Manchester City Council: Bringing The Buzz To Social Media

At Manchester City Council, we’re ecstatic to have been shortlisted under the competitive category of Best Long-term Strategic Use of Social Media. And, we’re proud to say the shortlist is a real testament to our innovative approach and dedication to creating an industry-leading online presence.

Our entry, ‘Bringing The Buzz To Social Media’ not only showcases how we’ve built our online presence into an award-winning strategy, but outlines the hard work the team have delivered to better understand our residents, increase engagement and conversations and the objectives we mark in our work.

The key foundation of our strategy is a deep understanding of our audiences, where to find them, and what content they want to see. We have supported this understanding through regular reporting and evaluation – the team reports on cross-channel statistics on a weekly basis, completes monthly reports and dashboards, and presents an annual report that summarises our campaigns from across the year, our successes, and the learnings we will be taking forward.This annual report formed part of our awards application – it demonstrates not only our KPIs (which consistently outperform industry averages), but how we have served our organisational priorities in our output. This is a particularly important aspect of our strategy – it’s vital to communicate with our residents in a way that resonates with them, while maintaining a high-quality level of service.

Our audience research and reporting has given us a great understanding of our residents. This learning informs our strategic approaches – we tailor content to each different channel, based on who we expect to be using which platforms and their format preferences.

Another vital aspect of our social media strategy is our switch from operating as a broadcast model, to building a digital community that fosters engagement with residents, visitors and partners. Creative, engaging content has become a pillar of our brand identity on social media, posting about topics that resonate with our Mancunian audience, giving them a sense of pride in the city and letting them know that we relate, that we understand them. Harnessing engagement content in this way is particularly important, as it not only builds trust between us and our audience, but also means that we have a community that is used to interacting with us who will be more receptive to theslightlyless‘fun’,butimportantservicemessagingthatweneedtouphold.

Of course, as with any brand on social media, we’ve faced challenges. As a Council, we face many real concerns and complaints from residents daily, and it was very important that we acknowledge this in our strategy and adopt methods of supporting our residents. Though we might not be the teams responsible for dealing with these enquiries or complaints, we do serve as the digital face of the Council, and we take our position as many residents’ first port of call very seriously. Our strategy addresses this; we have set up direct lines of communication with our contact teams and wider directories across the organisation, allowing us to respond quickly and effectively to the problems raised to us. Our TOV is carefully considered when supporting residents, utilising opportunities to build good-will, but recognising when a sensitive issue requires direct, considered action.

Our social media strategy has not only resulted in a high-performing, successful approach to our comms, but also positioned us as leaders in the industry. Across the landscape of public sector comms, we are considered the gold standard, with recognition in the form of awards and nominations, as well as invitations to speak at events, training days and one-to-one coaching with other local government bodies.

These opportunities are an honour for us, and show that our strategy has not only levelled up our own online approach, but actively contributed to the rise in quality of public sector comms as a whole.

Being recognised at the UK Social Media Awards is particularly special to us, considering the high calibre of competition that extends across the country and many different industries. We are proud to be a shining example of the high quality work that can be produced as a public sector organisation; something that has often been overlooked or underappreciated, and it’s our continuous commitment to developing, honouring, and improving our strategy that has made that happen.

Find our social media channels here to take a look at our strategy in action.

Facebook: Manchester City Council | Manchester | Facebook

Twitter: Manchester City Council (@ManCityCouncil) / X

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/manchester-city-council

TikTok: Manchester City Council (@mancitycouncil) | TikTok

Instagram: @manchestercitycouncil (@manchestercitycouncil) • Instagram photos and videos

Nextdoor: Greater Manchester, ENGLAND Public services | Nextdoor