In collaboration with TechAmerica and Grant Thornton, our 2012 State CIO survey report will be released soon. In a section on the future value of social media, 80% of state CIOS rate it as high or essential. There is clearly strong agreement that social media hold untapped potential and future value for state government. With this in mind, it's important to note the successes of our working groups and committees, and in the last two years, the NASCIO Social Media Forum has done a lot behind the scenes. Over the last year, the group’s legal team was able to complete negotiations of new terms of service for state governments with Twitter and YouTube, as it had done with Facebook the year before.
Before negotiations, many states were in violation of state laws, procurement policies or contract provisions when they created accounts and accepted standard terms on these three major social media providers, and now they are able to request terms to which they can legally agree.
Recently, the Social Media Forum posted an open letter to social media providers as an invitation to collaborate and work to create new terms of service that are appropriate for state and local governments.
It is the Social Media Forum’s hope that other social media providers will consider the impact their terms have on state government usage of their tools, and work with NASCIO so their tools might be used to better communicate with citizens across the country.
The invitation can be found here, on the NASCIO.org advocacy page. Congratulations to the Social Media Forum for accomplishing what they have so far – and I look forward to seeing what’s next!