COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, January 14, 2019

QUESTION NO. 14

QUESTION: Councillor C. O'Connor

To ask the Chief Exectuive if he would update members on actions regularly taken to promote the Councils Services to the wider public and will he make a statement in the matter.

REPLY:

South Dublin County Council seek to inform and engage with citizens through numerous channels so as to reach the maximum number of people possible.

The Council has been, and remains, cognisant of the changing media landscape this decade and so has looked to utilise digital channels in recent years. In 2018, the primary Council website (www.sdcc.ie) was redesigned and relaunched to allow for greater usability among users. Mainly due to this, the website experienced a 13% growth in users in 2018 whilst page views grew by 26% to nearly 3,500,000. The Council also launched project-specific websites for the River Poddle Flood Alleviation Scheme and MyDoorStep.ie that brings accurate and up-to-date information on both initiatives to all those who are interested.

A focus has also been given to growing the reach and engagement of Council posts on social media. As of early December, the Council’s analytics showed that reach across the primary Council Facebook channel grew by 24% in 2018, with 2,887,663 people seeing the Council’s posts. Engagement with the Council’s posts grew by 51% in 2018, with 200,231 people interacting with our posts on Facebook. Reach on Twitter grew by a further 59%, with 2,120,625 people viewing South Dublin County Council’s tweets. Engagement also grew by 67% with over 50,000 people interacting with our tweets.

The Council’s Instagram page was also relaunched in an effort to reach a younger audience within the region and has over 1,000 followers now with a reach of over 14,000 people through posts this year. The Council’s LinkedIn page was also relaunched to further diversify our audience and has grown its followers by 27% to 1,918 in that time.

The Council also works with local and national media through the issuing of press releases, by responding to frequent press queries and through inviting members of the media to key events. The Council takes out advertising through the press and other avenues, such as bus shelter posters, to allow for greater visibility of our services and initiatives.

Further to this, when a new initiative is launched the Council often send mailshots to residents and businesses in the County or to specific areas of it. Two examples of this in 2018 were the launch of the Clondalkin Electoral Area’s €300k Have Your Say initiative, where local community groups, charities, businesses and residents were all contacted during the promotion phase, and the launch of the Council’s rental statement website and app, which saw direct mail sent to Council tenants outlining the benefits of the initiative. The Council also produces citizen newsletters twice a year, with the summer edition being posted to every household in the country. In 2018, the Council expanded the locations where the South Dublin County Today citizen newsletter is distributed to. New locations include the Courtesy desk and Citizen’s Information booth in The Square shopping centre, as well as post offices in Rathfarnham village and Newcastle. It is also distributed to council offices, libraries, The Civic Theatre, Rua Red, and community centres and made available online.

Whether through the libraries, the Community, Recreation and Sports department or other sections, the Council organises and hosts hundreds of events and public meetings for citizens that are inclusive, accessible and look to promote the services the Council provides to its citizens.

The Council is always looking at new methods of engagement with our citizens, however, and welcomes any potential input from elected members on ways of doing so.