Smart Records Retention for Government Social Media Content

Social media has had a significant impact on federal, state, and local governments across the country. From the routine to the critical, social media has become a vital tool for building awareness of missions, sharing policy updates, communicating services and products, and enhancing citizen engagement. The immediacy of social media is also particularly useful to emergency response agencies who can leverage its outreach capabilities to aid response efforts.

However, this expanding electronic landscape has created unique retention and oversight challenges. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and open-records laws require that any messages deemed as public records must be retained and accessible to ensure compliance.

"Public affairs and social media teams need compliance teams on their side, yet without an effective way to manage and supervise the content shared online, social media can create very real stresses for compliance teams."

It’s a challenge highlighted by DLT partner, Smarsh, in its white paper: The Public Sector Guide to Social Media Strategy and Policy. Smarsh recommends several recordkeeping policies that will allow you to respond quickly to open records requests, including the implementation of an intelligent cloud-based record archive with smart ingestion tools, fast and efficient search, automation, and more.

Check out the white paper for practical steps that can help your agency develop a social media strategy and policy to gain maximum value from your efforts, while practicing smart records retention policies.