State of Govt Social Media 2025

17 Mar

Kia ora

Twice a year I trawl through more than 630+ New Zealand council and government social media pages.

By choice.

And as I go, I record all sorts of things I observe - from content and moderation approaches to follower counts and channel choices.

I’ve now done this five times, meaning I have a huge amount of data and insights dating back to January 2023 into how councils and government agencies in New Zealand do social media. And also how their approaches are changing.

This report focuses on the top trends I’m seeing right now, plus gives data to help public sector orgs benchmark their approach and see where they sit.

There are limitations to my approach, for sure. For starters, I only look at the main corporate pages of each organisation.

Secondly, I can’t see reach or impressions which obviously count for a lot, which is why I focus on growth.

And finally, I operate on a use-it-or-lose-it policy for channels. If the organisation states that they are only using a channel in emergencies or hasn’t posted in six months, I call that channel inactive and don’t include the follower count in my totals.

This doesn’t actually matter too much, as follower counts aren’t as important as they used to be. Instead, follower growth is the real metric to watch (although if an org has ditched X in the last 12 months, that might result in negative follower growth for that period).

Anyway, it is what it is.

I truly hope this is helpful - if it is (or isn’t), I’d love to hear from you.

For anyone working in the sector, if you want more info on your organisation specifically, email me at seamus@seamus.nz, and I’ll shoot you some numbers. This includes where you rank in terms of growth among your fellows.

Cheers

Seamus Boyer

4 big trends

1. Generally better content

Ok, ‘generally better’ is vague and weak. But I have no more sophisticated way of measuring this, other than to say that I enjoyed more content from more accounts this time around.

Why did I enjoy it?

Because more of it actually looks and feels like social media. Which is kind of the definition of respecting the platform and respecting your audience.

More teams are doing this, which is resulting in more humour, more personality, more banter, and more fun.

Mainly in local government, to be fair, but with pockets in central government too.

And I’m not talking unhinged or frivolous accounts with mascots and abusive chat. Just content that makes me do one of the following:

👉 Lol
👉 Aww
👉 Aha
👉 Wow

If you do these consistently, you have a chance to make people’s days just a fraction better. And that’s enough to stand out and be liked.

Some accounts I enjoyed (for various reasons) include: Health NZ, Invercargill City Council, NZTA, Wellington City Council, Antarctica NZ, Tourism NZ, Horowhenua District Council, Ministry Of Education, Napier City Council, Ministry for Pacific Peoples, Kāpiti Coast District Council, NZ Customs, and Fire and Emergency.

Check them out.

Don’t get me wrong - there’s still a face-melting amount of bad government social media out there. But there’s more good stuff too, and that’s massively hopeful and inspiring.

Key takeaway:

If you’re still doing boring, throwaway content and delivering robotic, corporate responses to comments, you are gradually becoming the minority.

Look around, see what others are doing, and make the case to your bosses that the time to move into the future is now.

If NZ Police can do it (and have been for years and years), so can you.

2. Fewer channels

When I started tracking this data in January 2023, councils were actively running an average of 4.4 channels.

Now? 3.9.

Government departments have gone from 3.7 to 3.4 in the same period, while Crown agencies have dropped from 4.3 to 3.9.

What’s behind it? Mainly, the Twitter/X exodus, with some of the latest to leave including Fire and Emergency, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Christchurch City Council, and Greater Wellington.

In January 2023, nearly 60% of councils were active on Twitter. Now? Just 6%. Says it all, really.

But it’s not just Twitter. Some organisations dabbled in TikTok, then let it fizzle out. Others started Threads accounts and forgot about them.

This highlights two key realities:

Platform-specific content is hard to sustain. Without a clear strategy and resources, channels quickly become ghost towns.
When time gets tight, we naturally fall back to feeding our bigger channels first.

Key takeaway:

Be deliberate about the channels you invest in - then commit to making them work. A smaller, well-managed set of channels will always outperform a scattered, half-hearted presence.

3. More mature moderation

Social media is arguably worse than ever in terms of abuse, agro, and toxic behaviour.

Sure, Twitter/X is still the worst, but Facebook can be pretty horrific too.

And councils know it.

I talk with a lot of teams about moderation strategies, and I’m seeing a shift towards proactive community management rather than just reactive monitoring.

This means:

👉 Calling out bad behaviour more often

👉 Rewarding good behaviour (positive reinforcement works)

👉 Turning off comments when appropriate (but not randomly or arbitrarily)

This isn’t happening everywhere - many teams aren’t resourced or trained enough to do it well.

But there’s definitely progress.

Key takeaway:

You have way more control in the comments than you think.

Your social media policy should be a practical tool you use daily - not something you slap on your website and forget.

This isn’t about silencing voices or stopping discussion. It’s about creating a safe, civil, welcoming space so that more people feel empowered to contribute.

And what could be more democratic than that?

4. Growth in LinkedIn

Move over TikTok - LinkedIn’s time to shine is now.

Among government departments, the average follower growth rate on LinkedIn over the last 12 months was 32%.

That’s enormous - especially when the overall social media growth rate was just 7%.

LinkedIn is now the biggest channel for DIA, MFE, MBIE, MFAT, MOJ and other acronyms.

And at this rate, LinkedIn will soon overtake Facebook as the biggest and (potentially) most influential government platform.

Which makes complete sense for departments without frontline public services.

Instead, for policy-heavy agencies, LinkedIn’s strategic audience makes it the perfect fit.

Key takeaway:

If you’re not taking LinkedIn seriously, it’s time to start. No more copy-pasting content from Facebook.

Build a platform-specific approach, use LinkedIn’s tools properly, and leverage staff accounts for more reach.

The numbers

Ok, it’s now time for some numbers.

The departments and agencies listed below align with the Public Service Commission’s official definitions, which can be found on their website here.

Note: I’ve mostly skipped over departmental agencies (e.g. NEMA, Cancer Control Agency) and non-Public Service agencies (e.g. Police, Defence Force, Parliament). The small group size, combined with a mix of very large and very small organisations, meant the average and overall growth data didn’t provide meaningful insights for those groups.

Average number of active channels

Main corporate pages only.

Councils = 3.9

Government departments = 3.4

Crown Agents = 3.9

Channels used (by organisation type)

Average follower growth

Main corporate pages only.

Councils = 9.21%

Government departments = 7.24%

Crown Agents = 7.47%

Highest follower growth

Some organisations saw a significant drop in followers due to leaving Twitter/X. At the same time, some councils are experiencing rapid growth - not just because of strong content strategies, but also because they’re starting from a low base. In these cases, the growth reflects catching up rather than necessarily surging ahead.

To provide a clearer picture (for councils, at least), I’ve included followers as a percentage of population. This highlights the councils that may be growing more slowly but have already built impressive, well-established audiences.

Note: For all of the following I have combined the follower counts of the main active corporate pages for each organisation.

Central government (more than 2000 followers)

Includes departments, Crown agencies, departmental agencies, and non-Public Service agencies.