How do you become friends with the government?

More and more people are starting to find the answer on Facebook.

The popular social networking Web site has started to catch the eye of local governments, who view it more as a tool to post information about road closures and upcoming meetings than check out friends’ latest photos and status updates.

Many Georgia cities, including Suwanee, Decatur and Augusta, are using Facebook. Gainesville and Hall County soon may follow suit.

The city and county governments already have entered the world known as Web 2.0 by posting videos from government channel TV 18 to the free video sharing Web site YouTube.

Web 2.0 is an "umbrella term that is used to refer to a new era of Web-enabled applications that are built around user-generated or user-manipulated content, such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites," according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Hall County Public Information Officer Nikki Young said she is researching a Facebook presence for Hall County, which she hopes to have up and running early next year.

She thinks Facebook has the potential to reach a wide audience on a regular basis.

"Basically every conference I’ve been to, they’ve had some sort of workshop on how to get started on Facebook and what the draw is," Young said. "Everybody assumes the Internet is just for kids but older adults are actually the fastest growing users on Facebook."

Young said she has been doing research to try and use the Web site in the most effective way for the county.

"I’m watching what other counties and cities are doing first to see what works and what doesn’t," she said.

For example, Hall County may decide to create pages for individual departments such as Parks and Leisure rather than one overall page for the county.

Gainesville is also considering jumping on the Facebook bandwagon. Catiel Felts, public information officer for the city, said because Facebook has so many users, it could be another medium for the city to utilize to broadcast important information.

"Almost everybody has a Facebook (account)," Felts said. "Everybody’s going
electronic and certainly the city of Gainesville wants to be proactive and participate in this. But at the same time, we want to be careful and make sure this is the right thing for the city."

Felts said while she sees many benefits from the city using Facebook, there are a number factors that would need to be explored before doing so.

"We have to question what kind of dialogue that always opens," Felts said. "If we do enter this realm of social media, we want this to be a positive, educational experience for the city. We’re not looking to create something where the city gets beat up all the time."

Who would update the page and how often also needs to be determined.

"We have very strict Internet usage guidelines," Felts said. "Employees at the city of Gainesville cannot access Facebook from their city computers."

Young said one reason governments are so interested in Facebook is because people are using it frequently. Governments can spread information on a site that people already are visiting rather than directing them to another site.

"I check my Facebook at least once a day," Young said. "It’s just a good way to reach people, which we have a hard time doing in government — getting the information out there in an interesting format people will pay attention, too."