After unveiling a sleek new logo and dramatically increasing engagement on social media, Goodhue County appears set to build on what Communications Director Briggs Tople described as a “transformative year for communications” with a new website set to debut next month.
Last week, Tople provided the Goodhue County Board of Commissioners with a comprehensive update on efforts to both refresh Goodhue County’s image for the digital age and ensure that county government is open, transparent and accessible to all residents.
Alongside Jessica Seide, Goodhue County Health and Human Services public information officer, Tople said that he is leading an effort to ensure that, in the future, communications strategies of all county departments are much more strategic and targeted.
“Right now, we’re working a lot of madness — advertising things on the fly, just coming up with how we want to communicate, but there’s really no method to that madness,” Tople said. “This communications plan is a more thought-out approach to our communications.”
Over the last several months, Tople and Seide have been engaging each County Department to assess current internal and external communications approaches. Next up: a public survey to gather what residents want to hear about and their preferred mediums of communication.
Even absent the kind of detailed data that modern-day businesses typically rely on to drive a targeted, strategic approach, Goodhue County’s Communications team has managed to significantly increase engagement on social media simply by posting more.
While the County had Facebook and Twitter accounts before the Board decided to create the Communications Director position and hire Tople to fill it in June 2022, they were lightly maintained aside from the separately run Goodhue County Sheriff’s Facebook page.
Under Tople’s watch, sleek graphics and even professionally produced videos now fill the County’s Facebook and X pages, providing not only timely updates and information but also profiles of Goodhue County employees and snapshots of Goodhue County history.
The result has been a dramatic increase in engagement, with Goodhue County’s Facebook page reaching 78,000 people last year, up over 300% from 2022. Goodhue County’s Public Works Facebook page saw its reach increase as well, though by a much smaller amount.
Tople added that Facebook pages for Goodhue County HHS and the Sheriff’s Department also saw their reach grow last year. The County expanded its reach on other platforms as well, launching its first Instagram page in January shortly after its official rebrand.
While Goodhue County’s old logo remains in use on some official documents, signage and most communications has been updated with the sleek, modern branding unveiled last year after a seven month engagement process led by Toronto-based consulting firm Trajectory Brands.
The new “Naturescape” design fits with modern trends in logo design, replacing a classic seal which, while only dating back to 1990, harkened back to a much more traditional style and came to be regarded as overly complex, not memorable enough and ill suited for the digital age.
County buildings were quick to embrace the “Naturescape” design, with staff careful to ensure that all signage would be not only coordinated but also fully ADA compliant by providing braille text for sight-impaired residents.
With the branding update will come a revamp of Goodhue County’s website. While the website is easily the most popular digital asset with over 200,000 views annually, it has been criticized for page design issues and for including outdated and incomplete information.
While the new website isn’t expected to launch until next month, previews of the new website could be available this week. In addition to providing a more accessible, user-friendly interface, the new website promises to include beautiful new photos and videos of county landscapes.
On the homepage, drone video compilations will be featured, highlighting Goodhue County’s natural beauty with shots of natural summer, fall and winter landscapes and video featuring Goodhue County’s historic buildings in the spring.
While applauding the new website and revamped communications strategy, County Board Chair Todd Greseth and several of his colleagues were interested in the potential to further boost the County’s transparency by livestreaming Goodhue County meetings.
Though Goodhue County meetings are available live if one logs into a Microsoft Teams account, meeting videos are lightly edited by Tople and then uploaded onto YouTube, generally on the same day but sometimes the next day.
With more and more cities streaming meeting videos live on YouTube and elsewhere, including small towns throughout Goodhue County, Greseth said that he’s heard from communities and constituents who don’t understand why the County doesn’t do the same.
Tople and County Administrator Scott Arneson warned that while livestreaming could be an easy way to increase the county’s reach and engagement, it could also create the opportunity for meetings to be disrupted in a public and embarrassing manner.
Some residents say they feel more comfortable viewing live meetings anonymously and livestreaming meetings could particularly benefit residents of Greseth’s district, which includes communities that are a lengthy drive from the county seat in Red Wing.
Arneson said that some jurisdictions which have switched to interactive forms of livestreaming have experienced unfortunate incidents in which rogue individuals take advantage of the livestream to publicize obscene content, inappropriate language or defamatory claims.
Tople said an alternative could be to proceed with a simple live stream that is non-interactive. However, Arneson noted that the interactive feature of Teams is crucial in a number of situations, allowing consultants to attend meetings virtually and members of the public to interact with public hearings.
Board Member Brad Anderson took a skeptical view towards live streaming, arguing that the current setup of providing live content through Microsoft Teams is sufficient and that the benefits of switching to livestreaming do not yet outweigh the risks.
On the other side, Board Member Linda Flanders said that she would like to see meetings live streamed, arguing that a livestream would provide necessary transparency and that an unfortunate incident could occur with any public meeting.
“Even if something did happen within the meeting, it’s a public meeting anyway; that’s real life,” Flanders said. “In this day in age, transparency in government is extremely important.”
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