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QLDC reaches milestone

Thursday 22 November 2012, 6:34PM

By Queenstown Lakes District Council

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QUEENSTOWN

The Queenstown Lakes District Council has reached a social media milestone thanks to CEO Adam Feeley.

By signing up to follow the QLDC on social media network Twitter, Mr Feeley took the organisation past the 1000 followers mark and he’s keen to see this number grow further.

“The way people get information and keep up to date with what’s happening in the world and in their community is changing rapidly,” Mr Feely said.

”Social media tools like Twitter and Facebook and technology like smartphones and tablets are making it much easier for us to reach people individually.”

Twitter is an online microblogging service that enables users to send and read text-based messages of 140 characters or less (known as ‘tweets’). Twitter users select different accounts to ‘follow’ and can read the tweets from those accounts online or have them sent to their mobile phone. The speed with which the information is posted and the way users interacted with it made it a useful way for Council to get pass on information about fast moving events like unexpected water shutdowns or changes in road conditions.

“Twitter and networks of this type give us the ability to send our message directly to the end user and while we’re using it alongside traditional channels of communication, we are seeing more and more people choosing to get their information this way,” Mr Feeley said.

People did not necessarily need to have a Twitter account to find out what the Council was tweeting and QLDC communication manager Meaghan Miller said there were other options.

“Not everyone wants to sign up on social media sites but they can still view our Twitter feed live on the home page of our website,” she said.

“There’s also Twitter’s Fast Follow service where non-users can request to have tweets from certain accounts sent to their mobile phone. It’s easy to set up and easy to opt out of also,” she said.

A full guide on how to use Fast Follow can be accessed on the QLDC website home page. www.qldc.govt.nz

Queenstown Lakes District Council’s Twitter account is @qldccoms