Communicating in a digital age - Have your say

Increasing numbers of councils and councillors are turning to social media to communicate with residents and to keep up to date with what is happening in their local communities. Alison Purdy looks at how councillors are getting to grips with the digital age.

Is social media a useful tool for councils and councillors to communicate with residents?

Twitter is one of the latest social media buzzes. Although it has been around for a while it is now starting to gain more widespread popularity as more people as increasing numbers of people start to use it. Celebrities from Stephen Fry to Barack Obama use Twitter accounts to update their fans. Nationally the Conservative party is on Twitter, along with No 10, the Foreign Office and Parliament. But there is also a vibrant community of people posting updates who are involved in local government and a number of councils using Twitter as part of their engagement drive.

Latest figures suggest that more than 20 councils are using Twitter with a further 40 individual councillors regularly posting their own personal messages, known as tweets. Newcastle city council became the first local authority in the UK to announce election results in real time through the social networking site. The Fenham ward by-election results were sent to ‘followers’ of the council – people signed up to read their messages – through the website or on their mobile phones as soon as they were announced.

And more recently councils around the country used Twitter to keep residents up to date with the latest weather situation and the impact the snow storms were having on council services. Here are some examples of how councillors are using Twitter and other social media to get their message across.

Twitter

 Cllr James Cousins (Con) Wandsworth council Twitter is often portrayed in the media as a festival of celebrity banality but it is a valuable medium, where diverse people congregate, contribute and discuss. I first became aware of its power through Twitter conversations about local government engagement, and from there it was an obvious step to use it as a councillor. My approach, in short, has been to ‘be human’. I use my personal account and try to avoid too much about the town hall, which I suspect even I would find dull. Instead I try to make my ‘tweets’ either encourage discussion or be informative, but that doesn’t stop me discussing TV or celebrating my team’s rare wins.

What is surprising is not just how many local people were tweeting, but how many were eager to engage and use Twitter to communicate with their councillor. While I often sit in a draughty library with no-one attending my surgery it is quite the reverse in the ‘Twitterverse’ where people are keen to ask questions or air local issues with me. In the past week alone parks, parking, traffic, policing and business issues have all been raised with me via Twitter. Like any dialogue, you get out what you put in. For me, Twitter has been incredibly rewarding

Facebook

Cllr Daniel Cox (Con) Norfolk county council Norfolk county council recently used Facebook as a tool in our campaign to get the government to bring forward the dualling of the final single carriageway stretch of the A11 – a major route into, and out of, Norfolk. Our two-month campaign resulted in 16,000 people signing either a hard copy, or the online, petition, with an additional 3,200 joining our Facebook group.

The business community regarded the dualling as vital for boosting competitiveness and improving the perception of Norfolk as a great place in which to do business. The economic benefits of dualling the road are estimated at £600m – far outweighing the cost of construction. Thousands of people who live in Norfolk, or have links with the county, have Facebook accounts and many Norfolk-related groups already existed. This gave us an opportunity to reach an existing online Norfolk community – many of whom had direct experience of this section of the A11.

Different audience

Some of these people may have kept in touch with news via the local media, and some may have seen the petition in our libraries, or on our website, but many wouldn’t have, and Facebook provided us with a direct way of reaching a different campaign audience. We linked up with a number of groups, including Norfolk live music venues – stressing the benefits it could bring in terms of bands and DJs finding it an easier and quicker location to reach.

We also targeted online football forums – mainly related to Norwich City football club, but also forums of teams who were heading into Norfolk to play during the time we ran the campaign. Ultimately we were able to access groups of people who conventionally would have shown little interest in local government campaigns – personalising the benefits for their specific interests. The result was that transport secretary Geoff Hoon announced that dualling would be brought forward to 2010 – the first road scheme he has announced since being in office.

YouTube

Cllr Maureen McGarvey (Con) Blackburn with Darwen council. I’m the first to admit that I still use one finger to type on my computer keyboard. But when it comes to trying new ways of connecting with our community I’m all in for it – even if I don’t always fully understand the tool being used. We were recently awarded the top possible ‘four score’ corporate assessment rating. It’s not easy to engage staff and the wider public with something like an inspection report. That’s why I was pleased to see some creativity with the communications.

Our chief executive was filmed being questioned in a journalistic style. His answers and relevant images from the borough were used to make a three-minute video. The idea was to show the story behind the Audit Commission rating. The video was posted on YouTube and the link was sent to staff and members via e-bulletins and further ‘seeded’ (I’m told that’s the right term) by emailing to partners and adding to relevant social message boards. Information about the video was given out on our website and the local paper ran a story. Innovation was one of our inspection strengths so it was only right that we did the same with celebrating the success. I believe we’re pioneers with the use of video in inspection communications and I’d recommend it to other councils. It certainly got people talking and that’s half the battle. The video can be found at www.youtube.com/BwDCtube 

Blogging

Cllr Clive Hudson (Lab) Wakefield council As Wakefield’s environment champion I have created an online diary to chronicle my family’s attempts to become greener and our switch to the new alternative weekly bin collection scheme. This blog is also an opportunity to try to encourage people who live, work and visit the district to take care of their environment. My family and I are very involved with keeping the district clean and green and as part of this we have changed to a more environmentally-friendly family car.

I live in Altofts which has now joined the new bin collection scheme. This encourages everyone to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill and, in turn, helps people to think about the amount of packaging they use. When I was asked if I would be interested in creating the blog it seemed the perfect time to get to grips with new technology and set-up an online diary so people can see how we are attempting to become greener and help the Wakefield district continue to be a place we can all be proud of.

Wakefield has so much to offer and I’m a strong believer that if we all work together, take pride in our places and say no to litter and waste, we can strengthen the area as a beautiful place to live, work and visit. Visitors to the online diary – at http:// cleanergreener.wakefield.gov.uk – can see how I have been preparing for the change, including getting rid of most of the bins at home.