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Oh, hi!
Every government communicator knows them.
The two or three people who comment on everything. They show up at every meeting. They know exactly which words will set everyone off.
And somehow, a handful of people can make an entire organization nervous.
One angry comment appears and suddenly someone is asking:
Is everyone upset about this?
No. Everyone is not upset about this.
But when the same voices show up over and over again, they can start to feel much bigger than they actually are. And if you’re not careful, you start building your communications strategy around them.
I’ve seen communicators become genuinely afraid of a few residents. I’ve seen organizations change how they communicate because they’re worried about what those same people will say.
That’s backwards.
The answer isn’t to fight the trolls. It’s to bury them.
Not by deleting them. Not by arguing with them. And definitely not by feeding them more attention.
You bury them by going out and finding everyone else.
The resident who loves their neighborhood but has never commented on a city post. The parent who has an opinion but isn’t coming to a council meeting on a Tuesday night. The person who would happily tell you what they think if you actually asked them somewhere they already are.
Those voices are your community too. So meet them where they are.
And one of the biggest mistakes I see in government communications is allowing the people who are easiest to hear to become the people we listen to most.
That’s what my latest piece with Orlo is about.
How do you go get the average resident? How do you build a community that actually wants to engage with you? And how do you create enough trust that eventually your residents start setting the tone instead of your loudest critics?
And, on September 23, I’m joining Orlo’s Lauren Evans for a new podcast conversation where we’re getting into the stories behind all of this.
The things that worked. The things that absolutely did not. What I learned doing this work inside local government. And what communicators can actually do when it feels like the loudest, angriest voices are taking over the conversation.
We’ll talk about how to stop feeding the noise, find the residents you’re not hearing from, build real community engagement, and make the case for why this work matters.
If this is something your team is wrestling with, you’ll want to hear this one.
The podcast launches September 23, and you can sign up now to get priority access.
Because the loudest voices will always be there.
The goal isn’t to make them disappear. It’s to make sure they’re not the only voices anyone can hear.
Talk soon,
Dana
About Dana
Former Emmy-winning television producer and Chief Digital Officer. Built Gilbert, AZ's national award-wining Office of Digital Government. Now helping city communicators tell stories that build trust.
Oh, hi! Stories Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts
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