Time to Tweet, that’s where the audience is going

LGcomms is the professional body for council communicators and their annual ‘Academy’ is taking place in Nottingham this week. The event would hopefully pass the Pickles ‘value’ test with a £99 daily fee allowing 300 delegates to hear 60 speakers from organisations as diverse as the CLG and Global Radio over three days with an agenda covering public services, council communications and opinion research.

Star of the show to date has been the BBC’s Sophie Brendel who unmasked the mysteries of social media by explaining that “being social” means getting the tone, speed and siting of online communication correct. That means engaging in a way that is informal, fast and succinct; things that local government has not always shown an ability to deliver. There are some outstanding examples of councils engaging in social media – Coventry’s 15,000-strong Facebook site for example, but they are few and far between.

To really develop a credible presence in social media requires an acceptance that responses to tweeted criticisms of your authority should be delivered in around an hour. A real challenge when many councils take a day to sign off a press release. It means listening and monitoring and then responding in a language that connects with the audience and reassures the bloggers who are increasingly important opinion formers.

Unless we contribute to the online debate we will lose contact with our citizens. Earlier in the day, Martyn Lewis, the former TV presenter had pointed out that as few as five million were still watching daily network television news, while up to 30 million consumed news online. And tweeted rumour and half truths about government can take hold and become accepted fact and by the time online chatter becomes press and broadcast reports, it is too late to influence the story.   

Another take on the value of digital media was offered by Chris Quigley, from Delib, who ran the government’s impressive online “Your Freedom” initiative last summer to generate public ideas for legislation and the “Spending challenge” allowing citizens to submit ways that government could reduce waste. Quigley reports that each website had around 500,000 visitors, but the Spending Challenge generated 43,000 ideas compared to only 15,000 proposals for ‘Your Freedom’.

The total cost of both projects was £25,000. Or around 45p per idea. The problem is that is appears that few ideas have been implemented and up to a million people might be wondering whether the government took their contribution seriously. There is simply no point in engaging people unless you can definitively show that their ideas have been considered, and acted upon, or rejected with good reason. As we approach local consultations which may well lead to service reductions, we need to remember to engage, but then report back with speed and honesty.