Local councils are finding new fame online, with some becoming social media sensations.
They say it’s part of an effort to find new and creative ways of engaging their communities.
Wellington City Council is one of the social media standouts. Their video content on TikTok regularly gains tens of thousands of views.
“Our TikTok strategy is to hop on any trending sounds or viral trends,” said Mollie, of the council’s social media team.
It’s not easy to explain in a written article why these videos are successful – Mollie and her colleague Simone explain it's all about being quick to find what is blowing up online and tap into that.
“It's a little nerve-wracking putting these online as you never know how they are going to come out and how the audience is going to engage,” said Simone.
“And we do get a lot of feedback that people are surprised to see council ‘slaying’ TikTok,” she laughed.
“If it means pushing the boundaries and being cheeky then we are totally open to that.”
Palmerston North City Council is also finding success online.
We launched our TikTok back in August and it is performing better than we could have imagined,” said Palmerston North City Council’s Olivia Wix.
“We had a video go live over the weekend and it has been viewed by more than a million people so far.”
One of their more successful videos featured items regularly found in the city’s sewage, edited to Happiness, by American Idol contestant Alexis Jordan.
Another video that gained a lot of attention was a dramatic action video of a council staff dressed up as an orange election man.
“It's all about having a bit of fun and poking fun at ourselves,” Wix said.
But this work underlies a serious issue all councils know well – those who use platforms like TikTok and Instagram are not typically people that engage with councils.
“Every generation is getting a shorter and shorter attention span so if you can your message across in a fun and entertaining way, that is a big tick,” explained Summer Busch of Public Library PR.
“If the consumers aren't coming to you, you have to go to them.”
1News asked Summer what she thought of the efforts councils right across the country were making to be entertaining online.
“Some of them hilarious,” she said.
“[But] you don't want to come across as a bit try-hard. Some of them were looking a bit like that,” she laughed.
“But overall, it's pretty good.”
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