Abstract:
Local government faces a challenge of servicing a wide range of customers with different
backgrounds, varying access to income, information and privileges. Yet they are
expected to meet each constituencies needs. The private sector has found success in
servicing their customers whilst improving their brand through social media campaigns.
Social media does not promise to resolve this conundrum, but rather to afford local
government a different avenue to deliver the appropriate service to their constituencies,
whilst affording them a platform to engage with their City. Literature suggests that
through active social media engagement, and in particular social networking sites, local
governments can positively influence their citizens perceptions of the local governments.
Whilst studies exist around City Branding and Social Media engagement, these fall short
of understanding how engagement on Social Networking Sites interplay with a resident s
or visitor s perception of a City. Thus using engagement on the social networking sites,
Facebook and Twitter, an explanatory study was conducted using Factor Analysis and
Kruskal-Wallis to test the relationship, which revealed that a relationship does exist
between SNS engagement and a City s brand, but the variables influenced, whilst
expected, did not have the strongest influence on the citizen s satisfaction.
