The city of Las Vegas has been selected as a finalist for a Government Social Media Golden Post Award in the category of “Social Media Crisis Communications” for how it shared accurate and timely information with the public during the Oct. 1, 2017 tragedy. The fourth annual Golden Post Awards is exclusively designed to honor outstanding use of social media by local and state government agencies in the United States. Winners are revealed during the Government Social Media Conference awards ceremony on April 25 in Denver, Colorado.
During the Oct. 1 tragedy on the Strip, the city of Las Vegas saw an unprecedented level of messages and comments to its social network during the first two weeks in October. During a time where misinformation was everywhere, the city of Las Vegas social network became one of the verified places where people could turn for accurate and timely information. In fact, an image about how to help and find loved ones was shared 36,000 times on Twitter and 32,000 times on Facebook. The city’s Twitter profile received 527,000 visits in the few days following the shooting, 13,000 Facebook messages and 12,000 direct messages on Twitter.
News conferences held by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and including Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn G. Goodman and members of the City Council were streamed live on the city’s social media pages resulting in hundreds of thousands of views.
