World Social Media Day: Why it Matters for Local Government

June 30, 2024 is World Social Media Day, a time to recognize the increasingly important role social media plays in modern society.

Almost every industry can benefit from using social media, including the public sector. For local government, these platforms can be a powerful tool to engage with your community, establish your brand, and build trust with residents.

In this blog article, we explore what World Social Media Day is, why it matters, and what your agency can do to get the most out of using these platforms.

Why Celebrate World Social Media Day?

World Social Media Day was first established in 2010 by the media and entertainment company, Mashable, to recognize the impact these platforms have on global communication. The first major social media platform was developed in 1997, with LinkedIn, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), Myspace, and Facebook launching between 2003 and 2006.

Today, around 62.6% of the world’s population uses social media, with the average user spending two hours and 23 minutes per day on social platforms. At times, the rapid pace of social media adoption has caused concern about its impact on different areas of society. But despite challenges, social media platforms have become an integral part of daily life, forever changing how people around the world communicate and form connections.

World Social Media Day is about drawing attention to the potential for social media to have a positive impact on people’s lives by increasing connections and access to information.

Benefits of Social Media for Local Government

For local governments, social media can be an effective tool to spread awareness about services, events, and important community news. Residents routinely turn to social media for news and entertainment, making it an excellent communication channel for location-specific updates. In fact, 26.2% of government agencies say they’ve been leveraging social media for more than 10 years.

Some of the key benefits of using social media for local governments include:

• Budget-friendly: Budgets are tight for public agencies. As a free communication tool that will effectively reach residents, social media is highly valuable.
• Engaging format: With a focus on images, videos, and short snippets of text, social media offers a format that residents can easily consume. It’s a good way for local governments to break down the messages they want to send in a more digestible, accessible way.
• Keeps residents informed: By using social media platforms that residents are already active on, local governments can meet them where they are with important news about upcoming activities, new legislation, and public works issues.

Overcoming Social Media Challenges

While many agencies embrace the benefits of social media, managing these online channels comes with challenges. Two of the main issues that local governments face when posting to social platforms are social media content moderation and compliance with public records laws.

Challenge 1: Content Moderation

It’s an agency’s responsibility to make sure their social channels provide a welcoming, constructive online environment — and that sometimes means stepping in to moderate distracting or harmful comments. Content moderation can quickly become overwhelming as resident engagement increases, and officials may worry that their actions interfere with free speech laws.

To overcome this challenge, it’s important for governments to maintain clear guidelines regarding what is and isn’t acceptable speech. They should also employ scalable content monitoring policies, which may include making use of content moderation software.

Challenge 2: Public Records Laws

Social media is considered public record, meaning that local governments must provide records of posts and comments when responding to related records requests. Doing this manually takes significant time and resources, something many agencies don’t have. The risk of non-compliance also comes into play if posts or comments get deleted and aren’t recoverable.

Investing in social media archiving software can help your agency stay compliant while maintaining an active posting schedule. The right solution will be able to automatically capture every post and comment in real time, saving content in an easily searchable database that makes responding to public records requests quick and easy.

The Future of Social Media in Government

As more local agencies across the country recognize the importance of social media, there have been a growing number of government job positions dedicated to this essential function. In the future, we may see more agencies making use of AI tools and other developing technologies to create and manage posts.

As these trends continue to develop, social media will have even greater potential to build resident trust and familiarity with local government to improve community engagement. This World Social Media Day, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the impact these platforms have on our communities and how we can make the most of them in the future.