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Nixle demo webinar: Q&A highlights

Nixle’s most recent demo webinar featured tips on how to increase your social media presence using Nixle as well as advice for building your resident subscriber base. At the end of the webinar, Brian Yim answered participants’ questions and gave more insight to some topics. If you missed the webinar, check out the recap of the question and answer session below:

 

Q: As a county, can I access residents who have already opted-in to my zip code?

A: Yes, the Nixle system encourages residents to opt-in via a zip code. When a resident signs up for a zip code, they are opted-in to all agencies with jurisdiction within that zip code.

Q: How is Everbridge different from Nixle?

A: It is a perfect marriage. The Nixle solution is used for community engagement activities for state, county and local government. Law enforcement has done a great job providing local updates to community members through Nixle. Everbridge delivers critical communication solutions for large state and local governments, and is also used for internal communications for corporations, hospitals and all sorts of organizations.

Q: If we create an event group and then send out a community message, do the people who opted-in to the group still have to change settings to allow community messages?

A: Yes. We encourage agencies that use keywords to make message advisories and alerts. By default community messages only go to email.

Q: For opt in keyword groups for an annual re-occurring event, do the keywords expire automatically or can they be kept active permanently?

A: This is up to you as the Nixle administrator. They do not automatically expire. That said, as a best practice, at the conclusion of annual event you should send one last message trying to encourage residents to sign up for the primary group. This will drive up the subscriber base for your primary group. Thereafter, it is another best practice is to create a new group each time and encourage residents to sign up for the primary group at the end of your annual event.

Q: What if our preferred keyword is taken?

A: Unfortunately you will need to create a new one.

Q: How would you handle an open records request for all information including anonymous tips?

A: This is built in to the service agreement. If you receive a court ordered subpoena, we have the capability to pull info from anonymous tipping.

Q: Is there a way to attach a photo to Nixle alerts that will post to Facebook and Twitter when no picture is attached to the message we are sending?

A: Yes. Within the Nixle interface, under the email/web message section, any files attached there will get posted to Facebook. The images will not go to Twitter. WithTwitter, there will be a Nixle URL that will redirect to your primary Nixle page with the image.

Q: Can you integrate multiple social media accounts?

A: You can integrate multiple Facebook accounts and one twitter account.

Q: Do departments other than police and fire use Nixle?

A: Many agencies are spreading out the Nixle responsibilities. As Nixle grows, city hall, parks and recreation and departments of public works are increasingly creating their own Nixle accounts. Police shouldn’t be handling info around field closures, trash pickup changes, and farmers markets, but often get requests from other departments. After utilizing the system, residents want more information from other departments. The cities that split up responsibilities with multiple accounts often have the best concept of community engagement.

 

Register to watch the webinar replay: Building your Social Media Presence and Resident Subscriber Base with Nixle

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