Print Or Electronic? Woodbury Mulls Communications Strategy

Would you rather get the city newsletter as you normally do or have it emailed to you?

The Woodbury City Council on Wednesday discussed its overall communications strategy and whether the city should put more emphasis on print or electronic means to inform the public—or a mix of the two.

In general, council members seemed to favor a mix, though they leaned toward adding more e-communication overall.

A mixed approach “covers everything,” Mayor Mary Giuliani Stephens said.

Jason Egerstrom, interim communications coordinator for the city, led the discussion Wednesday. “It seems that non-print is becoming more popular, more used,” he said.

Egerstrom noted people’s ever-increasing reliance on the Internet for information. “In the future, we need to focus more on the electronic.”

The city already has a handful of Facebook profiles for different departments, and . Its inTouch communication system is also fairly well used, Egerstrom has said. The city posts its newsletters on the website.

While the city has set up a handful of Facebook accounts for various departments, it doesn’t use its Twitter account and would likely change the handle if it were used more, Egerstrom said.

Stephens said she would like the city to explore using Twitter further.

“We could be missing a big segment there,” she said.

City Administrator Clint Gridley said the 2013 community survey would be a good chance to gauge how residents want to receive notices from the city.

In preparation of Wednesday night’s discussion, Councilwoman Amy Scoggins said she looked through recent city newsletters and found a lot of good information. She said the city shouldn’t reduce their number “just for the sake of it.” (Ten are printed and mailed out at an annual cost of $67,400.)

Councilman Christopher Burns—who previously mentioned the —said staff should consider using electronic communications more often. He noted however, that different generations prefer getting their information in different ways.

Burns said he prefers getting things via email rather than something that “is going to be recycled.”

He also said the city should better utilize its new website, and producing more electronic communication would give the city a chance to be a leader in that realm. Burns said he’s staunchly against increasing the number of newsletters.

Still, it’s a matter of staff time, Gridley said. There are only so many hours to go around and the council needs to provide direction on where staff time should be allocated.

Burns said he would like the city to experiment with more e-communication in order to better judge its effectiveness.

“This is a prime time, in my mind at least, to experiment,” he said.