Presentation on social media at Leicester - what they need social media for, the good and bad, and lessons learned as well as tips. Presented by David Doherty at Really Useful Day: Social media for councils in London on 6 February 2015.

1. #Social @ #Lesta
leicester.gov.uk/socialmedia

2. #Lesta: well, who are ya?
 Kasabian
 Attenborough brothers
 Sue Townsend
 Gary Lineker
 John Merrick
 Gok Wan
 Joe Orton
 Englebert
Humpberdinck
 Showaddywaddy
 And more…

3. Here’s us…
Twitter.com/leicester_news
Set up: July 2009
Followers: 11.5K and growing
Pros: great for real time
communications, breaking news and
quick information sharing
Cons: limited space, user numbers
are stagnating and there’s too much
noise

4. This too…
Facebook.com/
leicestercitycouncil
Set up: July 2011
Likes: 1.8K and growing
Pros: still biggest social
platform, wide functionality
Cons: clunky and it’s
Facebook

5. We need our social to…
1. Promote Leicester and our role in
the city.
2. Support local democracy.
3. Make our council business easier
to understand.
4. Encourage more people to use
our website and online services.
5. Support efforts to increase our
revenues.

6. Show and tell time…
Good:
 now integral part of our
mar/comms mix
 core corporate profiles
and key services well
managed
 business critical real time
communications channel
 awareness/engagement
levels keep increasing
 offers real time insight
 recognition by key staff.
Bad:
 wider council efforts (x65
plus!) still not joined up
 “I-want-one-too-i-tis”
condition widespread
 no real strategic direction
and objectives
 quality varies greatly
across profiles
 staff still don’t get social –
even those using it.

7. Stuff we’re doing…
In headline terms:
 setting a strategic direction
 implementing a tactical action
plan
 doing more of what works
 review what we’re doing –
pinpoint good/bad and why
 benchmarking our social
efforts
 refine our assets/tactics to
support core business and
corporate priorities.

8. Such as…
Focusing on:
 Q+A sessions with Executive Team,
councillors and key officers
 attending high value events for real-
time coverage
 embedding digital/social as lead
channel for corporate campaign activity
 promoting our corporate social
profiles harder
 audit/review process to monitor
outputs of service areas
 guidelines/health checks/workshops.

9. Get your back covered…

10. Find your rock ‘n roll star…

11. And work them. Nicely, of course…

12. Get those pix in there…

13. Make ‘em fancy too…

14. Give them vids: #HowManyTimes…

15. Get it out there…
Remember:
• Sign post everywhere
• Hash tags
• Key words do count
• Great content promotes itself
• Sharing content works too
• Re-use evergreen content
• Don’t be shy - jump in on trends
• Cross promote all your profiles.

16. Make every eyeball count…

17. Keep those bean counters happy...
We keep asking ourselves:
• Can we JUSTIFY using social media?
• Can we ADD value?
• Do we KNOW our objectives and goals?
• Can we EVALUATE our impact online and
offline?
• Can we SHOW return on investment (ROI)?

18. We LOVE Twitter Analytics…

19. Facebook insights aren’t bad, too...

20. People LOVE talking about us...

21. People LOVE talking about us…

22. But sometimes you just can’t win…

23. People DO share what we post…

24. More than you’d think…

25. Go on – say hello…
Digital Media Team
digitalmedia@leicester.gov.uk
Dave Doherty, Digital Media Manager
david.doherty@leicester.gov.uk
Ian Gallagher, Digital Media Officer
Ian.gallagher@leicester.gov.uk