City of Morgan Hill Communications Assessment

• The City has defined multiple “media lists” that receive all City Press Releases and ‘eBlasts’ (digital announcements of breaking/important news). • There is some evidence (outside of the Economic Development Department’s relationship they have built with the Silicon Valley Business Journal ) of a proactive media engagement strategy on larger City issues, or significant proactive planning to involve media in City projects. • Morgan Hill has two local newspapers that cover City and community news. Both newspapers are open to receiving and printing content from the City, including local events. Periodically, Maureen meets with editors from each paper to touch base and look for ways to work more effectively together. Regional media outlets mostly focus on weather and crime within the City. • Department heads have been empowered to answer media inquiries directly, but will often notify the City Manager/Communications and Engagement Manager that they have been contacted and/or ask for input. Direct Communications (Email & Nixle) • The City is making good use of a large Constant Contact email database. Email is a highly effective way to ensure Cities are directly reaching community members. There is room for improvement when it comes to actively collecting email information at City facilities, Council meetings and City events. • Currently, the Police Department is the only City agency/Department using Nixle. There are only 1,059 total unique people/businesses in the Nixle contact database— roughly 2.5% of the City population. Recommendations Based on the observations above, Tripepi Smith formulated the following recommendations to help the City enhance its communications and create/optimize platforms to further engage its residents. These recommendations have been formed with both a general goal as well as specific Action Steps to take to achieve the goal. The recommendations have been geared around improving the execution, delivery and impact of the City’s outreach and messaging efforts. 1. Continue to Optimize Website and Define Governance While the City’s communication efforts have advanced on social media platforms, these all generally drive traffic to or link back to the core repository of the City’s website, which typically receives 40,000-60,000 Visits per month. The CivicPlus website organizes content into sensible categories and most webpage content is easy for City staff to update. Below are several Action Steps to improve the website experience for users, as well as formalizing processes for website admins. Action Steps o Develop a Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for the website. View https://www.civicplus.com/privacy-policy and https://www.civicplus.com/website-terms- of-use for examples.

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