Twitter gritters: council use of digital channels in local emergencies

Produced by: Socitm Insight

Type: Reports

This briefing shows how Councils are starting to use global social networks like Facebook and Twitter as well as hyperlocal, community websites operating in their areas, to communicate with their residents and businesses when local emergencies arise.

The information in Twitter gritters: council use of digital channels in local emergencies is based on a structured survey of 125 councils across the UK carried out by Better connected's team of reviewers during the 'snow crisis' of the first two weeks of January. The sample included a quarter of the all UK councils and draws on those that subscribe to Socitm Insight's Website take-up service.

The survey looked at how councils were publishing information about service disruptions during the period of snow and ice. It looked at their use of Twitter and Facebook to communicate with the public and analysed the data from the Website take-up service to see how traffic to their websites was affected.  The survey report has been supplemented with anecdotal evidence from councils across the UK gathered from professional networking sites used by web professionals including Socitm's Web Improvement and Usage community.

Data on website usage, gathered from the Website take-up service was also analysed. This showed that in January 2010, traffic to council websites rose sharply, with further analysis suggesting that 75% of the increase in January's traffic related to the impact of the severe weather.

The briefing is available as a 16pp document in pdf format. It can be downloaded free of charge by Socitm Insight subscribers. 

The charge for Non Insight subscribers and Socitm members (who don't subscribe to Insight) are :

Twitter Gritters price list

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Last modified: 16th March 2010