Graham sharing her web savvy with the City of Red Oak

Red Oak grad Aedynn Graham, who is currently serving as an unpaid summer intern for the City of Red Oak, has been making great strides in boosting the city’s web and social media presence.
Graham, who was approved by the council for the position May 15, said she worked on social media projects in high school and has expanded to taking classes while at college. Graham volunteered to help the city as a way of giving back.
“I was thinking that I had a lot of time this summer, and I wanted to do something that was productive and useful. I started asking people about what I could do, and they mentioned Mayor Shawnna Silvius and all the stuff she’s doing, so I reached out to her on what I could do and this is what we planned on,” Graham said.
Graham’s first major project was to assist in updating the city’s main website, city.redoakiowa.com. Graham said she got involved with the project after some of the groundwork had been laid.
“There had already been a few companies approached when I started. We planned a few meetings and I was able to sit in on those. After we had meetings with four of them, they told me it was my decision and that I could ask any  more questions I wanted,” Graham stated. “I took some time and figured out which company was best for us, and so I got to decide the company and reach out and tell them we wanted their help. I’m very excited. I love the company that we’ve chosen, SOCS Filament Essential Services, and they’ve been great to work with.”
In the interim, Graham said she put her knowledge to work to make the city’s existing website a bit more accessible, and find ways for improvement.
“I edited the current page a little bit to make it as user-friendly as it could be, and while I was doing that I was taking my own notes on what could be better and heard from other people about they wanted to see on the new website. I was able to compile all that information and send it to the new website contractor and tell them exactly what we wanted,” commented Graham. “We definitely plan on getting the new website up before I go back to college. Once the mock-up they send us is okayed, they’ll start the content migration. We’re hoping that in a few more weeks the new website will be live.”
Once the website designer was selected, Graham was able to turn to her next major project, developing an official Facebook page for the city, which went live on June 23.
“It was a little bit easier to work on than the website. We had a meeting to figure out how to present it, and after it was approved by the council, we went through all of the settings to make it a great government page. We’re still trying to work out how to make it a verified page, but so far, all the trails we’ve taken have led to dead ends. We have some exciting plans for that we’re going to start rolling out,” explained Graham. “I’m going to start working on the city’s Instagram account before the end of my internship as well.”
Having the new Facebook page, Graham said, has already helped the city share information that in the past, citizens would have had to contact city hall for.
“During the Fourth of July, we had a lot of random Red Oak pages asking for times and locations, and from our page, we were able to go up and tell them what time it was and share it to all the other pages so they were getting the information from a solid source,” Graham said.
Thanks to all of the new remote technology, Graham said her summer interning hours have been flexible.
“I do a lot of stuff at home like with the social media page, and I contact a lot of people while at home and email them. When there’s work to do on the website, I come in to city hall and get things done,” stated Graham.
Graham said she’s been enjoying a number of things about the internship thus far, particularly the creative outlet and the people.
“I’ve enjoyed working with the people. It’s been very fun to connect with them and get to help the way they work without getting in their way. It’s my own project, but I‘m able to help them with what they need now, and what they need in the future,” commented Graham.
Silvius said she’s been very pleased with Graham’s efforts to aid the city in boosting its internet presence thus far, and hopes the partnership can continue.
“It’s come together even better than I expected. I think there’s an opportunity for her to work even as she goes back to school if she wants. We could do some paid contracting work for her in the future to help us keep our social media populated and scheduled and updated,” commented Silvius. When we first talked about the internship, she said, ‘How creative can I be?’ That was exciting to me. “
Silvius said one of the new features of the website will be eliminating some of the clutter.
“There’s really no reason for the city’s website to list out all of the tourism and Red Oak Chamber and Montgomery County Development Corporation functions unless there are incentives directly from the city for housing or the hotel/motel tax; we can simply link to their sites. That will help with the website migration,” advised Silvius. “We’ll be including online forms and hopefully there will be a way for citizens to communicate with us and self select agendas and minutes.”
Also, Silvius said she was pleased that the city now had a Facebook page to share information, after not having a page for many years.
‘Previous administrations were not supportive of it because they felt it was a liability that would open us up to negative feedback. But I feel we need to stay up on the times and this is the way we can communicate with the most people in our city,” Silvius said. “Making sure we keep everything as transparent as possible is really important to myself, and the council, and our staff.”
Graham added they have implemented some features to exercise caution with the Facebook page.
“We’ve made sure to turn off messaging so the page can’t be directly messaged. Also, we can turn off commenting if need be, but we don’t want to turn that off on every post because we want people to have some way of contacting the city through the page,” stated Graham.
Silvius felt that Graham’s presence has been instrumental in getting the city as far along in the process as it is, and doubted they’d have made the progress they have without her.
“We’ve been having meetings for over a year about the website. When Tim Fridolph and Christie Vanderholm started looking at platforms and Aedynn showed experience with them it was easy for us to let her take the reins,” Silvius said. “When you hire someone that has a skill set you’ve been wanting or needing, you delegate it.”
Silvius gave a lot of praise for everything Graham has done and will continue to do before her internship ends.
“Aedynn has been fantastic at getting things delegated to her, and she’s taken it and rolled with it. It’s been very advantageous to us, and we’re thrilled to have her. She’s been an invaluable member of our team, and I’m grateful she reached out to us. It’s a win-win for the community. More people will be able to see the information we have, and be able to get their questions answered much more easily.”
Both Graham and Silvius stated they were open to Graham returning to do more work for the city on its web presence next summer. They also praised the assistance from Vanderholm, Fridolph, and Beau Boeye in getting the groundwork laid for the city’s new website.