staff will distribute the consultant slides to council, continue promoting the community survey and begin forming creative teams for phased implementation over the coming months.