The City of Kyle Analytics and Transparency
The Rundown
The City of Kyle, Texas wanted to provide more transparency for city council meetings, provide a better website user experience, promote their city and festivals, help applying for Google Grants, and help creating online Map infrastructure. They needed help understanding how to use their city’s data to help constituents, social media campaigns, and the newsletter. Lastly, they wanted to own their map listings so constituents could trust the information provided. These updates proved their value when updating citizens during COVID.
City Council member Michael Tobias mentioned this review during a meeting on March 15, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjQ0wBWXmO8
City Increase Views by 6,000%
Goals
• Organize and timestamp all city functions and meeting videos
• Use data to determine fields to add to website navigation
• Using data, build a website for city events
• Apply for Google Grants for free advertising
• Claim all online map locations for the City of Kyle
• Double the subscribers on YouTube
• Triple YouTube channel views
• Add 10 Playlists to YouTube
• Use data to determine newsletter topics
The Strategy
City of Kyle wanted to provide more transparency for City council meetings. We started by organizing their YouTube video to have time stamps in the description. This improved constituents experience because they did not have to watch a 3-hour meeting to find answers to an issue. They could click a link and go directly to the moment that mattered to them.
They wanted to learn how to use their data to provide a better website user experience. Initially, this data was used to update the navigation bar to feature topics residents or searching for. The City of Kyle also wanted to use the data to promote their city festival. Using existing data we designed a new website for the city's events.
Additionally, when we uncovered which channels the citizens were using, the city’s social media campaigns changed focus. The city also wanted to use data to understand which topics were appropriate for the newsletter. We set them up with monthly reports so that they could keep tabs on which topics residents were searching for most.
When we started, the City of Kyle was paying for their own advertisements. Google has funds available for municipalities who use certified Google Ads managers. We applied for Google grants, were awarded $10,000 a month, and insured future advertising expense was paid for by Alphabet.
The Marketing Director wanted to give the newsletter a facelift and improve engagement. We reviewed which topics and events were searched for most by Kyle citizens. We used the data to feature topics that citizens were interested in.
The city wanted to own their online map infrastructure. They did not own listings for City Hall, the fire department, or police department. We claimed or created all listings for City properties. Many of these listings had negative reviews. Because the city did not control the listings - they were unable to respond. One of our first actions was to write review responses for the negative reviews. This was essential during COVID to let citizens know when locations were closed.
The Obstacles
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No presence on YouTube or Google
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Needed 36 listings verified online (city hall, police department, fire department)
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Information in the listings was not controlled by the city
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The city was paying for marketing with tax dollars, instead of using available funds from Google Grants
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The marketing team needed help interpreting data
The Results
The timestamps for YouTube were so successful that city council members commented on it during meetings. One comment is available on our YouTube page, https://youtu.be/tjQ0wBWXmO8. Our top goal was transparency for constituents. He says we nailed it.
Quantifiable Results:
• YouTube comments increased 6x
• YouTube subscribers increased by 1600%
• Goal, Triple Channel Views. Current 453,000, increase of the 6,000%
• Average View Duration is 7 minutes and 30 seconds
• Increased playlist views over 10x
We petitioned Google to donate money to our city for advertising. They did. The city won. They didn’t spend $10,000 every month, but when they did, it was free money. Now competing with larger cities would not cost taxpayer dollars.
After examining the data with the marketing team, we decided on some fundamental changes on topics, posting frequency, and channels. When the marketing team changed the online channels the city was utilizing, it had the immediate impact of getting more comments and interactions.
Data on demand. We setup everyone to receive monthly reports and the Google analytics app on their phone. We customized the reports to include the keywords and demographics that were important to them. This meant they could read the reports on their phone and click from the reports to the data.
The City of Kyle used YouTube and newly acquired online listings to release updates during COVID. This meant the city could control message consistency. Came in handy during lockdown.
Published 6-25-2026 by Steve Huskey