With everything going digital, people are being heard; they are not just being heard by the brands who want to give the best to their customers but everyone is being heard and answered. Here, we are specifically talking about citizens who are willing to express ideas and report issues through digital platforms. Online citizen software provide a medium to citizens to speak their minds and get solutions for their issues.
Let’s explore how online engagement is proving beneficial to public participation:
- Broader reach and more inclusive
The best part about digital technologies is that it can reach to wider audience and so can attract many people to participate. Those who have access to online engagement platform, can put forth their views and feedbacks.
- Cost-efficiency and better management
Population of cities or states are too huge to be called for a face-to-face meeting. Affordable and cost efficient way of involving citizens is via online citizen software that allows for simple management of user data and reduces administrative processing time.
- Fast feedback and better responsiveness
Using online citizen software is a way to get fast feedback and better responsiveness from the members. Unlike traditional methods where idea-collection process takes time, online engagement shortens the loop. And as participants can take part from the comfort of their home, the responsiveness is very high.
- Network creation
With a large number of people participating and engaging via the same online platform, a community builds up; community or online social network of people sharing views and giving feedbacks.
- Reduce misunderstanding
With the use of online citizen software, the government or whosoever the admin is, can deliver information and resources to citizens directly. In other words, there are fewer chances of misunderstandings which in a way promotes effective communication.
So, this is how digital technology is shaping citizen engagement. If you wish to opt for a software for engaging citizens online, try Engagement Hub. Engagement Hub has been used by Australian government a number of times for many reasons. For instance, it was used by the South Australian Government following the devastating bushfires to understand the needs of both the local community and tourism industry.
Referring to how Engagement Hub brought about a huge difference in comparison to traditional methods of consultation, Lynne Hare, from SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, said: “We have previously relied on traditional methods of consultation but we knew that to enable us to ‘build back better’ we had to engage better.
“Our online engagement platform with Engagement Hub allowed us to do all our of engagement with wide-ranging stakeholders in one place.
“We were able to reach many people who couldn’t have attended our consultation events and to bring together all the conversations into one data set.
