San Ramon is looking to slingshot into the 21st century, making plans to begin interacting with residents through various social media outlets.

City employees worked for months to create a campaign to engage more residents and to communicate better with them.

"We really tried to drill down to see what social media policies should be," said Karen McNamara, public services director. She added that San Ramon was able to draw from the experiences of other cities. Their advice, she said, was not to create social media tools just to have them.

The proposals suggested by the team would see San Ramon issuing statements on Twitter, known as tweeting, and using a software program called Open Town Hall, which would solicit comments from residents on specific topics. Those topics would be selected by San Ramon, which would also provide background on them for review.

Open Town Hall would allow users one comment apiece, but they could like another's post -- much like the popular feature offered on Facebook. It would also track where comments come from and summarize responses. The program, which is in use in Santa Clara, Salt Lake City and Decatur, Ga., would cost between $5,000 and $6,000 a year.

The city is also considering using ShareThis, which would allow residents to share posts from their personal sites, such as Facebook. However, the group of employees that worked for three months to come up with a plan for social media stopped short of backing a Facebook page for the city.

But four teens came out to last Tuesday's communications workshop to ask the city to do just that. The teens said Facebook is the main way they receive and broadcast messages. One young man said his friends use Facebook's messages more often than their email accounts.

The city is also revamping its website for the first time since 2008, looking to add Google translation services for people whose native language isn't English, and creating a more user-friendly calendar. It's also looking to make the site accessible by focus rather than by department, so that someone looking for a specific service or information doesn't have to root through different part of the website to find it.

The new site will also feature a video tour book, answering potential residents' questions about living and working in San Ramon.

Tweeting is a great way to communicate in the event of a disaster, according to Ray Riordan, San Ramon's emergency preparedness manager and a member of the Social Media team. He pointed to recent fires in Colorado and Southern California, where people were able to share information immediately.

Jennifer Dye, an administrative analyst and also a member of the team, said the point of social media is that it's a whole new way to increase public participation and communication, reach new segments of the population and to create an "information exchange."

The City Council meeting was also the first to be recorded for playback on Contra Costa Television, CCTV; although a schedule hasn't been announced, it will be broadcast in high definition. It is also available on the city's website.

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