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Welcome to Voices in Local Government. My name is Joe Superville. Joining us to
explain how your town can crush the stigma of working in government and create a
positive brand identity to attract employees by leveraging social media as a free
resource is Michael Paulus, town manager of Plainville, Connecticut. Thanks for joining
and welcome, Mike. Hi Joe, thanks for having me. And Mike, you've also been an
elected official, so maybe at the end you can do a tangent on form of government
or the manager -counsel relationship or any words of wisdom on that part of it. Love
to, yeah. But for today, social media is the topic and as we kind of stated in
your opener that stigma that comes along with local government, I think most of the
audience understands what we're talking about. Can you give your quick definition on
what that challenge is and then we're going to get into how to overcome it? Well,
sure. You know, it is something that we all as practitioners and local or state
government are trying to get over that hurdle of that old joke,
"Hi, I'm from the government, I'm here to help," and people just have issues that
are long -standing, that taxes and you're really hurting me with,
When am I getting for my services, for my taxes, what kind of services and so
forth? So it's a lot to overcome. And I'm trying to show through social media that
you can create or at least provide a window into the sort of behind the scenes
look at working in local government, that it is a great profession to get into,
that it's fun and exciting. There are a lot of, if to be and if you want to show
that side because I think that's the side that people don't get to see. We're a
stuffy government agency. We move slow. Those are the sort of the stereotypical ideas
of what government's all about and we've evolved just like everybody else and we've
got to compete with the private sector now more than ever in terms of trying
I'm, you know, happy to go happy to be here, happy to have an opportunity to talk
about some of the things that have been working for us and what we've done and
what we've been able to accomplish. Yeah, and there's different different target
audiences, whether it's social media, whatever the platform is as a marketing outreach
person, there's there's different audiences and different messages they need to hear.
And it's not the sole focus of today, but that that side of it on recruiting and
it's not it's and it's not limited to young people, but people coming out of high
school, undergrad, even grad school, showing off the local government as real career
opportunity. I think it's kind of two sides of that coin, right? 'Cause that group
might not have the same sourness for lack of a better word about government 'cause
they haven't even had to care yet. But on the other hand, hard to grab their
attention or get their attention or get them to do anything really. I guess now I
sound like the old person, but. - Oh, well, you.
It's a great calling. And people, you know, we talk to that are very passionate
about public service. And those are the individuals we wanna open the window, show
them that this is a great opportunity. And it's not just the young professional
coming in out of college, but think of it this way. Let me tell you what I think
is another opportunity in looking at attracting applicants.
We have a problem here in Connecticut in terms of one specific problem,
building officials, finding enough building officials to come into local government.
There's a shortage and the way I think of it is it would be an easy or path to
take someone who is coming in from the trades, you know, being a carpenter,
a builder, a, you know, electrician or a HVAC person. To think of it as your 45
year old, 50 year old who could make a career transition. Those opportunities exist,
they may be at the end and say, listen, I'm just tired, I can't do this anymore,
it's backbreaking. And they take that knowledge and information and transfer
transferred into a class and certification to get into a path to be a building
inspector. Those are high paying job salaries in most cases for management type of
position in terms of a building inspector or even an assistant building official. And
that's just one example. We have a, it's almost like fill in the blank. We have so
many shortages in terms of engineers that we're looking for, building officials that
we're looking for, you know, teachers, but just general administrative planning
purpose, try to find a zoning code enforcement officer is almost impossible.
So we have a number of issues and I'm sure this plays out across the country. So
it's not just the individual young person coming out of college, but there's an
opportunity for a mid -career level person to make that transition to and still have
a road ahead of them and a timeline ahead of them that isn't just retirement.
- Yeah, and using the word brand with the local government can be a little dicey
'cause it's not a corporation or it's not your personal brand, which is the popular
thing these days, but social media is a good tool for that when used effectively.
So let's get into those steps specific to how you utilize social media.
I say you, but the team there, the entire local government. So start at the top,
what is the first step to better usage of social media? Whether it's for recruiting
and hiring or just the overall, not brand, I hate to say that word, but the brand
or perception. - Brand is fine because that's the way we approached it. Okay, and
thinking that, let me frame it this way, that Connecticut has 169 towns.
We're We're all, we're very small state, we're all competing, right? It's a very
small state, but there's 169 separate local governments, right?
And we don't have the county form. And so, brand, you've got to do something to
stand out from the others, right? If you're not able to compete in terms of some
of the wealthier communities that are paying, that might be right next to you, that
you border a town, a neighboring town, but can't pay as much as they might offer,
you got to start looking at different things like what we put in as a four day
work week. But we're looking at brand in terms of saying, what's great about
Plainville, Connecticut, right? And we want to tell a story about, you know, small
town America, that's just a great place to be, the great place to live, work, and
play. And so starting with that, you've got to build the machine around it, so to
speak. You've got to build the team around that to be able to build content,
develop content, and put that content out on a consistent basis that is across
platforms and is engaging to the public. And so I started with building a team.
And like many communities, you have to wear many hats. So I came in,
was able to hire an assistant town manager. The position was already there.
It just happens that my timing was that I was coming in and the so the manager
had retired and the assistant manager had both gone. So I was able to do that.
Well, We started with the notion of we're going to build brand. We started it
together and we enlisted the help of the economic development director who was
already a position. So we weren't adding anything new to the budget. These were
positions. We were coming in, I was building a team. We were looking at what we
could do using social media platform, free social media platform. We do not have a
communications department. we do not have a public relations department or team,
we're just, okay, how do we do this? How do we build this? How do we start
building content and working on our brand? And that's when an opportunity came up
with our part -time position office assistant and we
rewrote the job description to include social media. And when we went out, we had
two young professionals apply. And I liked them both.
And my assistant and I went through the process and we figured we'd hire them both.
And we did that because we felt we needed two -part timers.
And so one was the assistant and became a social media specialist. And the other
one was a part -time helper as well. And we did that because we had an unfilled
position in engineering department. So we were trying to do this on a very low
budget or no impact to the budget. And so we built the team first. That was the
first order. - Okay, that's interesting 'cause a lot of the topics we cover on this
podcast and all of ICMA content, whoever the expert is, the rest of the audience
can have to try and kind of scale it up or scale it down depending on the size
and budget and all that. So it's interesting in this case that that's about as
small as it gets and with part -time positions, but I think it does scale. So if
you're mid or larger place that has the budget for that communication team or the
PIO and their staff, The concepts are still there. It's like you had to do what
you had to do to get the right people to help, but it can kind of scale for
whoever's listening to your local government. - Yes, we had a team of three that
were already here. And then we actually was a social media coordinator and social
media specialist. So we brought them both in. And one more aligned with,
well, they're both great and they're both talented. And that's the team of five now
that we meet on a weekly basis and we go through developing the strategies and the
content for engagement. And I think we've done pretty well. Okay. So you just said
you meet often. How much freedom do you give your,
you know, whatever the title is, your lead social media manager? I understand that's
not the exact title, but whoever that point person is, How much freedom are you
giving them to kind of create that unique voice? Take some risks,
be okay with a few misses here or there, versus the generic, play it safe, just
put out the information and leave it be. 'Cause there's pros and cons to both sides
of it, but how much freedom are you giving? - It's a great question. And I would
say that it is open lid on the creative side. So there isn't any idea question
that we're not gonna throw out and be collaborative within the group. So they have
great latitude in terms of where they wanna pursue different ideas and trends,
if you will, and platforms and where we concentrate our effort, what content we make
and the frequency of our production and content development all comes through on a
weekly basis. We sit down every Monday, we go through that, and then there are, you
know, other additional follow -up meetings and so forth about setting forth the course
of action for a strategy that builds the brand. And then a layer above that is a
Discover Plainville committee that's been charged with developing a tagline and helping
with a logo as part of the brand. - Is that committee staff or are those residents
or mixed? - That's a, the committee is a volunteer through members of the council
and volunteers from the community. - So this question, you kind of preempted it and
it sounds like one of the advantages of the smaller team is you can kind of
preempt this issue, but for your peers out there who might have a bigger staff and
maybe a little bit more bureaucracy and red tape, what would you say to that city
or town, county manager who, you know, they meet with whatever the title is, comms
director, PIO, and they have that social media manager, but there's resistance by
other executives or other department heads or, hey, we want our stuff this way, not
that way. What's your advice to break through the resistance or maybe reluctance of
a more aggressive social media presence if there was that? It sounds like you don't
have that, but what would you do if you did? We're not saddled with that, right?
So if I had that problem, I think it's about not being so fearful the,
you know, the creative and what the creative unleashes, you know, and, and certainly,
you know, I've been around, you know, in, in, I'm going on 30 years in a career
in, in public administration. So, you know, I'm a proud public servant and I love
doing what I'm doing. And I've walked into this role. And with the idea of pushing
social media, I really a novice at this. And that was, you know, more than a year
ago. And the staff around me are in their 20s. So, you know, I'm learning from
them, and trying to, you know, just keep my head above water kind of thing in
terms of the learning curve. But bringing to your question the context of,
okay, what's okay to do, what's not okay to do, right? And so we talk through
those in those meetings. Like I said, we're free to voice our creative side in any
way shape or form without a, "No, we can't do that or we don't do that." It's
like, "Okay, let's just check this out. Let's kind of run it up the flagpole," so
to speak, which is me really in a small town. It's as manager, checking in with
the council and the chairman and quietly talking about, hey, would it be a problem
if we went this far with a campaign? As far as content, we're pretty much,
we're looking forward to be engaging and informative. And if we hit those marks,
some people will like it, some won't, but we're not going out of bounds in any
way. If that's what you're getting at. - Yeah, no one's going, well, I shouldn't say
no one, Click bait is not what people want even if it works in the short term. So
step two you kind of just you just mentioned that the content itself So looking for
and then creating content How do you and your team approach that and specifically?
What are your discussions around? I don't want to say the tendency but the the
easier way to do it, which is talking at people and this could be a local
government It could be a member association like member association like ICMA could
be a private business with revenue is the only goal, but there is that tendency to
talk at instead of try to talk with or engage with the buzzword,
but to actually create the back and forth, which is harder to do and it takes a
lot more time and effort. How do you all
We started with when the team was just myself and the assistant and the economic
development coordinator, we looked at it and saying, how do we team up with
businesses to help showcase right so we did a whole business spotlight that we
continue to this day that will engage communities we look you know to help them,
You know promote it whether it's a you know a new business that's opening a one
that's long established from you know A manufacturer does aerospace parts to the
diner to the pizza place to the dance club You know whoever's interested in working
with us. We reach out and and create a list and and Continue to produce on a
weekly basis You know business spotlights and that's one way we thought of showcasing
the community is by showcasing what's here and the businesses that are already here.
And of course we started with food because a lot of people love food and that gets
a lot of play and a lot of attraction but into the manufacturing base and
businesses that are here, which is great. And then we started talking about just
different projects and different features that we And I'll give you an example. I
mean, again, I have a young team and so they're pushing me to do more things and
pushing me out of my comfort zone. And so they came up with an idea that said,
okay, start of the summer season, we have a outdoor public pool.
And so I did what I think is one of our
watched or viewed a video where I go down to the pool and I do a video and I
end up jumping in the pool. And people love it, you know, he just, you know, all
in on this is all in. So there's really, you know, we're not doing anything unsafe,
but we just do a lot of things that we think people will think are funny and
engaging because I'm not just jumping in the pool. I'm talking about the fact that
here's a great asset, here's a community asset, it's here for you, we want you to
enjoy it, here's what's great, not every community has an outdoor pool. We do, we
have an airport, that's great, we've done some things about that, everything we can
do to highlight this community, again, back to 169 towns, how do we separate
ourselves, what makes us unique, what's attractive to people. And again, all the way
back to our standpoint, you know, we talk about the four -day work week, we talk
about, you know, what we have in terms of, you know,
benefits and so forth and using social media to brand Plainville as an attractive
community, as an attractive place to work. And, you know,
and if they see some of that engagement on, you know, different platforms,
maybe that moves the needle. And what we're seeing in the interviews, it has,
that the four day work week, that's, you know, a powerful type of tool that we
have that other communities don't, not every, there are more communities in
Connecticut, there are probably three or four others, but it helps us in our area.
So I I think it's about engagement. And then when we do those engagements, we also
ask about collaborating with them. If they have a following, then we certainly want
to collaborate with them on different platforms like Instagram and do that. - Okay,
you used the phrase moving the needle and for the audience listening, they might be
thinking, this all sounds great. We probably need to do a little better at our
local government, but we have done these things, we're on social, we're trying to be
engaging and do fun videos instead of just wonky policy things or generic updates.
But I think the struggle sometimes is, okay, we get stats, you know, whatever it
is, Twitter LinkedIn will show stats, page views, impressions, even clicks. But
sometimes those stats can be kind of just sitting there in a vacuum. It's hard
sometimes to distinguish like a vanity stat is what I would call some of them
versus a tangible result. Like, okay, you got this many engagements, but did you get
clicks? Did you get applications? Did you get a hire? When you're pushing that job,
that's a little harder to track. So how do you measure success with all this
effort? Well, we're looking at all the metrics as well. And when I say, Joe, when
I say we're moving the, it's moving the needle, because we're getting The applicant
in the interview process is telling us that the 4 -Day was a motivator for them in
terms of the work -life balance. And they loved it and wanted to apply, made a
difference between other positions they were looking at in other communities. In fact,
I had another interview today, quite surprisingly, for a foreman in our roadways
department, who I totally just was caught by surprise, but said, you know,
loved your manager's minute, you know, learned a lot by watching, you know, and he
was they were prepping for the position and learning about we're in the parks and,
you know, learned about the, you know, the pool and other things that we're doing.
We do a lot of spotlighting employees and what they're doing to validate the value
that they bring to our team and I think that's also hard to measure but has an
impact when they see not just the you know the talking me if you will or the
council they're seeing the employees behind the scenes that actually make things run
and we spotlight them for their certifications and for their you know for their
milestones and and and whether it's 35 years, 40 years here, but also if they've
gotten a new license and they're progressing and getting a promotion, they're the
people out, they're the interface and they're doing the job. So that helps and we're
getting that feedback that's coming back in addition to the metrics in terms of our
reach, we're seeing that. And we're very, very happy and that it's being positively
received in the community. - Yeah, and that goes back to the original opener of
busting the stigmas. These are real people doing real work at a high level for the
community. It's not the generic stereotype of just the government worker in a beige
office doing the bare minimum 'cause they're government employees, which it's not.
It's not true, that's the stigma, but I think tying it back to that branding word,
showing real examples of that is exactly how you brand it as a dynamic,
good workplace. Yep. Absolutely. And then there's just some fun and exciting things.
I mean, it helps us attract police officers and our public works department library.
You name it. Like any other community, I
you know, issues within the retention and recruitment. So we're doing whatever we can
to just move ourselves above or stand out is the best way to say that and
hopefully attract the right candidates. But it's not just, you know, in terms of HR,
but that we found that's helping us a great deal. It's just, again, building the
brand for the community itself as a great place to live, work, and play.
- Yeah, so also social media has been compared to just the digital version of the
town square dating back literally thousands of years. So good, bad, and ugly that
comes with that obviously, but social media can get nasty. It can end up being the
place for grievances. yes, the occasion, not occasional, positive comments too,
but even aside from kind of the nastier side, just how does your team handle kind
of that state, the same thing that can happen in the public council meetings, which
is the same 10 people phenomenon where there's literally the same 10 people with the
same complaints, the same comments, those can be on social. It can be tough when
only one side or one kind of complaint is brought up when you don't necessarily
want to get in for a tit for tat explaining it or trying to justify everything. So
I don't even necessarily mean trolls per se, but how do you deal with that
negativity, especially if the negativity is understandable or justified?
- Well, you've raised a very important issue. The response is more artful than it is
scientific, right? I mean, there's a certain finesse to it. We monitor, we look at
those comments, and like you said, we don't want to get into a, you know, back and
forth tip for tat kind of thing, and we try to be fact -based. And so I'll give
you an example. I'll put it in context. I told you the story about, you know, the
pool and jumping in. That pool is in a section in our park,
our Norton Park, one Park, one of our premier parks. And in that same park,
we have an issue with trees. And in June of this year, a tree came down in the
parking lot. We have some very mature, aging trees, and we've got some issues with
disease. And we had to go down and post those trees that we had to remove.
And in that process, we felt, well, you know what, we're going to try and educate
as well. We just don't want to post and go and so we created a video and the
reaction was so swift and that it was it was picked up a picture of the placard
that's on the tree for noticing that the tree was going to come down was up on
with a matter of hours. So we do is respond in in fact base and to say that we
engage and say you know we explain that we've had some issues we've got some light
potential liability and we have some compromised trees here are some pictures from
the June storm that took it down and how dangerous the other ones could be because
of the proximity to fields and cars and the parking lot and so forth and explain
what we're going to do in terms of replanting plan and so forth. So I think you
have to be engaging to a point where you just can't sit back and let that just
fester. If you've got some factual information to put out, that's what we do.
And I think that's what's needed in those cases because people are just looking,
taxpayers are just looking for information. Some will continue to say that's a bad
idea, okay? But at least they have the information and the rationale behind what
we're doing. And we'll still put out the video, but it takes us a day or two to
get production of it before we can get it up there and post it. But in the
meantime, we have to go onto those pages and post with factual information and
explanation as to why we did what we did, why we're doing it, and what we're going
to do. - Okay, so not necessarily trying to change minds or certainly not trying to
change feelings, 'cause that never works out, but make sure the facts are there and
then let people come to their conclusions, is that fair? - Yeah, we're still trying
to under, and say that nobody wants to take down a tree, in fact, from my
perspective, that's the last thing do because you know and the other thing is they
may look fine but not everybody's an arborist right I'm not an arborist either but
we bring in the arborist and we say listen you know do these pose at you know a
threat or a danger and you know if they if they're telling us that that that's the
case then we're gonna we're gonna take action and we have to explain that to that
it may have you know some foliage up top and it may look fine the canopy may look
fine to to you, but to the arborists in a trained eye, here's what you're going to
see. And I think they need to understand that and the plan going forward to replant
new ones of those patrons. Yeah, fair. Okay, so step three in your process were
tools. So scheduling software, again, small staff and even places with big staff.
Yeah, this is a tough thing because it It can be, social media can be tedious.
There are definitely tools to help. So we're not, this is not sponsored. We're not
plugging any of these things officially, but. - No, right. - How did you? - So,
again, we look at resources and we, first thing we did from a scheduling standpoint
was pick the low hanging fruit, which is the other side of the house is the Board
of Education, if you will. So the education department had already a software called
Basecamp. So we were able to use that as a free alternative. And there's probably
plenty of other free software you can get for scheduling, but that's what we use to
collaborate. So the team can see 24 /7 when somebody's posting ideas,
questions. It's pretty robust platform. We like it, we've been using it. I'm sure
there's probably better ones out there, but it works for us, it's free for us, and
it works just fine. The other interesting twist that we found out that I'm sure is
not any secret, but Canva is a big player out there in helping with templates,
and for a novice like me getting started, it was like, okay, this is the help I
We got into, you know, using that to help us as a tool and found out that there's
actually a Non -profit component that you can as a non -profit local government. You
can get the version free You know that and there's some edit editing software That
Cap cut is is another one that we use we do Adobe publisher
And I'm not, I'm not doing all of the editing, but the, you know, again, the whole
goal was to do this on a very low budget and try to get as much of it free as
we could. We obviously have spent some money and obviously we're, we're paying a
part time person now that we incorporated into the budget. And now,
because of our success, we've been able to grow the social media specialist,
the part -time position into a full -time position because the Board of Education saw
the value. And let me tell you a story, Joe. We started and one of the first
issues we had to deal with in trying to apply social media,
we applied it to a middle school campaign, which was we wanted to build a renovate
like new of the middle school that we have in town. And it's been on sort of on
the sidelines. New council came in, gave it the green light in November and said
we're going to referendum 'cause that's what we have to do here in Connecticut and
we have to put it on the ballot. We had an aggressive, very aggressive timeline.
And when we were working with a consultant and when the consultant came in,
he Point blank said to us, I've never seen this done. I've worked a lot in
Connecticut. Your timeline is too aggressive. I don't see how in the world you're
gonna get this done and how you're gonna get this passed. And we said,
well, we think we have a very good indication from the election that this was a
bellwether election issue. And we feel that we can take advantage of that.
we did we used a social meet we brought the social media content in the team in
to work with the board of education to work with the committee and we we put
together a whole campaign of creating a lot of content and the referendum question
in just six short weeks we went to referendum and this uh it passed three to one
and that was a wake -up call, the board of education, I don't say wake -up call,
but that opened the eyes to the board of education to saying, wow, this was
powerful, this work, and we wanna team up with you and make the position full -time.
And so they're paying half, we're paying half, and we're sharing that service with a
social media specialist. - Yeah, - And circling back to the question earlier about
talking with not talking at is was part of that campaign finding the parent groups,
whether it's faith, you know, like Sterling has the moms on Facebook group that it's
not necessarily to get something passed, but it's not just relying on people to find
your account only, but for your stuff to get reposted and commented on in the
popular sections or more people will actually see it and engage. Was that part of
it? - Absolutely, interviewing parents, teachers, students, conditions,
schools, the whole spectrum of issues there,
but allowing others to tell the story. We weren't shouting with a bullhorn, you must
pat, we need this, this school is old. And we let others tell the story about why
education is important in this community. And we want people to support that.
And they did. They came out, and again, the results speak for themselves, a vote
that wasn't even close. It was three to one. And it's just a very short time
frame. Now, social media, I think, was the tipping point or really it got us into
in front of people and you know attention is really what it's all about so engaging
and informative at the same time. Yeah we kind of transition naturally there from
the tools to what was supposed to be the fourth step was build awareness but I
think you kind of discovered it that was one example but any anything else you want
to add to the overall building awareness. - Well,
it's just thinking about how your community works,
right? I think we all have a sense of who the players are or who has reach or
has a following and talking about different topics and subjects.
For us, it's all about, again, back to playing build a community and what's so
great about, you know, living here, working here and playing here and what's
attractive. And so education became a, you know, a pillar is a pillar.
And we've just validated that it's important to us by investing, you know, $61
million into a new middle school. And what else, you know, I mean,
we're not perfect. So the other side, the flip side of that is, you know, what
could we be doing better, right? So those folks that they're not trolling us,
but we see the comments are not all happy. We know the things we need to work on,
and we're going to not be afraid to engage those issues as well. Reach out and say
that everybody has a voice. Everybody has a vote in terms of the things that we do
and we're just trying to put out information that is you know educating in any
every way we can so that they're informed about the projects we're undertaking.
Yeah well social media as we stated earlier and it definitely has risks or a
potential downside but when used the right way It could be a huge benefit and I
think at the end of the day, it's it's just a medium or a platform not It's free.
It's free. I mean if we you know taxpayers are telling us all the time You know,
what do we get for our services? And so, you know, it's it's free. We've got to
leverage that We're missing an opportunity Especially at you know, small -scale small
towns. We're missing an opportunity if we're not taking advantage of that. And I'm
just saying you don't have to have a five -person team. You can have a one or two
-person team do what you can to create, you know, engaging content and informational
content to put out there. Yeah. And I know it can kind of be a cringe -worthy
cliche, but that meet people where they're at thing. They're on the phones.
Everyone's on their phone. People are addicted to their phones. Let's be honest about
it. They're scrolling through whether it's Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn. Right. So
that is where the message in a good way can get out.
But I think Plainville has showed a good example of how to how to do it the right
way. Well, thank you, Joe Yeah, we'll keep we'll keep at it for sure Well, thanks
for joining us and all your expertise on the social any any quick tangent on the
form of government or the difference between Being elected versus a town manager
since you've done both Yeah, you know, it's I'll tell you when you're wearing the
hat of an elected official And And for me, it was, I was the chief elected
official and the chief executive officer. That's a tall order because you're,
you know, in one hand, your day -to -day operations and then you've got to run every
two years to get reelected. And I much, I prefer the town manager role in terms of
being able to separate and not have to do The politics of politics are always
involved, but I'm not at, you know, having to campaign, not partisan. And so
separated, that's, that's a lifetime ago to me. And, you know, step back into a
nonpartisan role and just putting community first. I see the very great value in,
in the manager form of government. Just there's the consistency in,
in that and the continuity of having managers in a position where they can have
multiple years and long careers of you know charting the course for a community.
Yeah who's the who's the tougher boss the voters or the council?
Well depends on what community you're in but by and large I'd say that the voters
are for sure. All right all right well thanks again for your time Mike appreciate
it. Thank you Joe appreciate it. Bye take care.

 

 

 

Guest Information

Michael Paulhus, town manager, Plainville, CT. LinkedIn
 

Topics

Crushing the Stigma of Local Government

Building a Brand for Local Government

Empowering a Creative Social Media Team

Engaging the Community Through Content

Measuring Success and Overcoming Negativity

Tools and Strategies for Effective Communication

The Role of Government Structure in Community Engagement

Resources

Self-Paced Online Course: Communicating with Elected Officials, Staff, and the Media

Free On-demand Webinar: Improving Trust and Transparency with Better Public Communications

See Plainville's social accounts in action:

LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.