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Online Outreach Earns Award for City
Citizens who have clicked the City of Port Coquitlam website, “liked” the City’s Facebook page or followed its tweets have been making use of an online outreach program that earned the City a prestigious award.
The City of Port Coquitlam received a Best Practices – Civic Engagement Award at the Union of BC Municipalities’ annual Community Excellence Awards ceremony, held in Whistler at 7 am Thursday. The awards showcase BC municipalities and regional districts that lead the pack, take risks to innovate, establish new partnerships, question established ways of doing business and pioneer new customer service practices.
The City developed its online outreach program to find new ways to reach the community, to create a two-way dialogue with its citizens, and to reach residents who didn’t previously engage with their local government.
The program leverages technology to reach citizens in their own time and space, in a way that reflects the best practices of that particular media. The result has been a documented rise in citizen participation and interest in civic affairs.
Facebool, Twitter, Youtube and more!
For example, the use of Facebook has soared since the City became the first local government in the Lower Mainland to launch a Facebook page in early 2008. More than 2,380 people now follow the page, and most posts receive some kind of response. Close to 500 people follow the City's tweets on Twitter, and the Mayor's blog has a growing number of readers.
The City’s website, revamped in September 2009, has also seen a steady rise in visitors, thanks to a user-friendly design and rich content and resources. From January to June 2010, the site had 218,000 visitors and 688,000 page views – a 22% increase from the previous six months.
More than 1,100 residents subscribe to the E-Update email newsletters, and the City makes regular use of online surveys, forums and comment forms to offer residents feedback opportunities on a wide variety of topics, as an alternative to attending a meeting or open house.
Videos are also increasingly used to deliver information and news via the website, Facebook page and City YouTube channel.
Contact
Kathleen Vincent
Director, Legislative and Administrative Services
Tel 604.927.5335
Fax 604.927.5331
Email vincentk@portcoquitlam.ca
