VAC spends > $100k on Twitter

[McG]

Veterans Affairs Canada spent $100,000 on promoted tweets: documents
Laura Stone  
Global News
13 May 2014

OTTAWA – The department of Veterans Affairs spent more than $100,000 promoting its tweets on Twitter last year, newly released documents show.

The money, which came from advertising funds allocated by the Privy Council Office, was mostly geared towards promoting Remembrance Day in 2013.

A “promoted tweet” is a tweet an organization pays to promote specific topics on the 140-character social media site.

Since 2012, the government has spent a total of $456,324 in advertising money on tweets, the documents show.

Veterans Affairs spent $103,694 on promoted tweets during fiscal 2013-14 year, which ended March 25 of this year.

About 85 per cent of the money, $88,194, was used to promote tweets for last year’s Remembrance Day. The rest, $15,500, was spent on advertising services to veterans.

The government paid the standard rates for Twitter ad space, the documents say. The cost relates to the number of impressions a conversation nets on the site.

Veterans advocate Mike Blais called the figures “shocking,” especially following the closure of eight regional Veterans Affairs offices earlier this year.

“It’s unconscionable,” said Blais. “It seems excessive at this point in time to spend $100,000 tweeting anything.”

“It clearly demonstrates where this government’s priorities are and it’s not on services for veterans,” he added.

Liberal veterans affairs critic Frank Valeriote said the tweets are more about government self-promotion than services for veterans.

“It’s just wrong,” he said. “Veterans everywhere are saying, ‘Please, provide proper funding for our programs.’”

A spokesman for Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino defended the practice as a way to reach a younger generation.

“As more and more Canadians turn to social media instead of traditional TV and radio, it is important that they, too, see and hear the remarkable stories of Canadian veterans,” Nicholas Bergamini said in an email.

He said 90 per cent of the departmental budget now goes directly to services.

When asked about the tweets before Question Period Tuesday, Fantino pointed to a binder and said, “I’m just going to read notes on it.”

NDP MP Peter Stoffer said it doesn’t matter if the money for the tweets came from an advertising budget and not the department itself, which has allocated less toward veterans’ services.

“I would assume you, like all other Canadians, would rather have that money spent on real veterans’ issues and not on advertising, tweeting or whatever it is that they do,” he said.

Stoffer questioned the use of Twitter to reach out to veterans in the first place.  “People should be outside on Remembrance Day,” he said.

The use of promotional tweets is a relatively new practice, according to the information tabled in Parliament in response to a question from Liberal MP Geoff Regan.

Many departments and Crown corporations do not engage in the practice but a handful is starting to, the documents show.

Examples include:

• Canadian Heritage spent $20,000 on tweets in 2013-14;
• CBC spent $77,291 for a combination of promoted tweets and a promoted account on Twitter in 2013-14;
• The Canadian Institutes of Health Research spent $10,172 in 2013-14;
• Business Development Bank of Canada spent $167,189 on tweets over the last two years. The tweets were used to “raise awareness in the digital world about the business support services offered by the BDC”;
• Public Safety Canada spent $51,000 in 2013-14, although its not specified on what;
• National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces spent $10,000 on promoted tweets in 2013-2014 as part of the “priority occupations” marketing campaign to showcase the Forces “as an employer of choice.”

Veterans Affairs also spent $150,000 since 2010 on two mobile applications geared towards support for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and for military remembrance.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1328687/veterans-affairs-canada-spent-100000-on-promoted-tweets-documents/

 

[Fishbone Jones]

:facepalm:

 

[Teager]

There was another article on this from the CBC and in it it said that the money came from another area of the government and not out of VACs budget. Also that money would have been spent regardless for tweets in other departments but was given to VAC. IMO tweets are dumb to drop $100k on but at the same time it did not come out of VACs budget. Money could defiantly be better spent either way.

 

[s2184]

good job 

 

[blackberet17]

Business Development Bank of Canada broke the bank on tweet spending: $167 190 since 2012.

Indian Affairs, on the other hand, spent $76.50.

 

[Heraske]

A spokesman for Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino defended the practice as a way to reach a younger generation.

I'm a part of the younger generation. I don't have twitter. Not all kids have twitter. This is ridiculous.

Definitely a waste of money which could be better spent on Veterans, rather than promoting awareness, which is already largely spread through out most school systems.

It's like spending money on any form of cancer to promote awareness, rather than funding scientists to find a cure for it.

 

[Crispy Bacon]

I'm a part of the younger generation. I don't have twitter. Not all kids have twitter. This is ridiculous.

Definitely a waste of money which could be better spent on Veterans, rather than promoting awareness, which is already largely spread through out most school systems.

It's like spending money on any form of cancer to promote awareness, rather than funding scientists to find a cure for it.

90 percent of people aged 18-29 use Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. There are over 1 billion people on Twitter and 1 billion on Facebook; you can't blame a government (or any business for that matter) for marketing to such a large crowd.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

90 percent of people aged 18-29 use Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. There are over 1 billion people on Twitter and 1 billion on Facebook; you can't blame a government (or any business for that matter) for marketing to such a large crowd.

I'm a Veteran, I have a very large group of local friends who are also Veterans.

Not one of them uses Twitter.

VAC should be targeting Veterans, otherwise it's wasted.

I doubt many Veterans have seen VAC's tweets.

 

[Crispy Bacon]

I'm a Veteran, I have a very large group of local friends who are also Veterans.

Not one of them uses Twitter.

VAC should be targeting Veterans, otherwise it's wasted.

I doubt many Veterans have seen VAC's tweets.

Social media is just one way of communicating with people.

There is no way you can successfully communicate with all veterans through one medium.  They need to be hit from several angles so that one of them is likely to stick.

Send communications through the Legion? Not everyone belongs to the Legion.

Send communications via email?  Good luck keeping that list up to date.

Send communications via mail?  Good luck keeping that list up to date.

Send communications via robocalls? Yeah right.

Send communications via social media?  Not everyone uses it.

Put out a TV commercial? Not everyone watches it.

... And so on.  Unfortunately you can't just send a letter to "all veterans" and have 100% of them receive it and be informed.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Social media is just one way of communicating with people.

There is no way you can successfully communicate with all veterans through one medium.  They need to be hit from several angles so that one of them is likely to stick.

Send communications through the Legion? Not everyone belongs to the Legion.

Send communications via email?  Good luck keeping that list up to date.

Send communications via mail?  Good luck keeping that list up to date.

Send communications via robocalls? Yeah right.

Send communications via social media?  Not everyone uses it.

Put out a TV commercial? Not everyone watches it.

... And so on.  Unfortunately you can't just send a letter to "all veterans" and have 100% of them receive it and be informed.

 

That appears to be a bit of a strawman. One does not justify the others.

100K on twitter, 4 mil on tv, etc.

What they should be doing with all that money, is hire competent, caring people to answer the 1-866 number for VAC and help cut through the red tape. Not a bunch of people that just bury the Vets in paperwork and then stick them in an endless loop of telephone roulette.

Instead of trying to fool non Vets, by advertising, at exhorbant cost, that they are the wonderful, all encompassing answer to the Vets prayers.

Delay, Deny, wait for them to Die.
-----VAC Service Policy------

 

[The Bread Guy]

Delay, Deny, wait for them to Die.
-----VAC Service Policy------

Now THAT's a shield or t-shirt right there.

 

[bridges]

Unfortunately, by taking something that was meant to be quick & easy, and making it slow and difficult, government just makes itself look bad.  I mean Twitter, but it probably applies to VAC applications too.  It was ever thus.

Nice job on the shields, by the way.  Wish they didn't resonate. 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Now THAT's a shield or t-shirt right there.

Excellent milnews! Hope it catches on. If Vets started wearing these shirts, etc, perhaps someone might finally notice and understand what a useless bureaucracy VAC really is'

Perhaps it may even start to counter the slanted PR job they're spending so much money on.