On a recent summer afternoon, a camera crew slowly trekked up Westminster's Main Street.
The team stopped near the old post office, slipped down to the city's gray-stone-front Armory and stood on the sidewalk, capturing footage of local establishments, before ending at McDaniel College.
"I didn't do my makeup," one van passenger shouted to cameraman Kevin Carmack as he filmed street traffic.
"That's OK," he said, smiling. "We're not filming you."
Instead, it was the city's landmarks that consumed the crew's attention, sights to be featured in a YouTube video aimed at teaching about Carroll County, maybe drawing some visitors.
"It's a good chance for people to see what we love," said Chris Swam, the county's media production specialist. "We're not here to promote, but we are here to educate and inform and make people understand what our county is about."
Like Carroll, jurisdictions throughout Maryland and the nation are eyeing the available - and easily accessible - social media around them, contemplating ways to use popular networking and user-generated-content sites like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook for sharing information.
"It's another way to reach people. ... We can't just rely on mail and phone calls anymore," said Vivian D. Laxton, a county spokeswoman. "We are just scratching the surface. ... There's all this technology that we're trying to figure out how we can use."
This month, the National Association of Counties plans to include a workshop on "engaging citizens via the new Internet social media" during its annual conference, according to Jim Philipps, a spokesman for the association. The issue is gaining more attention among the nation's counties, he added.
The seminar follows another held a few years ago on the use of Web sites and blogs, said Jane LeMaster, president of the National Association of County Information Officers, which is sponsoring the workshop.
"Ten years ago, who would have even been talking about a blog?" LeMaster said. "We've got a whole new generation of residents that we have to serve. ... We just want to make [county officials] aware of the avenues available to them."
The Maryland Association of Counties has themed its summer conference "Promoting County Government Through Technology," offering several sessions on new and social media, said Michael Sanderson, the association's legislative director, who described the subject as a "hot topic."
