Many councils still not using social media

Socitm's review of councils' use of social media has revealed that councils such as Plymouth City Council, East Cambridgeshire District Council and Omagh District Council are not promoting the use of social media over their websites, to communicate with residents.

At the other end of the scale, Coventry City Council came out as the council with the highest number of followers, members and friends on Facebook and Twitter, with 24,080.

Coventry was followed by the City of Glasgow with 22,556 and West Lothian with 20,407.

Socitm's Better Connected research showed that Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council, which has more than 20 Twitter accounts, posted the most tweets of any council.

Twenty-three councils, five per cent of the total, achieved Socitm's top, four-star ranking in its annual survey of all 433 council websites.

Of nine four-star sites named in 2011, only The City of Edinburgh and Salford City retained four stars in 2012.

Socitm is the membership association for all ICT professionals working in local authorities and the public and third sectors, and suppliers to those sectors.