On this page you will find:
Background
Communications Planning
Media Management
Social Media Management
Summary Of Social Media Channels
Social Media Metrics
Most popular posts
Website Analysis
Traffic Sources to the Council Website
Most Popular Website Pages
Design
Campaigns
Internal Communications
Consultation and Engagement
Accessibility
Next Steps
Background
The Communications and Engagement Team provides communications guidance and support across the organisation to manage reputation and ensure key audiences (internal and external) are aware of service delivery, developments and change.
The team supports the organisation across all service areas in ensuring the delivery of key messages to target audiences across appropriate channels, and in facilitating effective and co-ordinated consultation and engagement. The Communications and Engagement team also support East Dunbartonshire Leisure and Culture Trust, East Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership and provides expertise, support and guidance to all Council schools.
Priorities in 2022/23 included delivering communications plans to support Major Asset projects through the capital programme, the Glasgow City Deal project, introduction and implementation of Parents Portal, the Cost-of-Living crisis, the Civic Office and Education. The team continues to review evolving best practice including new channels and technology, developing the most appropriate approach for each target audience
Key areas include:
- Reputation management
- Engagement with regional and national resilience networks
- Digital communications (social media and website)
- Internal communication and engagement
- Design
- Consultation and Engagement
- Accessibility (in line with public sector legislation)
Communcations Planning
Effective communications planning supports the Council’s agenda and strategic priorities, ensuring public understanding of these and supporting awareness raising of new initiatives or service delivery plans and calls to action for campaign and consultation activity.
The Communications and Engagement team support Council and Service Committees ensuring key decisions are effectively communicated. This includes reviewing Council and Committee reports, engaging with Conveners and lead officers, and effectively promoting decisions and developments online and through appropriate news networks.
Communications Plans are prepared for all key Council developments, including capital projects, transformative programmes, service changes and key initiatives in support of the Council’s priorities. They include both external and internal communications requirements.
Effective planning also ensures that communications are delivered to appropriate timescales in line with project plans and that services are not competing with each other to deliver important messages to their target audiences.
Media Management
Throughout 2022/23 media relations remained an important tool for reputational management, and for advising residents and businesses in the local area of service updates and campaigns.
During this time, a total of 145 press releases were issued, 60 photocalls organised and 285 media enquiries responded to. All enquiry responses met journalist and publication deadlines.
The team engages with local, regional and national news outlets for both proactive and reactive media activity. The local media coverage achieved from the proactive releases equated to a total of £66,888 if the Council had purchased that coverage through advertising.
| No. of media enquiries |
Photocalls | No. of media releases |
Advertising equivalent of local coverage (£) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2022 | 28 | 2 | 11 | 5,280 |
| May 2022 | 25 | 4 | 11 | 4,396 |
| June 2022 | 20 | 5 | 20 | 8,276 |
| July 2022 | 12 | 5 | 4 | 2,804 |
| August 2022 | 34 | 6 | 19 | 7.048 |
| September 2022 | 20 | 8 | 5 | 2,964 |
| October 2022 | 15 | 9 | 16 | 5,916 |
| November 2022 | 28 | 8 | 19 | 12,476 |
| December 2022 | 17 | 5 | 10 | 6,880 |
| January 2023 | 16 | 3 | 12 | 4,056 |
| February 2023 | 42 | 1 | 8 | 1,288 |
| March 2023 | 28 | 4 | 10 | 5,504 |
| Total | 285 | 60 | 145 | 66,888 |
Social Media Management
The Council’s social media channels are increasingly important communication channels which are continuing to steadily grow. In 2022/23 key metrics of audience size, Engagement and Amplification rate (the number of times followers shared Council content onto their own channels) all increased considerably compared to 2021/22.
Currently, the Council has Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube accounts. The Communications and Engagement team manage these channels through a social media management tool which retains an audit trail of who posts to the accounts and when. It enables the team to schedule posts at appropriate times of day and provides analytics on each channel including engagement, reach and click throughs.
Facebook and Twitter remain the most popular social media channels used by the Council to share information on service delivery and key projects, initiatives and campaigns. The channels are also used to encourage participation in consultation and engagement activity.
Summary of Social Media Channels
By the end of 2022/23 over 22,180 people - approximately 20% of the total population of East Dunbartonshire - follow the Council’s Facebook page. However, the actual percentage is likely to be significantly higher as the population figure used to calculate this includes those aged 0 upwards. If we stripped out those below 13 years of age (the age you should be to sign up for a Facebook account), the % figure engaging with the Facebook page would be much greater than 20%.
Our Twitter site has over 20,100 followers. In January 2023, our tweet impressions were over 619,000. When we say “impression”, we mean that a tweet has been delivered to the Twitter stream of a particular account – essentially the number of individual people who noticed our tweets.
Launched in 2021 with a focus on growing it in 2022/23, the LinkedIn page is used to engage with residents, other followers, partners and generally market job opportunities within the Council. The Council currently has over 3,100 followers.
Instagram was officially launched in Q3 of 2022/23 and will be incorporated in to reporting from 2023/24 onwards. Instagram is more visual than other social media channels and the content being developed for delivery will reflect this.
YouTube
In total since the East Dunbartonshire Council YouTube channel was created in 2013, 376 videos (not including live streams of Council and Committee meetings) have been posted.
Social Media Metrics
Table 2 below outlines the main performance indicators used by organisations to measure the performance of social media channels. Compared to 2021/22 data, in 2022/23 Engagement increased by 18.6%, audience size rose by 8% and Amplification rate by 21%.
Table 2 2021/22 - 2022/23 data
| Total 20212/22 |
Total 2022/23 |
Year on Year |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Click throughs | 87,567 | 21.236 | 12,368 | 123.763 | 121,171 | -2,592 |
| Engagement | 787,557 | 43,172 | 12,368 | 712,351 | 845,545 | +133,194 |
| Audience size | 22,189 | 20.129 | 3,170 | 42.010 | 45,488 | +3,478 |
| Amplification | 9,892 | 2,504 | 196 | 10,386 | 12,592 | +2.206 |
Table 3 Q1 2022/23
| Click throughs | 23,694 | 3,815 | 1,074 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engagement | 181,893 | 5,679 | 1,366 |
| Audience size | 21,062 | 19.580 | 2,565 |
| Amplification rate | 2,710 | 611 | 41 |
Table 4 Q2 2022/23
| Click throughs | 25,462 | 5,800 | 3,041 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engagement | 207.672 | N/A* | 3,820 |
| Audience size | 21,513 | 19,833 | 2,782 |
| Amplification rate | 2,741 | 583 | 67 |
Table 5 Q3 2022/23
| Click throughs | 25,462 | 5,800 | 3,041 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engagement | 207,672 | N/A* | 3,820 |
| Audience size | 21,513 | 19,833 | 2,782 |
| Amplification rate | 2,741 | 583 | 67 |
Table 6 Q4 2022/23
| Click throughs | 19,682 | 6,221 | 3,769 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engagement | 196,874 | 8.145 | 4,605 |
| Audience size | 22,189 | 20,129 | 3,170 |
| Amplification rate | 1,974 | 613 | 43 |
Most popular posts
The year’s most popular post on both Facebook and Twitter related to the Council’s decision to allow school pupils to use the gym and swim for free as part of the Cost-of-living support measures. This generated wholly positive engagement.
On Facebook the post had a reach of 59,075 with 512 reactions, 236 comments 345 shares and 1531 link clicks.
On Twitter it had a reach of 77,190, 213 likes, 65 retweets, 16 comments and 639 link clicks.
The most popular post on LinkedIn was about Boclair Academy’s opening day with 5,924 impressions, 154 reactions, 1 comment, 6 shares and 1,121 link clicks.
Further positive news relating to major projects such as the Allander Leisure Centre, the official opening of Boclair and the repair work to the Strathkelvin and Lenzie Moss paths were also extremely popular over the course of the year.
Website Analysis
The Council website is a crucial communication channel for the Council and in 2022/23 there was a total of 4,469,279 page views with 2,567,084 overall visits as indicated in Table 7 below.
| 2021/22 | 2022/23 | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall Visits | 2,567,084 | 2,439,280 |
| Page Visits | 4,925,027 | 4,469,279 |
The overall trend for 2022/23 is slightly down on the year before, however in 2021/22 there were still significant and constantly evolving COVID-19 information and updates which resulted in increased traffic to the website.
Visitor traffic remained consistent throughout the year with peaks in January, March and May. Increased visits in January were mainly related to school registration, school holidays and household recycling centres, whilst May saw over 10,000 visits to the Local Government Election page an increase from just over 1,000 in April.
| Total Visits | Percentage | |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile | 1,226,148 | 58.4% |
| Desktop/laptop | 787.435 | 37.5% |
| Tablet | 84,428 | 4% |
Table 8 (above) clearly demonstrates that the majority of visitors to the Council website are using a mobile phone rather than a desktop/laptop computer to visit the website. The figures show that there was a slight increase from 57.97% to 58.4% and a slight decrease in the usage of Tablets.
Traffic Sources to the Council Website
The data tells us that the majority of visitors to the website are direct traffic, which means they know the web address and use it, with over 1.5 million visits accessing the site this way. Search engines are the next highest traffic source making up over 483,131 of overall visits.
Social media referral statistics are unfortunately not accurate due to various privacy settings, use of VPN’s and users not accepting Cookies, but using data directly from social media analytics show that the number of referrals is over 120,000.
Most Popular Website Pages
The most popular pages on the Council website continue to be School Holidays, Bins and Recycling and the Planning pages. This has been the case historically, through the duration of the current Council website but also in the previous site and is consistently the case in local government websites. Making a Payment and various other pages relating to Education such as Catering Services, School Clothing Grants, School catchment areas and Registering for Primary School all remain popular.
Table 9 below summarises the page views and page visits for the top five pages on the Council website. Views is defined by the total number of times a page is looked at, whilst Visits is when someone goes to the website and looks around at more than one page.
Although the majority of the most popular pages on the Council website are information only pages, many more customers are now using the website to carry out digital transactions. This is in line with our channel shift aspirations and enables customers to perform transactions at any time 24/7.
| Webpage | Page views | % of total views |
Visits | % of total Visits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| School holiday | 200,632 | 6.06 | 198,788 | 9.48 |
| Household waste and recycling centres (tips/dumps) | 125,418 | 3.79 | 123,598 | 5.89 |
| Bins and recycling | 78,697 | 2.38 | 76,505 | 3.65 |
| Planning application search | 54,556 | 1.65 | 52,552 | 2.50 |
| Make a payment | 50,150 | 1.52 | 48,363 | 2.31 |
| Catering service | 27,935 | 0.84 | 27,462 | 1.31 |
| Recycling and waste | 26,774 | 0.81 | 26,361 | 1.26 |
| Registration for education | 23,910 | 0.72 | 18,814 | 0.90 |
| School clothing grants and free meals 2022/23 | 23,829 | 0.72 | 20,483 | 0.98 |
| Contact us | 22,869 | 0.69 | 22.638 | 1.08 |
In addition to managing the Council website the Communications & Engagement Team maintains and updates both the East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture Trust (EDLC) website and the East Dunbartonshire Health & Social Care Partnership (HSCP) website. A centralised service is also provided to maintain and regularly update the websites for all 40 East Dunbartonshire schools, which are all developed on the same web platform Umbraco.
Design
Design is a vital element in telling the Council’s story and providing service updates in engaging, eye-catching and dynamic ways. The Council’s design service had over 500 jobs in 2022/23 creating a range of posters, social media graphics, infographics and documents. This compared to 412 design jobs in 2021/22, representing a 21% increase.
Furthermore, in 2022/23 there was a concerted effort to increase the amount of video output created with 29 videos completed, which is more than double the year before.
Analysis of social media trends shows that video is a highly effective engagement tool and video output has been a key element of a number of campaigns and the promotion of flagship Council initiatives. On Facebook there were 40,000 minutes of videos viewed, an increase of 65.5% from 2021/22, with videos showing sneak peaks of the new Allander Leisure Centre and new Boclair Academy gaining the most minutes viewed and the highest engagement. Other popular videos were those created as part of our Food Waste and Engine Idling campaigns.
Currently, there are 521 subscribers to the official East Dunbartonshire Council YouTube channel and in 2022/23 there were 161,708 views of our videos resulting in 6,462.9 hours watched.
Campaigns
Campaigns focused on changing behaviour are essential to the efficient delivery of Council services especially as these evolve and adapt to include digital and modern techniques. These campaigns should be creative, bold, and with a clear call to action to ensure effectiveness and positive impact
In 2022/23 the Communications and Engagement team ran two major multi-channel campaigns. A range of multiple, smaller social media campaigns such as Winter Safety and 16 Days of Action against Gender Violence were also delivered throughout the year.
Waste Campaign 2022/23
Working with Waste, a multi-channel campaign to launch the new range of plastics that could be collected through kerbside recycling was created. Simultaneously reinforcing positive recycling messages around food waste was also incorporated in to the ‘Right Bin? Put it in’ campaign brand.
Right Bin? Put it In aimed to:
- Educate residents as to the benefits of recycling and help them understand what items go in each bin.
- Encourage residents to continue to achieve high rates of recycling with positive messaging that makes people want to get involved.
- Decrease the amount of recyclable waste in the residual bin
- Raise awareness that more plastics can now be recycled
- Increase participation rates
The campaign strategy was broken down into two stages, the first focusing on the implementation of increased plastics, followed by information and positive messaging related to food waste. The mix of techniques used included a link to the Bins and Recycling page on the website. This proved successful as the number of page views during the campaign dates of 7 March 2022 to 30 September 2022 was 40,585 compared to 25,667 views for the same period in 2021. This constitutes a 58% increase in page views.
Importantly the campaign helped to encourage behavioural change with significant results across a range of measures clearly showing this. There was a reduction in the amount of recycling material included in residual waste collections, shown by a 585 tonne reduction in collection, plastic recycling increased by 3.97% and food waste participation rose by 7.2%. These results exceeded the targets set at the outset of the campaign as shown in Table 10 below.
| Smart Objectives | Results |
|---|---|
| Secure five pieces media coverage relating to the campaign | Seven |
| Generate 10,000 views of the webpage by end of the campaign | 40,585 |
| 25% of these views to come directly from social media | 42.1% |
| Reduce residual waste by an estimated 450 tonnes by October 2022 | 585 tonnes (4.9%) |
| Increase participation in food waste by 5% | 7.2% |
| Increased plastics recycling | Increase of 25.78 tonnes (3.97%) |
Internal Communications
Internal Communications provide appropriate organisational updates to the Council’s workforce in line with programme delivery and in conjunction with employee engagement requirements which are co-ordinated through HR & Organisational Development.
Internal Communications are planned alongside change projects, with communications plans in place in line with project timescales. Communications are delivered through the established tools of Leadership Information Packs and Employee News. Briefings for the workforce through management teams and team leaders are also cascaded from the Strategic Management Team.
In 2022/23 a total of 46 Employee News were issued, comparable to 44 issued in 2021/22. All Employee News are published to the Employee Zone of the Council website and a link to this is included for line managers and colleagues to share with those in the workforce who are not on the Council network and so do not receive the issues directly to a Council email address.
Regular updates to the whole workforce, including a roundup of the key achievements, news issues and Council decisions are delivered approximately fortnightly through the Depute Chief Executive’s Update (DCE Update). As with Employee News, these are all published to the Employee Zone of the Council website and a link is included so that this can be shared with those who are not on the Council network. In 2022/23 a total of 21 DCE Updates were issued comparable to 24 issued in 2021/22.
The platform that hosts the Council’s intranet is no longer supported and the replacement of the intranet is underway alongside the replacement of the Council website. The Council’s move to the Microsoft M365 suite will support greater employee communication and engagement as key communications and collaboration tools within the M365 suite are introduced in line with the overall project timescale.
The Council intranet (the Hub) and the Employee Zone on the website, which was introduced during the pandemic, continue to be updated by the Communications and Engagement team while the new intranet is developed.
Consultation and Engagement
The Communications and Engagement Team supports the Council in the delivery of the Consultation and Engagement Strategy. The principles of ‘we asked, you said, we did’ applies to Council consultation and engagement activity, with services that undertake consultation and engagement exercises encouraged to ensure they provide the results (you said) and what will happen as a result of the findings (we did).
Through the Business and Improvement Plan process (BIPs) an annual Consultation and Engagement Action Plan is produced each year and published on the consultation and engagement pages of the Council website. A key purpose of the plan is to ensure that the Communications and Engagement team can effectively plan support for the delivery of consultation activity including the preparation of surveys, development of webpages and promotion to encourage participation. A further purpose of the plan is to ensure that consultation activity is delivered in appropriate timescales and that multiple consultations are not taking place at the same time.
In 2022/23 the Communications and Engagement team supported services across the Council with 15 consultation exercises. Consultation surveys are created using the ArcGIS 123 Survey tool which guarantee GDPR regulations are met, as well as ensuring surveys are mobile friendly.
The Communications and Engagement team work with services on the annual consultation plan to avoid clashes and overlapping to achieve as much participation as possible. The subsequent surveys, dedicated web page, media, social media and design are all created and published with post consultation reporting including updating the webpage and social media being completed once findings or reports have been written.
Accessibility
Public Sector (Website and Mobile Applications) Regulations require councils to ensure that their websites, social media channels and any apps they develop are fully accessible to all.
The Communications and Engagement team has spent considerable time working to ensure that the Council website meets the requirements of the legislation, which requires website content to be included within the body of a webpage and does not permit the attachment of PDF documents which are not accessible to screen readers.
The team worked with the Shaw Trust to achieve Accessibility Accreditation in 2022/23 and continues to engage with Council services to find alternative and accessibility compliant ways of providing essential information. These include providing succinct summaries of key information and the use of infographics.
An Accessibility section has been created in the Employee Zone of the Council website to provide guidance to all employees on how to make sure that their documents are accessible.
Next Steps
The Communications and Engagement team will continue to promote Council priorities in the media, online and internally. Working with services to ensure key messages are delivered to target audiences at the right time and through the appropriate channels.
The Team participates in public sector and local government communications networks to share best practice and keep up to date with emerging and evolving communications practice.
In line with the Digital Transformation initiatives being delivered across the Council, the Team will continue to encourage residents to take advantage of self-service opportunities, available online 24/7 while also ensuring that traditional methods of engagement with services when available such as telephone and face-to-face are promoted when relevant.
A project to replace the Council website content management system has begun. The new website is being built on an up-to-date platform, will incorporate user testing at all stages of development, will ensure latest best practice and will be fully compliant with Public Sector Accessibility legislation. Key aims of the website replacement project are to create a new Council website that is customer friendly, has improved navigation and is built with accessibility at its core.
Performance data is important in evaluating all communications activity and a focus for 2023/24 will be to review the current website analytics tool, evaluate all tools available and to ensure that the Council is using the best solution to provide accurate data from our website.
A Procurement exercise is also being undertaken to implement a new social media management tool to ensure effective management and further development of the social media channels in use by the Council.
The team will work closely with services throughout 2023/24 to improve the consultation and engagement process, to ensure effective and impactful community engagement in line with the Consultation and Engagement Strategy, which will be reviewed and updated in 2024.