COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, October 12, 2015
QUESTION NO.26
QUESTION: Councillor L. O'Toole
To ask Chief Executive if Face Book page can be used more frequently than it currently is and to increase its activity.
REPLY:
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. 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 and South Dublin Comhairle Na nÓg all have a social media presence. The Council currently has over 5000 followers on Facebook and over 6000 followers on Twitter,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 for a Local Authority, per head of population.
Some of our activities to promote Social Media include:
- A new External Communications Strategy including an objective to prepare a Social Media Plan to increase engagement with citizens on Social Media
- Social Media Policy and Training for Staff
- 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