Councillors and social media: the LocalGovCamp session

Local politicians often have many of the characteristics that would make them seem like natural users of social media. They’re usually dedicated individuals with a strong sense of local place, they’re good connectors, motivated to help and share information. They’re used to holding their own in the hustle and bustle of multiple voices and strong opinions – and the best develop the ability to cut through the chatter, deflecting and reflecting on negative feedback.

But many councillors also have characteristics which make it unlikely that they’ll be signing up for Twitter or starting their own blog any time soon. On the whole, they’re a bit older than the usual digital native. They may or may not have developed the basic IT and social web skills through their work or personal experience. And they’re insanely busy juggling work, family and political responsibilities – and while social media can be time saving in the long run it does take time to get it set up and gain confidence.

So what would help councillors make effective use of social media? At Saturday’s LocalGovCamp (an unconference about councils and social media) we asked the question. The answer seems to be:

1. Set of case studies and examples of how other local politicians are using common social media tools

2. A brief explanation of the terminology

3. A few handy tips for use – nothing too prescriptive

4. Mentoring

5. Removing barriers

6. An outline of some of the potential risks of using social media and how to mitigate them

7. And other encouragements…

1. Case studies:

There needs to be a good set of examples of councillors using different social media tools in the role as local democratic leaders. Examples mentioned on the day included:

Allan Andrews, from Coventry City Council, set up a Facebook page called I Love Earlsdon. The page has over 900 fans and builds on an existing strong local sense of community and a demographic profile which is likely to be IT savvy. He uses the page to identify local issues and communicate with residents. It’s also helped drive a local campaign – the return of the Earsldon festival to Earlsdon proper as a street festival (currently takes place in park just outside the area).

James Cousins, Wandsworth Council, has managed to achieve a good balance of local issues, political views and a bit about his personal life in his use of Twitter and his blog. He also monitors mentions of the council and his local area on social sites and has used it to respond and engage with local residents

And, of course TweetyHall and CllrTweeps provide a live example of councillors using Twitter.

2. A brief explanation of the terminology

It’s not enough to explain that a blog is web-log, but how tools can be used in the context of local politics.  A brief, handy set of tools, a social media starter pack if you will – and a bit of mythbusting wouldn’t go amiss…and….

3. A few handy tips for use

For people just dipping their toes in, a few top tips would be useful to help councillors understand how to use social media most effectively, rough guidlines or five to ten “golden rules”

For example, one of the tips shared was that content on social media for local politicians should follow a rough 70-30 rule, 70% business and 30% personal. It doesn’t mean telling people what you had for breakfast (unless perhaps it was a delicious smoked sausage from a local producer), but it does mean presenting a human side.

Other tips might include advice about how to deal with difficult commenters.  Or a brief explanation of the netiquette (e.g. auto Direct Messaging of new followers in Twitter are seen as an annoyance, ALL-CAPS seen as shouting)

But everyone in the session agreed (I think) that individuals will all take on their own communication style and there will be different and equally valid patterns of adoption – the most important thing is honesty and making sure the individual’s approach matches their own value base and personal style.

4.  Mentoring and creating a sense of community

When I started blogging, becoming part of a community of bloggers really helped me find my feet. I had people I could turn to when I didn’t know how to embed an image on a blog post or I could draw ideas from others.  In Bristol, where the council created a platform for councillors to blog, that automatically created a community.  And the platform displayed which political party was blogging more, creating a spirit of competitiveness which was a spur to some.

A number of people suggested mentoring.  Even a loose mentoring relationship would be helpful for those getting started, perhaps reviewing blog posts before they were published or advising on the look of a councillor’s web page.  Some people suggested a councillor/mentor matching service to help councillors who’d like to get started.

Face to face social media surgeries for councillors in an informal environment could provide some of the minimal technical skills required as well as going some ways to creating that sense of community.

5.  Removing some of the barriers

A lot of people recounted horror stories about officers advising against councillors using council support or kit to use social media in the line of their duties.   There was a fear on some quarters that helping councillors to communicate to citizens might be ultra vires (outside the power of local authorities) and particularly so if local politicians should dare to talk about politics.  Where councils had created blogging platforms for councillors, often these were shut down during election periods – sadly just the sort of time when constituents might be looking for that kind of information (and why I’d recommend using often free offsite tools and hosting).

Some people suggested that we look at Tim Davies’  list of 50 barriers to participation with a particular eye to the role of councillors.

Leadership support – an encouraging nod from senior politicians and the chief executive of an organisation can be very important to overcoming resistance within the council.  However, just giving permission or even a clear framework of acceptable use  -e.g. a code of practice – won’t make people flock to these new tools   Active support critical to widespread adoption of social media techniques by councillors and officers is likely to come from the second tier of management and will have some financial backing.

And, as it stands now, it will be difficult for councils to encourage take-up of social media by councillors given that access to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and some blogs are blocked for officers and councillors from council computers.

6. Understanding and mitigating the risks of using social media

There are risks to any kind of communication and there are certainly some risks to using social media. But social media can also help mitigate some risks.

For example, a ward councillor often has to be very careful about how she discusses issues on planning or development on which she may have to decide on later from the position of what benefits all the residents of the council. That’s avoiding “predetermination”. While a councillor certainly wouldn’t want to use social media to campaign about such issues, she could use a blog post to explain why they need to remain neutral, this avoiding appearing disinterested.

There are other ways that councillors can get in trouble, too. Once you’ve hit the “publish” button, your words are out there. And even if you take a post down later, it will have already landed in someone’s feed reader or in an aggregator online somewhere for all the world to see.  So, of course, councillors need to think very carefully about how they write about other named people.

7. And other encouragement…

It was also suggested that the promotion of other social media tools – such as dashboards or listening posts which would help councillors monitor (and potentially engage with) the existing conversations that were going on in their ward or local authority patch.  Although this needs to be done carefully, as it could lead to information overload.

There needs to be some help for councillors to measure the value of their engagement online.  This goes beyond the number of “hits” which may be quite small on a blog that focuses on a narrow geographic area such as a ward, but the level of influence is higher – so numbers need to be put into perspective – including who is reading and responding to local online conversations.    As a sector we need to be sharper about how we measure the social media return on investment.

Kit.  Justin Griggs of the National Association of Local Councils which represents around 80,000 parish councillors and for them investment in appropriate kit can be an issue as well as those mentioned above.  However,  some parish councillors are already taking up the opportunities such as Sean Brady and his Formby First blog.