Justin Auciello: The New Wave Planner

Maintenance Concern in San Francisco? Tweet @SF311.

Twitter is a powerful communication tool that has surged in popularity over the past year, and government agencies are beginning to utilize the social networking service for its public outreach and two-way communication capabilities.

Not surprisingly, in San Francisco—where Twitter is based—the municipal government is well represented on Twitter, with Mayor Gavin Newsom (@gavinnewsom) and City Attorney Dennis Herrera (@SFCityAttorney) actively keeping the world up-to-date on city activities.

In fact, Mayor Newsom formally announced his bid for governor through the triple-threat approach of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and has raised cash quickly from his online outreach efforts. It’s a clever New Media strategy to attract younger, tech-savvy voters—one need just remember President Obama’s successful campaign tactics.

It is clear: San Francisco city officials are obviously well-versed in Government 2.0 outreach efforts.

However, the city government went above and beyond typical online outreach today in announcing @SF311, a service, in partnership with Twitter, that will allow residents to contact the city to report the need for “street cleanings, graffiti removal, pothole and sidewalk defects, abandoned vehicles, city garbage can maintenance, as well as general department information,” according to the city’s press release. (Here’s the FAQ on the service.)

Instead of having to place a call to report a maintenance concern, anyone can easily send a message, via his/her Twitter account, to @SF311 and log the issue—even as a picture message. Especially in San Francisco, a hotbed of startups, this service should become quite popular, as it actually makes reporting an incident fun. (I wrote about the need for government to leverage social media for everyday purposes here.)

Since @SF311 was seemingly quite easy to implement, other municipalities—regardless of size—should consider following Newsom’s lead.

After all, if you, Mayor of Anytown USA, have a question about the service, just simply send Newsom an @ reply message via Twitter.

I’m sure he’ll help you get up and running.