Should councils invest time and money in Facebook?

At first glance, councils and Facebook may not seem like a happy mix. That was certainly the view of the Taxpayers' Union, which recently criticised councils for their spending on Facebook and Linkedin advertising.

So, is Facebook something to leave to family and friends, and small businesses? I don’t think so. There are lots of council topics that are very appealing to people.

Appealing topics 

• Libraries can talk about new books, DVDs and CDs now available on their shelves, and offer reviews. They can also reflect the role libraries now have as community hubs including promotion of events and workshops being held in libraries, and the computer and other training sessions librarians now offer.
  
  
• Festivals/events being run or sponsored by a council are a natural fit for Facebook. This can include posts about upcoming acts with links for buying tickets, text and video interviews with the people who will be performing, and (even easier) video of previous performances.
  
  
• Environment – upcoming planting days, updates on restoration projects, and consultation on policy issues are all of interest.
  
  

Interesting examples
Here are some great examples of council Facebook pages from around the country.

• Auckland

The most recent posts on Auckland Council’s page are about this morning's Solomon Islands earthquake and the tsunami risk for New Zealand, a video of kids in a playground that has 1,100 views, and information about an upcoming Christmas in the Park event.

Auckland Council spends the most on social media advertising, at $187,870.

• Waikato

The Waikato Civil Defence Management Group was a finalist in the 2016 LGNZ Excellence Awards for its civil defence social media strategy.

The Local Government Magazine (September 2016) reported they “developed a unique and humorous approach that delivered education and entertainment as well as official warnings and significantly increased its social media presence.”

At the time of the award the following for its Facebook page had grown from 800 to 13,400. It now has 18,858 fans! Here’s a link to this page - https://www.facebook.com/WaikatoCivilDefence/

• Southland

Environment Southland was also a finalist in the 2016 LGNZ Excellence Awards for its innovative approach to engaging its community in developing a new water and land plan. This process included two live Facebook Q&A sessions.
 
There are lots of videos on the Southland Facebook page profiling the 2016 Southland Community Environment Awards nominees. The most prominent one has 1,700 views, and many of the others have between 2000 and 5000 views.

Here’s a link to the videos section of the Southland page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/environmentsouthland/videos
 
Types of posts that work well on Facebook
Some of the things that appeal to people on Facebook are:

• visual content with short text
• video
• an informal tone, remembering that your post will be turning up in a newsfeed alongside posts from their family and friends.
  
  

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​Do you have a favourite council Facebook page?
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​Please share a link to it in the comments below.