We talked to 70 PIOs first.

Public Square Analytics is a civic-data company based in State College, Pennsylvania. Before we wrote a line of GovFeeds, we interviewed 70 local-government communications professionals — PIOs, communications managers, and the town and county managers they report to — about the job of running a local government’s social media.

One theme came up again and again. These are some of the hardest communications jobs in the country, done in some of the highest-scrutiny environments, with almost none of the benchmarking infrastructure that the private sector takes for granted. A brand manager can pull competitive benchmarks in an afternoon. A local-government PIO asked “how do we compare to our peers?” usually had to answer from memory and instinct.

The good communicators weren’t lacking ideas. They were lacking evidence — the peer context that turns “I think this is working” into “here’s how we compare.”

So we built it. GovFeeds tracks the public Facebook activity of 5,000+ U.S. city and county governments — 870,000+ posts and counting, refreshed daily, measured the same way for every account so the comparisons are honest. It does two things civic communicators have always needed: it lets you borrow what works from peer governments, and it gives you the authority layer — the data you reach for when leadership questions your approach, the benchmarks you bring when council wants peer comparisons. Local governments have always learned from one another; it’s the peer-sharing ethos that associations like ICMA and 3CMA are built on. GovFeeds just makes it systematic.

What we believe

• Local government deserves real tools. Not enterprise contracts that take a year to procure — tools a single communicator can start using this afternoon.
• Evidence beats instinct — but only if it’s accessible. Benchmarking shouldn’t require a data scientist or a five-figure budget.
• Focused beats sprawling. We do one thing — peer benchmarking for local-government social media — and we’d rather do it well than bolt it onto a platform.
• Honesty about scope. GovFeeds isn’t a posting tool, an archiving tool, or a survey platform. We’ll tell you when a different tool is the right one.

Who it’s for

Local-government communications staff — PIOs, communications managers, social-media coordinators — and the managers and councils they answer to. Today, governments across North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, Maryland, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Massachusetts and beyond use GovFeeds to benchmark their work. We’re based in State College, Pennsylvania, and we partner with local governments across the country.

Who’s behind it

GovFeeds is built and operated by Public Square Analytics LLC, based in State College, Pennsylvania. The application runs on DigitalOcean’s US data centers. Questions, ideas, or want to talk benchmarks? Email bruce@publicsquareanalytics.com — a real person reads it.