What I learned from 630+ public sector socials

Twice a year I wade through more than 630 social media pages of every council, government department, and Crown agent in New Zealand.

By choice.

It is a tiring task, and I’m sure there’s some way I could automate some of the process or pay my 14-year-old to do it for me. But it is also extremely revealing, and I learn so much from personally looking at each page.

The following insights are drawn from my analysis in July 2024 of the main social pages of all New Zealand councils, government departments, departmental agencies, non-public service departments, and Crown agents.

Enjoy.

1. Twitter is dead, but so is Threads

Yeah, an obvious one to start, but the decline has continued at pace in 2024.

I mean, there are a few organisations still using X, but they are very much just going through the motions. There is very little effort, and no innovation or energy of the kind that made it such a fun place so long ago.

X’s decline can be seen most clearly at local government level. Of New Zealand’s 78 councils, just 8 are still using it (down from more than 30 in Jan 2023). For central government there are more users, but again, it’s pretty half-hearted stuff. Even NZ Police has ditched Twitter along with its 100k audience there.

As for Threads, well I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’ but it seemed crazy to me a year ago that stressed-out teams with limited resources were voluntarily rushing to sign up to yet another channel.

So I don’t think it’s surprising that of the 10 or so councils that quickly adopted Threads, not a single one has posted on the platform in 2024.

For central government, there are a couple of notable exceptions. NZ Police and the Defence Force are both giving Threads a decent nudge. But by and large my ‘told you so’ still stands.

2. YouTube is a missed opportunity

Why is YouTube such a disappointing repository of random videos for so many organisations? Instead of being the star of the show, it’s like an attic where comms teams send all their old unloved junk to rot.

Sure, I know that it’s used for hosting video content so that people can embed it on their websites, but are we collectively missing a serious opportunity here?

In New Zealand, YouTube is our most popular channel, with 4.24 million users (Datareportal), and a daily reach of 44 percent of the population (NZ On Air). No other channel gets anywhere near this.

But while Tourism NZ (49k) and NZ Police (54k) have decent YouTube followings, most organisations only have a small fraction of their audience there.

More positively, the Defence Force always has lovely videos (and good resources), Fire and Emergency has a flash- (and expensive-) looking career series, while Corrections has a more basic version on Shorts.

As for what content works best on YouTube? Well, maybe Wellington City Council cracked it with the below three videos. Nine years on this trio of gardening how-tos are still the council’s three most popular clips of all time (by a massive margin). And you can bet your boots all those views were organic…

3. Where did all the people go?

Damn you Canva, damn you to hell.

The amount of Canva-designed monstrosities on social media is getting way out of hand. I wrote about this subject recently on LinkedIn, perhaps unfairly pointing out that just because you have Canva it doesn’t mean you have to use it.

And to be very clear, I don’t have a problem with the tool (I use it), or with ‘non-trained’ social advisors creating graphics quickly rather than going through the whole rigmarole of getting a designer to do it (sorry but you take ages).

My worry is that we’re seeing so many graphic-based posts that it is utterly de-personalising our channels (and our organisations). It can feel like sterile post after sterile post, and while that may work for some government departments that aren’t public facing or community-based, it can seem very impersonal and ‘faceless’ for councils and social agencies.

Maybe graphic-style posts just look too much like ads - the things we have trained our brains and eyes to skip over? I don’t know.

But I do know that some big orgs doing lots of graphic posts are getting poor engagement, and some small orgs doing lots of people posts are getting excellent engagement 🤷‍♂️

4. LinkedIn gets little love

I’m biased because I like LinkedIn, but it shouldn’t really matter how we feel towards a channel - it should be about using it as effectively as we can. Which means using it in a way which our audiences will appreciate.

Doing nothing for weeks or months then chucking a few job posts up is no way to your audience’s heart. Particularly for such a strategic audience. And even regular ‘news and update’ posting is missing a beat.

Where are the posts about leadership or building culture or sharing expertise or (shock horror) comments interacting with our employees?

Personally, I reckon LinkedIn gets a bad rap because people don’t understand it or like it, and then they get weirded out about it and don’t use it.

LinkedIn may be a channel for professional connection and networking. But it is a social media platform above all, and that means you have to be social to get good results.

5. Want to stand out? Get the lols

Here’s the thing: no one is bad at social media anymore. Even five years ago you could find organisations that didn’t really have a clue what was going on.

Now, apart from a few tiny councils that just have a Facebook page and run it like a personal blog (which actually has a real charm BTW), the level of professionalism is really, really high. Social advisors everywhere know the tools inside out.

Which means that in order to stand out, you need to be doing more than just doing all the parts correctly. You have to make people FEEL SOMETHING.

If you look at the two fastest growing councils (which grew way faster than all the rest over the last 12 months), they are both regularly using humour, albeit in very different ways.

Invercargill City Council is #1 for follower growth as a percentage of population, and Rangitīkei District Council is #2. After watching their progression over the last year, I’m not surprised at all.

Both regularly try to make people laugh or smile - not all the time, but humour is part of the strategy. The same goes for the OG socials over at NZ Police. Humour is a vital ingredient in their strategic mix, and in their success.

Any questions? Email me at seamus@seamus.nz