Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.....

.…keep calm and carry on-line

Vicky Sargent

Socitm Insight

Council response to adverse weather conditions via websites and social media

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• Better connected has often covered website responses to local emergencies • Social media has added new dimension• Last year Twitter Gritters reported on our ‘snow response’ survey of all 121 WTS subscribers • Covered web pages, stats, FB and Twitter activity• Repeated exercise for 2011 survey

Twitter Gritters

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‘Over the past year, we have observed councilsbecoming increasingly adept at publishinginformation in a timely manner. In our survey ofcouncil website coverage of local elections, forexample, we found that increasing numbersoffered a real-time results service that rivalled orbettered that of the traditional media.’

Twitter Gritters

Twitter Gritters Feb 2010

Great examples of social media use for communications:

- information

- explanation

- dialogue

Visits to websites 37.7m in Jan up 37% cf Jan 2009

Linked to social media broadcasting of updates

Increase in web visits January 2010

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Top by fans on Facebook Feb 2010

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Coventry City 10,896Warrington 694Belfast City 611Sunderland City 577Southwark 432Darlington BC 427Torbay 387Barnet 351Bracknell Forest 294Hillingdon 281

Top Twitter followers & tweets Feb 2010

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Newcastle upon Tyne City 2933 (2091)Fenland DC 2473 (227)City of Glasgow 1872 (210)City & County of Swansea 1690 (808)Lambeth 1457 (224)Devon CC 1403 (1065)Lewisham 1398 (483)Southampton City 1313 (985)Leeds City l 1286 (424)Solihull MBC 1151 (569)Sheffield City 1140 (755)Belfast City 1109 (887)

Services likely to be affected by snow

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LibrariesRefuse and recycling collectionsGritting (current state, priority routes, etc)School closuresServices for older people (eg meals on wheels, day care centres)

This year’s survey

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• Effectiveness of Google search• Effectiveness of highlighting on home page• Quality of service disruption information• Encouragement to follow on Twitter & Facebook• Twitter & Facebook activity and following• Innovations and good practice• Overall quality of response

Top of head feedback: reviewer #1

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•Generally improved response cf Feb 2010•Twitter now much more prevalent than Facebook, particularly for this kind of thing•Councils still not very good at promoting Twitter on severe weather pages though•Missed opportunity: Facebook should be used for school closures - many school pupils use it. •Kirklees praised for having different Twitter feeds for different service updates

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Kirklees - embedded Twitter

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• Glasgow - big increase in Twitter followers: 5363 to 6675 between 3&7 December• West Lothian - high Facebook following - 10,723• North Lanarkshire - best overall communications - excellent winter services page and encouragement to use Twitter. Rose from 2413 to 3387 between 3&7 December

Top of head feedback: reviewer #2

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North Lanarkshire

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• Generally speaking the communication was pretty good •But some councils made no reference to the weather•One council had news story about its workers’ battles with the weather - and nothing on service disruptions

Top of head feedback: reviewer #3

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Worcestershire Hub websites

• Capacity to flash alert statuses on home page• Malvern Hills –disrupted refuse collections• Wychavon - refuse collections, school closures and road/weather information• Alerts hard to miss - flashing '!' "road signs" and info plus links• Neat, effective, noticeable.

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Other routes to info……

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Directgov home page

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How do I interpret this?

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Council websites ‘struggle’ says STV

The basis for STV’s claim?

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• STV newsroom checked links to every Scottish council site before publishing them • They found three with problems:

- Glasgow had error page for whole site- Stirling was down for 2 days and set up an

alternative site- Highland had some general IT continuity

problem due to a leaking pipe

Thanks for listening

Better connected 2011 out 1 March

Vicky Sargent

Socitm Insight