Put a face on your Parks & Rec Department with a Blog.

If you haven't thought about or considered having a blog for your Parks & Recreation Department, I think now is the time to start. The rationale is simple: you need to put a face on your organization!. Parks & Recreation is essentially a service oriented business and the customer is the community. Sure you've got a web site, but how often is the content updated and what is the tone and style of the copy.....I'm guessing it's not updated as often as you'd like and the copy tends toward formal.

In order to improve the visibility of your programs and increase participation, the community needs to see the Parks & Rec Department as more than just another nameless, faceless department in their town or municipality. A great way to bridge this gap is to start a blog . What should I write about you may ask.....well, for starters, some ideas are:

1) Program Offerings
2) Special Announcements & News
3) Employee Recognition
4) Employee News (Marriages, Births etc)

Remember, the style and tone of the blog should be informal and inviting. The goal is to put a face on your organization.....and you want that to be a happy face ;-) If you ran the Tax Department or Assessors Office, the style might be a bit different. Some general guidelines as to how to do this are:

1) Make it informative
2) Make it fun
3) Be creative
4) Use pictures
5) Update it at least once a week
6) Be yourself....

Once you get the hang of it, it can be a fun as well as creative means of opening up a dialogue with the community. Share the responsibility of writing blog entries with other members of your staff. Not only will this help spread out some of the work involved in maintaining the blog, but it will also help achieve the larger goal of putting a face on your department and connecting with the community.

Some Popular Free Blog Providers

Blogspot
Wordpress

Do you know of any great examples? Post them here.

Mike