Jon Previews Nextdoor’s Upcoming Features
Nextdoor touts themselves as the “world’s largest social network for the neighborhood,” and Tripepi Smith has increasingly encouraged public agency clients to embrace the platform. On July 25, 2019, Tripepi Smith Director Jon Barilone attended a “Bay Area Meetup” at Nextdoor’s HQ in San Francisco to network with over 70 fellow public agency social media managers and learn about the platform’s future plans.
The day began with Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar addressing the group and explaining Nextdoor’s vision for the near future: “In 2019, Nextdoor will emerge as the essential local platform for neighbors to build connections, stay informed, and help each other in their everyday lives.” Amos Stoltzfus, Nextdoor’s Public Agency Engagement Manager, then led the group in an interactive exercise to document “can’t live without” features and “one thing I would change” suggestions.
Nextdoor’s Head of Product, Tatyana Mamut, followed with an interactive discussion on upcoming platform features and continued to collect suggestions from the group. A couple of the largest highlights:
- Nextdoor will soon expand Agency Account access to entities besides cities/counties and police, fire, and emergency management departments. Tripepi Smith is liaising with Nextdoor’s Partnerships team to talk about their rollout plans in California.
- A Nextdoor Agency mobile app is rolling out soon that will enable agencies to manage their Page content and respond to messages from their smartphone.
- Pages can now “mention” users in comment replies, which will notify those users of the response. Threaded comments, like you see on Facebook, are coming soon as well.
Amos closed out the day with a review of best practices when it comes to posting and interacting as a public agency on Nextdoor. For example: Limit your ‘Subject Line’ to 50 characters or less and avoid using all caps.
“Nextdoor has some unique advantages as a social network platform right now, and we continue to urge our public agency clients to take advantage of them. Nextdoor is the only social network where you can target messages to a Neighborhood level and have the chance for your messaging to reach everyone on the platform in the service area(s) you define,” said Jon. “I know many of our clients are eagerly awaiting the announcement from Nextdoor that Agency Accounts are open to organizations such as Councils of Governments and utility providers such as water districts.”
If your public agency is ready to get started on Nextdoor, visit their Public Agency page to sign up for an Agency Account. If you want guidance and support from professional experts along the way, contact Tripepi Smith.
About Tripepi Smith
Tripepi Smith is a marketing, technology and public affairs firm located in Orange County, CA. Its clients include for-profit, nonprofit and public agencies throughout the state of California. Its unique mix of marketing and technology prowess provides a competitive advantage for organizations seeking to leverage the Internet to achieve their communication goals. The firm also provides full content creation services, including: ghost writing, collateral development, photography, video production, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing campaigns and website design and execution. Tripepi Smith clients include: City of Culver City, City of Rolling Hills Estates, City of Tracy, City of Cupertino, City of Duarte, City of Daly City, City of La Cañada Flintridge, City of Santa Ana, City of Paramount, City of Huntington Beach, City of El Cerrito, City of Indian Wells, City of Yuba City, Industry Business Council, NHA Advisors, Cal Choice, California Joint Powers Insurance Authority, Rowland Water District, Valley Water Company, California Contract Cities Association, California City Management Foundation, League of California Cities, Institute for Local Government, Renne Public Law Group, Inland Empire Utilities Agency and Climatec Energy Services.