COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, April 14, 2014
MOTION NO. 4
MOTION: Councillor T. Gilligan
That the Manager outlines how the council are to increase the number of likes on the Facebook page
REPORT:
Social Media is changing the way we work and communicate, it provides South Dublin County Council with opportunities to educate and inform our citizens about council initiatives, civic events and services. Social Media encourages greater democratic engagement providing a medium for members of the community to give us instant feedback on how we are delivering our services. In times of limited financial resources, social media has proven to be very cost effective and no additional staff resources have been allocated to update and maintain the council's social media pages.
In recent years, the council has actively continued to develop these resources to provide real time information to our citizens. The growth in social media is an organic process and from our analysis, tends to grow at times of emergencies, i.e. adverse weather or water supply issues. The power of social media is in our opinion (for the Local Government Sector), the sharing of likes/comments on/of information which naturally occurs when someone takes an interest in what we post.
South Dublin County Council's main Facebook page to date has proven very popular with our citizens and month on month we see an increase in subscribers. South Dublin Library Services, South Dublin Sports Partnership, the Irish Office and South Dublin Comhairle Na nÓg all have a social media presence. In addition the Council has over 4800 followers on our Twitter page, where we have seen an even steadier increase in new followers.
South Dublin County Council has one the highest number of followers on Social Media in the state, per head of population and the table below provides comparisons with local authorities in the Leinster region and other similar sized authorities in Ireland.
| Name of Authority | Followers on Facebook |
| South Dublin County Council | 2703 |
| Dublin City Council | 2372 |
| Fingal County Council | 1022 |
| Dun Laoghaire /Rathdown County Council | 152 |
| Meath County Council | 270 |
| Cork City Council | 225 |
| Limerick City Council | 114 |
Some of our activities to promote Social Media include:
- Council publications displaying social media icons on advertising and printed materials.
- New signage in the County includes references to social media.
- The interactive screen display at Customer Care Centre in County Hall displays content and images from the council's Facebook Pages.
- The roll out of free wi-fi in our villages has encouraged the use of specifically dedicated Facebook Pages as the landing site for wi-fi i.e. https://www.facebook.com/TempleogueVillage
- The Council's Environmental Department has assisted many of Tidy Town groups in the county to set up Facebook Pages for their groups to promote civic participation in the wider community.
- Elected members through their own social media channels have also helped to promote the council's pages.
- Social Media Week is a global event taking place from the 17th -21st February 2014 and the council will create a promotion campaign to increase awareness in the county of our social media sites.
- In the run up to the Local Elections 2014, the council will also use our social media resources to promote greater citizen participation in Local Democracy and engage people in the local election process.