By Rob O’Brien

Victorian councils are in the process of exploring a new social media policy to help them develop use of the technology.

The Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) has held workshops  for local government representatives from nine participating councils, with a defining document the end goal on the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of using social networking sites to engage with communities.

“The casualisation of social information supply makes it even more important that local government sets out user policies and parameters that govern ‘good’ social media engagement,” said MAV president Bill McArthur.

A number of councils use social media tools including Facebook, Twitter and various blogs, wikis and podcasts.

According to Hitwise Asia Pacific visits to government websites by Australians increased by 10.4 per cent year-on-year to March 2009, with government websites increasingly dependent on traffic from social media websites.

Internet users are increasingly looking online for peer recommendations and networks.

The MAV told Government News that a social media policy was required to help councillors and council staff develop best practice and engage with communities that were already using a diverse range of social media outlets to communicate.

Under new guidelines councillors would be expected to understand the implications of inappropriately using social networking sites, or face “ramifications”, the MAV said.

“A policy is required by local government colleagues to provide them some basic guidelines to use social media to their advantage and to create a positive social media presence throughout the sector in Victoria,” Cr MacArthur said.

In its final recommendations the Federal Government’s Gov 2.0 Taskforce urged public sector workers to use social networking sites, but the take-up has so far been limited.

“In some cases the uptake is slow because there is confusion as to whether social media should fall into the responsibility of the IT department or corporate communications along with all other media,” Cr MacArthur said.

“It is thought that some IT departments are reluctant to embrace the use of new media due to the possible increase in bandwidth or systems capability of already stretched infrastructure to accommodate the heavy bandwidth requirement of some applications.”

One issue likely to feature in any social media policy is the accessibility of tools that do not aid community engagement and may affect internal productivity.

“An internal issue that is not just restricted to the public sector is the fear that access to Facebook will severely impact output from colleagues,” Cr MacArthur said.

“Increasingly such applications are accessed via phone if an individual’s work place does not allow access.”

The MAV has held several workshops to help councils better understand the opportunities and risks presented by social media.

The next round of consultations will include local government IT and HR representatives, and PR and communications managers.

“By engaging IT managers the issues around IT infrastructure to support the use of social media can be addressed,” said Cr MacArthur.
“By engaging HR colleagues, amendments to codes of conduct can be addressed.”

A brief has been launched for consultants to propose a model policy that could be presented to executive management teams for consideration.
The project will be overseen by nine representatives from the participating councils and co-ordinated by the MAV.