Over the past month or so, several Calgarians have asked why The City of Calgary’s Twitter feed doesn’t follow anyone. In the social media community, not “following back” is often seen as a serious faux pas, and so we’ve faced some criticism for not following other Calgarians Twitter feeds.
While we don’t profess to have the absolute answer for social media best practices, as an organization, we’ve decided not to follow Calgarians for a few different reasons. You may not agree with our thought process, but here are some of the factors that weighed into our decision.
Firstly, there are privacy issues that arise anytime a government organization has access to private citizens’ information. This relates to the Freedom of Information and Privacy act. Essentially, as a municipal government, we’re subject to different laws than private citizens are.
Then there’s the question of where to draw the line, or even how to draw the line. If The City follows one citizen, or one alderman, or one Member of Legislative Assembly, then to be fair, we’d probably have to follow every citizen, alderman, etc.
Somewhat related to that point, we thought that there might be the perception of implied endorsement if The City of Calgary were to follow a particular Twitter account. By following someone, could it be perceived that we endorse everything that person says? Maybe, maybe not.
Lastly, there’s the whole perceived big brother angle – the government monitoring its citizens updates.
While following Calgarian's Twitter accounts may be a step towards social media engagement, we don’t feel that it’s the only way to accomplish that goal.
We are watching some of the social media conversations occurring – including the Calgary hash tag - #yyc, comments on our Youtube channel as well as posts on local blogs. If we feel we have something to contribute to the conversation, then we’ll likely jump in, but the last thing we’d want to do as a municipal government is elbow our way into conversations where we’re not welcome.
While the number of municipal governments on Twitter continues to grow (and there’s a number of municipalities who are doing a great job), we do believe that The City of Calgary is one of the leaders in Canada as far as use of social media by a municipal government, and with that sometimes comes the fact that there isn’t an established best practice for us to follow.
It’s no big secret that this has been a learning process for The City of Calgary and we welcome questions, comments and recommendations about how we’re using social media and what our citizens would like to discuss. Tweet with us, or comment on our blog or video channels any time, and we’ll do our best to respond promptly.
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Interesting take and thanks for sharing your rationale. Although I tend to favour a more transparent social media engagement, the important thing is that the City of Clagary IS listening to the conversations and finding its social comfort zone. Over time however, I suspect the fact that the city adminsitration is, by definition, an integral part of the community will lead to a more complete form of engagement.
ReplyDelete1. What is the protocol for info getting into CityofCalgary twitterfeed? How does the city determine what the lone City of Calgary twitter account feeds us?
ReplyDelete2. Please elaborate on how the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act applies. You just dropped it with ZERO explanation of how FOIP applies to a new application such as Twitter.
3. There is no obligation to follow anyone. The concept of community is what drives us to reciprocate the "X is now following you on Twitter!"
4. Not following anyone is a very easy out for the city. Certainly a tactic the bureaucraZy would embrace in order to avoid the challenge of building a conversation with Calgarians in this environment.
5. You say you are listening. Great. Now... who filters the information and where does it go?
6. How many employees and departments know about Twitter and how to use it to engage Calgarians? Share with Calgarians the "official" memo.
7. What is the city strategy for sharing relevant and current info via Twitter and Social Media with Calgarians, and perhaps more importantly to taxpayers, with employees?
8. Each of us make attempts to find and search for others involved in our "line of work". Any plans to follow other municipalities?
9. Any plans to create specific department accounts? For example, YYCAquatic; YYCSnowRemoval; YYCCommunityGarden; YYCInsertDepartmentHere, YYCCulture; YYCREC, et al
10. There are many examples of other cities getting off their respective high horses and mingling with the "unwashed masses" and becoming involved in the conversation.
11. Government 2.0 is here. How does it manifest with the City of Calgary? Is this blog and CityofCalgary the vision?
It looks and feels very STIFF. In time, perhaps CityofCalgary may lighten up a bit. Changing that big FAT ZERO following stat to 1 is the first step in a long journey...
I'm paulinate on twitter. I follow back.
Hi Paul, firstly, thanks for your response to my post, I appreciate your interest and input.
ReplyDeleteI'll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.
Firstly, just to clarify, there is actually more than one Twitter feed from The City of Calgary - the others are CityofCalgaryRE and CalgaryTransit. There’s nothing to say that we can’t or won’t create additional Twitter feeds in the future, if they’re needed.
As far as our main Twitter feed, we've tried including all sorts of information in our Twitter feed - everything from City programs and services to road closures and major announcements. The only real requirement we've implemented is that the tweet obviously has to be about The City and its programs and services and it should be of interest to Calgarians. Obviously interest is completely subjective, but the best we can do to gauge interest is go by the number of click throughs for more information on the tweet. Are there likely people that look at a tweet and find it interesting and not click on it? More than likely, but we can’t actually determine that.
In regards to the application of FOIP in Twitter, I spoke to our FOIP office and they told me that if a government organization is retaining information about an individual (such as retaining records of Twitter updates by following them) than that individual is able to request a report detailing what information is being retained by that organization by filing a FOIP request. If we’re not retaining any data or information about private citizens through Twitter, then there’s no real issue. If we are, then it’s a potential privacy issue for that individual. To avoid even making that an issue, we elected not to follow citizens.
The City blogging team is monitoring social media conversations in general and we routinely pass along feedback, comments and suggestions that arise in social media to our business units. They are then able to make the decision as to the best way to respond, we can only make a recommendation for a response, they’re ultimately responsible for the operation of their own lines of business and communication. We’re constantly providing education, training and awareness of the value of Twitter and other social media to City employees and the best practices that come along with those media.
The City’s blog, our Facebook presence and our Twitter accounts are a step towards being involved in the social media conversations that are occurring. Are we able to catch and respond to everything that we should be? Probably not, but we’re learning, and trying to do the best job possible. As referenced in the blog post, your comments and suggestions are always welcome. Give me a call, drop me an email or tweet at me any time.
It's actually not a "faux pas" not to follow back. If the city is not going to read all of your tweets, it is downright dishonest to follow back and provide a false impression otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It's like lying to someone if you follow them and don't read their tweets. I look for people that have many followers but who follow few back as it shows that they're really 'in the know'.
ReplyDelete