Case Study: Fairfax County Government scales social media to serve 1.1M constituents with Hootsuite

How a local government team of 30+ serves 1.1 million constituents on social media

Fairfax County, the local government in Virginia serving 1.1 million residents, faced a shift from one-way press communications to real-time, two-way engagement. A 30+ person communications team needed to scale social media across roughly 40 departments while maintaining security, coordination, and consistent messaging—one official account was no longer sufficient to meet constituent needs or manage emergencies.

The county adopted Hootsuite Enterprise and a six-step rollout led by the Office of Public Affairs: departments apply for accounts, a super administrator provisions access, staff complete social training, teams publish and listen from a shared dashboard, a centralized command center coordinates responses, and performance is tracked with metrics. The result: faster, coordinated emergency communications, the animal shelter’s live-release/adoption rate rising from 75% to 95%, 80% of surveyed residents learning about services via Facebook/Twitter, and improved ability to contain rumors and build public trust.

Fairfax County Government

Anne Cissel

Communications Specialist