Local by Social: by Andy Gibson

The expectations are growing on councils (and councillors) to engage, work openly, be more accountable and move quicker on issues - and social media/internet tools represent an extraordinary opportunity to do this.

Councils are beginning to use these tools to achieve real value against their objectives, by engaging citizens, listening more and harnessing local energy to help with public activities.

The problem though for councils, is that not engaging now represents a far greater risk than engaging. Citizens will still use these networks to talk about you, whether you add your voice to the conversation or not. These are bottom-up spaces. Citizens therefore expect their council to engage with them on their terms, via their channels, and to be openly available online >> in fact, it is clear that if councils don’t use these tools, the citizens will do it for them, and bypass the council entirely << creates problems in reputation management.

Driven from top (e.g. localism bill) and bottom then, there is a massively strong political context then for doing this.

These sites (tools) aren’t just about sharing knowledge or facts, they are about self-expression and relationships - information is being socialised.

Opportunities - new ways of working, cost savings, service improvements and greater democratic engagement << being online is also amazing at building trust. Even if people don’t engage directly with material from council meetings, the fact that they know they can is still important - and it only takes 1 or 2 citizens to then take this and make it into something like Saddleworth News.

Internal - Within councils, wikis, discussion forums and micro-messaging tools like Yammer are providing dynamic new ways to share info and retain knowledge. They also provide good practise for workers to get competent and confident with speaking online.

Innovation - Councils need to see innovation as a core activity, because it is their future. Failure is only a waste of time if nothing is learnt.

Like so much with what is happening at the moment - what is the alternative? News and opinions about you is circulating already, at the very least you should be listening to this.

Control - their is none (although you can look to influence). The only way to ‘control’ what people are saying about you on social media is to join in the conversation, not as the voice of authority shutting things down, but as a real person engaging openly and honestly with the criticisms. By positioning yourself in the conversation to begin with, and allowing your staff to build relationships with people there, you can reduce the risk of one piece of bad news dominating the debate.

Community - by invigorating the local community, and bringing the conversation to a shared platform, it makes it easier for everyone to talk to each other, saving the council time working out who is saying what, and how to reach them.

Many community organisations and small campaigns would benefit hugely from support and endorsement from their council, and by nurturing innovative projects councils can support the best to become more successful. Lessons learnt here can then be applied in their own work.

Fairness - treating people fairly does not mean giving everyone the same thing; it means meeting them on their own terms - discovering these terms are where internet tools are immense. And in not trying to provide the same service for everyone - we can alleviate pressure on existing structures (and save money).

Council role - councils can, and should, support activities. The most obvious thing they can do is of course listen to what is going on, and contribute information and comment wherever they can. Another easy way to help is to make public data accessible to those who want it - enable people to create for you << councils then can innovators and also innovation enablers.