Last year, 98% of UK authorities were using digital or social media to engage communities. Here in Australia, where this data is collected less frequently, more than two-thirds of responding councils were using social media in 2011.

A lot has been written about the interactive nature of Twitter and Facebook and its capacity to help get the wider public involved in local decision making. This big picture engagement is important, but our experience in Melbourne shows people also turn to these platforms to find out about everyday concerns, such as when rubbish will be collected and to ask about broken street lights.

This seems to be similar to what is experienced in the UK: 64% of UK councils were using social media for customer service last year, up from 45% in 2012. For many of us, what started as a marketing channel has become a customer service channel, too.

There seem to be three main reasons that people turn to social media for help with services:

Immediacy
Councils in our state are seeing a decrease in the number of people making inquiries in person and an increase in the number of social media inquiries. This is hardly surprising, but before attributing it to the shift to digital, interestingly email inquiries are also down. At the same time, the number of phone inquiries is rising. What do these forms of contact have in common? They are both immediate. Of those who contact an organisations via social media, 42% expect a response within the hour...