The New OIG Website: Year One a Success, Thanks to You

As we planned the redesign of the SSA Office of the Inspector General website, we always worked with some specific goals in mind.

More than just changing the look and feel of the site, we wanted to improve how we relayed the OIG mission and message to you, the Congress, and the media. That meant putting more information online, in an organized and user-friendly way. It also meant improving two-way communication through interactive blog posts, social media, and feedback surveys.

We’re proud to have hit the one-year mark since the launch of the new OIG site, and we’re happy to be able to say:  We hear you, and we thank you.

In one year, almost 400,000 people have come to the new OIG site, viewing pages on our site more than 1.5 million times. Of particular note, the OIG Fraud Reporting Form accounts for about 25 percent of all page views. Providing a convenient, round-the-clock way for the public to report suspected fraud is the most important role our website plays. Please keep those Social Security fraud allegations coming. 

We’ve also made an effort to promote the great work of our auditors, investigators, and attorneys on the site over the last year. It’s been exciting and helpful to track what our site visitors are interested in reading and learning more about.

If you haven’t had a chance, take a look at some of our most-read online material from the past year:

• From February, Hearing on Social Security’s Death Records
• Also from February, Congressional Response Report: Oversight of ALJ Workload Trends
• From March, Utah Company Agrees to Pay Civil Monetary Penalty to Settle Alleged Violation of Social Security Act
• From April, Four Arrested following Social Security Disability Fraud Investigation in Kentucky

Once we implemented the redesigned, content-rich OIG site, we turned to developing an OIG social media campaign. In June, we launched this “Beyond the Numbers” blog, our Facebook and Twitter accounts, and a YouTube channel.

The blog itself has been a great success in only a few months. We’re sure you’ve heard enough about the OIG ammunition procurement story from August, but if you haven’t, check out this post, which has been viewed more than 17,000 times and has about 230 public comments.

We’re still learning how to make the most of our social media accounts, but we can say it’s been great to connect with all you, and we’ll keep updating them and responding to your inquiries the best we can.

Also, thank you to all who took the time to respond to our website feedback survey. In less than three weeks, about 600 of you responded, and we greatly appreciate your input.

The survey response was quite favorable overall. Here are some highlights:

• About 86 percent of you said you were able to locate the information you were looking for; 
• About 72 percent said it was very easy or extremely easy to find what you were looking for;
• And, best of all, more than 93 percent said you found the site information useful.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we’re satisfied with where we are. We’re always thinking of ways to improve the site, as you can see by the recent addition of the OIG Video Gallery.

We’ve also noticed that about 10 percent of our visitors access our site through mobile devices like cell phones and tablets. In response, we are developing a mobile-friendly website that we hope to launch within a year.

So thank you again, and please keep reading.  We’ll soon be updating the website with new feature stories, blog posts to address your frequently-asked questions, and requests for more feedback from you as to what information you’d like to see from us.

It’s been a very successful first year with our new website, in large part because of you. We are looking forward to year two and beyond.