Review of Ines Mergel's "A Manager’s Guide to Designing a Social Media Strategy"

Social media have been changing the way companies and government agencies operate since the middle of last decade--upending long-held ways of doing business and reshaping the relationship between government and citizens. Though more than 100 million Americans are members of a social media site like Facebook or Twitter, few government agencies have explicit policies for interacting through those platforms. Indeed, many are still in the process of developing clear guidelines for social media administrators, lawyers, public affairs officials. To help agencies draft a coherent, comprehensive social media policy, Profess Ines Mergel has written a "A Manager’s Guide to Designing a Social Media Strategy," designed to provide a quick overview of issues agency managers need to address as they engage in the social media world. The Guide is organized into three parts. The first part outlines the main components of a social media strategy. The questions posed in this section can be used to help design an organization’s social media strategy. The second part presents tactics that government organizations can use so that social media can help fulfill the mission of their organization. The final part presents support available from the General Services Administration (GSA) to assist agencies in their social media activities.