Why Social Media Can't be Used for Meaningful Community Engagement

Social media is a powerful tool in a local leader’s arsenal — it’s an easy way to reach people quickly and has a massive number of users. Social media posts can get information to residents quickly when necessary. However, it’s not a place for effective community engagement. While social media is widely used, misinformation runs rampant on these platforms, and they can be a toxic place. Local organizations can use their social media accounts to inform their stakeholders on events and new developments, but it is not a great place to gather community feedback.  

Social listening — spending time and resources trying to decipher what social media users are saying about your organization or a specific project — isn’t effective for local organizations. Social media algorithms put negative information at the forefront of newsfeeds because it drives the most traffic and engagement. There are countless troll and bot accounts, and local leaders have no way of verifying the users commenting on posts.  

A dedicated community engagement platform solves these issues. EngagementHQ is a safe space for two-way dialogue between local leaders and stakeholders to brainstorm ideas, gather quantitative community data, and analyze the information quickly.  

Join us for a free webinar with public consultation experts to learn how an engagement platform can help you gather actionable data quickly and reliably.