USA, Canada & Australia: New Local Government Twitter Lists
Twitter Local Gov Lists
The experiment…
I’ve recently decided to try my hand at compiling a list like the one created by @barryearnshaw and Glenn Taggart with @uklocalcouncils for the USA and Canada . @b3rn from the Stap isi website (Local government, the internet & community engagement online) has also done the same for Australia, @OZGovLocal and also one for Australia Councillors twitter stream @OZGovLocalClrs (similar to @CllrTweeps here in the UK) around the same time I created @USALocalGov and @CanadaLocalGov. This is a little experiment to test my theory on whether or not lists like this can help the increase in local government twitter accounts.
The list…
I certainly feel there could be a number of reasons for any local council to start using twitter, however, here in the UK, the list has become a source of inspiration and motivation for new comers. Up to this day, the list continues to grow daily and steadily, and before we knew it, we already have 20% of UK local councils already on Twitter.
I feel efforts such as @uklocalcouncils twitter stream is certainly a great monitoring and compilation system to keep track of its growth to encourage other local councils to be more bold and brave to step into the whole new world of transparency and digital engagement as well as participation.
The strategies…
Comparing other local councils twitter account strategy is also another strong reason to keep an eye out on the list. For instance, some local councils have decided to open more than one local council account, either specifically for jobs, tourism, planning application, events or news. Its also interesting to see which local councils are using twitter to actually engage with citizens through tweets (twitter conversations) and how they approach it.
The webteams…
Each strategy can be replicated by other councils and if each local council also had a webteam twitter account. Local council webteams can swap knowledge, tips and tricks and information to enhance their services.
The worldwide local government twitter list…
On top of all these new local government twitter stream accounts, I’ve also created a worldwide account with the help of once again @barryearnshaw (Thanks Barry – Cool Guy!) and @sthelenscouncil (Star council!). You can find it on @LocalGovTweets, which has collected quite a nice number of followers since it was created last weekend. Feel free to follow!
Here is a list of Canada Local Councils on Twitter (to be added, kindly leave request on comments)
[TABLE=25]
Here is a list of USA Local Councils on Twitter (to be added, kindly leave request on comments)
[TABLE=26]
Here is a list of Australia Local Councils on Twitter – courtesy of @b3rn from Oz at Stap isi
[TABLE=24]
Related posts:
Hope this is helpful!
About the Author
Liz Azyan Liz is a digital strategist with experience helping governments and companies realize their digital goals. She is also a Google Fellowship holder and the founder of LGEOResearch.com.
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I found it interesting that you mentioned @uklocalcouncils as I did follow them initially. I was hoping they would act as a barometer of take-up amongst local authorities and perhaps tweets about initiatives being undertaken in the social media arena. Perhaps that is what they do but, if so, they’re drowned by the needless re-tweets of whatever the other councils are tweeting. What is the point of that? Why act as portal to all local authority tweets? Epic fail, to coin a phrase.
Hi Paul,
I can completely relate with what your saying though for me personally, the value lies in who the list or number of councils they are following. I barely keep track of their RTs myself but I do go directly to their webpage http://www.twitter.com/uklocalcouncils and keep a close eye on the number of councils they’re following. If the number has changed since the last time I looked, means its time for me to update my list. I also do my own search but sometimes it can get very time consuming to update the table and keep track of it on your own. All @uklocalcouncil has to do is monitor and press follow then the list is updated. To me this is a collaborative effort that just happen spontaneously and has been very fruitful
However there is another reason to not totally neglect the value of the RTs. Depending on what your role is in your local council, the RTs can sometimes have golden nuggets that could inspire your local council on different ways of using twitter. Not all local council twitter accounts are just twitterfeeds. Some of them manually enter in tweets and those can be really useful. Plus, just following @uklocalcouncils would help to keep track of all local council without having to follow each one individually, which can be tiresome and tedious when the number keeps increasing.
I’ve personally experienced a lot of good feedback from it. A lot of people have found it to be useful as a source of information. Though of course, we can’t satisfy everybody
I guess you can choose not to follow it and just visit the @uklocalcouncils profile page once in a while to keep updated. Certainly nothing wrong with that..
Hope this was useful
Liz
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The City of Ottawa also has a twitter feed en Francais at http://www.twitter.com/ottawaville.
Cheers, Mark
Mark Faul’s last blog post..ChangeCamp Ottawa: Sat May 16
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Hi, the City of Brampton (Ontario) has a few twitter accounts for our business units:
Brampton Emergency Measures Office (new) @BEMOprepared
Rapid Transit @BTZum
Rose Theatre @RoseTheatreBram
Snow Operations @BramptonSnow