The social media growth model of municipalities with the networking municipalities as the final goal formed the basis for the research. The design, measurement points and choices made in the research can be read in the full research report that is part of the new book ‘Open Municipalities: the social media almanac for municipalities 2015’ .
Strong growth in Facebook usage, Instagram & WhatsApp on the rise
Twitter has been the most popular social channel among municipalities for years. Only six small municipalities do not have their own Twitter account. The strong growth in the use of Facebook in the past year is striking. Although 89 percent of the municipalities surveyed indicate that they use Facebook, 69 percent have a corporate account. One of the explanations for this is that a number of municipalities are only active on theme accounts. Instagram is the emerging channel, but at the moment only 9 percent of municipalities actively use the platform. The municipalities of Nijmegen, Rotterdam and ‘s-Hertogenbosch are by far the most active on Instagram, but a ukraine phone number library mention is in order for the small municipality of Elburg, which is also experimenting with this medium.
Use of social media by municipalities 2011-2015 – Social Media Measure & HowAboutYou
Figure 2. Twitter is still the most popular social media. Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are growing the fastest.
Those who opt for webcare conform to the expectation of quick answers to questions. 87 percent of the municipalities surveyed say they do webcare. Quick answers to signals and questions are becoming increasingly successful. Municipalities responded on average faster in 2015 (21 hours) than in 2014 (24 hours).
These high averages can be partly explained by the limited staffing of webcare outside office hours. Twitter the first step should be to make a list operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while most municipalities use webcare times during office hours. Dozens of municipalities also communicate this in their Twitter bio. That is why we have chosen to display Twitter reactions in eight different time categories. In 40 percent of cases, municipalities manage to respond within two hours. We caseno email list see few differences in this between large, medium-sized or small municipalities.