After I graduated from the Raleigh Neighborhood College program in May 2017 I decided my primary goal was to get my city’s elected officials communicating on social media with their constituents. As a result, I released a report card based on our current Raleigh City Council members usage of social media from December 2017 to March 2018. I also promised to release a second report card in 2018 so Raleighite’s could see how some improved, or if some got worse.
The way Council Members were graded on the last report was pretty basic. Did they have a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms? Were those profiles still actively posting, or did they go relatively silent after the campaign season was over? Did they engage with constituents on social media? Do they make use of live streaming and video?
The above criteria worked pretty well so I don’t see a reason to change it, at least this time. I did want to make it more clear however how the grading will work this time around. I also wanted to give Councilors and the Mayor a heads up when they’d be getting graded for this report card to give them a little extra push. So while THIS blog post won’t have any grades, ranking, or advice, it will tell everyone how this is going to work.
Social Media Profiles Will Be Graded Based On Usage August 1st, 2018 ~ November 30th, 2018
That’s another four-month period for evaluation just like I did last time. Also, like the last report card, we’re doing this during a time elections for City Council are not occurring. So we should be seeing a level of activity we would expect year round.
I’ll be starting with each elected official’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. If either of those profiles links out to another place such as an Instagram account, website, YouTube channel, or another online platform they’ll be included as well. This ensures I’m exploring like most constituents would starting from an obvious starting point where I’d expect to find my local government representative, and expanding as I look for more information.
Once I have all the profiles and websites someone is likely to find I look for how active these accounts are. Each platform has a different expectation for what would make it ‘active’. For example on Twitter, I’d look for at least one tweet every 3-4 days. For Facebook, I’d look for 1 post every two weeks minimum. If either the Facebook or Twitter profile is inactive, that will take points off. For other platforms like an Instagram account, YouTube channel, website, or other profile if they exist and they’re active I consider that bonus points since I don’t really expect them to be actively maintained outside of campaign season.
For engagement, things get a little trickier. This requires me to actually dig into each individual Facebook page and Twitter account and look for Councilors responding to people reaching out to them. Do they only respond to people who support them? Do they debate, politely, with those who politely raise issues? How do they handle people who are reaching out that are less than polite? Are their responses pretty basic, or do they show a well thought out and researched answer?
The last piece of the assessment is video and live streaming. This is the most straightforward of the bunch. Do they live stream online? If so do they announce it ahead of time and build an audience? Do they interact with commenters during their stream? Is it done regularly? Is the quality of the video and audio good? This might sound like I’m expecting a lot, but honestly, I’m not. I’ve seen every member of the City Council with a smartphone during regular council meetings. All you need with a smartphone is some sort of stand to keep the phone steady and focused on you and keep it close enough so your voice is easy to understand.
The only other thing to mention is for this report card there will be a section going over how each member graded has improved since the early 2018 report card.
Do you think something is missing that I should be looking for when grading Raleigh City Councilors? Have some feedback? Comment below, or on Raleighite’s Facebook page!
