Social media survey: One-quarter of Reading councillors have a blog
I have been amazed by the number of significant Reading organisations joining Twitter in recent months (institutions that have included Reading Buses, @reading_buses, and Thames Valley Police, @ThamesVP), the broadening adoption of the #rdg hashtag (looking much like an airport code and fast becoming a new brand identity for the town), and the continued successes that are Reading Geek Night and Thames Valley Social Media Club. All impressive.
All this has left me wondering: where does local politics fit into this expanding phenomenon? How active are Reading councillors - they who work for us - in social media?
Using the simplest of tools only (Google, Twitter’s people search and Facebook Search), I set out to uncover who’s using what to get closer to their constituents.
As I didn’t spend considerable amounts of time trawling the web for pages, posts and profiles, the results - listed in full below - are not likely to be fully accurate. But then anything missed is not easily findable, and of limited public interest.
So here is what I discovered: of the 46 borough councillors in Reading, 11 maintain blogs (24%), 14 are on Twitter (30%) and four have public Facebook pages (9%). Four councillors span all three - blog, Twitter and Facebook.
What do you think? Surprised or not surprised?
Of course, this research only scratches the surface and could lead to further digging (if the interest is there). How frequently do our local political Twitterati post updates? How many Twitter followers do they have? Do they reply to questions posted by local residents? Do blogging councillors prefer Wordpress or Blogger? Are any on LinkedIn? or Foursquare? Not all questions are pertinent, but interesting nonetheless.
With Reading’s first local social media election probably not far off, perhaps it would be worthwhile to revist this every so often. At the moment we have four social media rock stars (Daisy, Rachel, Gareth and Rob). Expect this club to grow. Things could get interesting over the next eight months.
And now the results in full (shout if I’ve missed somebody):
Blog
- Daisy Benson
- Ricky Duveen
- Rachel Eden
- John Ennis
- Gareth Epps
- Glenn Goodall
- Dave Luckett
- Warren Swaine
- Emma Warman
- Rob White
- Richard Wills
- Isobel Ballsdon
- Kirsten Bayes
- Peter Beard
- Daisy Benson
- Rachel Eden
- Gareth Epps
- Paul Gittings
- Glenn Goodall
- Sarah Hacker
- Dave Luckett
- Mark Ralph
- Warren Swaine
- Rob White
- Richard Willis
Tags: local politics