Technical ReportPDF Available

Local governments' communication in Belgium: a focus on social media adoption

December 2022

Report number: CEVIPOL Working Paper 01/2022
Affiliation: Université Libre de Bruxelles

Authors:

Vincent Mabillard

Université Libre de Bruxelles

Raphael Zumofen

University of Lausanne

This article relies on the literature on public sector communication to analyse the activity of local governments on social media. We aim to describe the adoption patterns of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in Belgian municipalities over 10,000 inhabitants. To achieve this objective, we gathered information manually and through a data retrieving software specialised on social media adoption and usage. Our findings point to a large heterogeneity of practices depending on location, size, and existing presence on social media accounts. While almost all Belgian municipalities are registered on Facebook, only a few are present on Twitter, and Instagram generally attracts more populous municipalities. In addition, patterns of social media adoption differ from province to province. We also note that while most municipalities post content quite regularly on Facebook, many are less active or publish very few posts on Twitter and Instagram.

Content uploaded by Vincent Mabillard

Content may be subject to copyright.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS’ COMMUNICATION IN BELGIUM: A FOCUS ON

SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION

Vincent Mabillard, Raphaël Zumofen

Centre d'étude de la vie politique (CEVIPOL) | « CEVIPOL Working Papers »

2022/1 N° 1 | pages 2 à 43

Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse :

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.cairn.info/revue-cevipol-working-papers-2022-1-page-2.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Centre d'étude de la vie politique (CEVIPOL).

La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les

limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la

licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie,

sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de

l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage

dans une base de données est également interdit.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS’ COMMUNICATION IN BELGIUM: A

FOCUS ON SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION

Centre d’étude de la vie politique (CEVIPOL)

Université libre de Bruxelles

Campus du Solbosch

Avenue Jeanne 44 – CP 124

1050 Bruxelles

T. +32(0)2 650 4039

Editrice/Editor: Nathalie Brack, Nathalie.Brack@ulb.be

Archives et consignes pour soumission/Archives and instructions:

http://cevipol.ulb.ac.be/fr/cahiers-et-notes/les-cahiers-du-cevipol-brussels-working-

papers

Authors

Vincent Mabillard holds a PhD from the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP)

at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Solvay

Brussels School of Economics and Management at the Université libre de Bruxelles. His research

interests include public sector transparency, accountability, and place branding. His articles were

published in international, peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Public Administration Research

and Theory, Public Policy and Administration, and the International Review of Administrative

Sciences.

Raphaël Zumofen holds a PhD from the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP)

at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and is currently a Research fellow at the HES-SO Valais-

Wallis, Sion, Switzerland, and at the University of Lausanne. He is the author of several articles on

public sector accountability and communication, focusing especially on social media. His articles

have been published in academic journals such as Public Policy and Administration, Information

Polity, the International Review of Administrative Sciences, and Transforming Government: People,

Process and Policy.

Abstract

This article relies on the literature on public sector communication to analyse the activity of local

governments on social media. We aim to describe the adoption patterns of Facebook, Twitter and

Instagram in Belgian municipalities over 10,000 inhabitants. To achieve this objective, we gathered

information manually and through a data retrieving software specialised on social media adoption

and usage. Our findings point to a large heterogeneity of practices depending on location, size, and

existing presence on social media accounts. While almost all Belgian municipalities are registered on

Facebook, only a few are present on Twitter, and Instagram generally attracts more populous

municipalities. In addition, patterns of social media adoption differ from province to province. We

also note that while most municipalities post content quite regularly on Facebook, many are less

active or publish very few posts on Twitter and Instagram.

Résumé

Inspiré par la littérature sur la communication publique, cet article étudie l’activité des municipalités

sur les médias sociaux. L’analyse porte sur l’adoption de Facebook, Twitter et Instagram dans les

communes belges de plus de 10 000 habitants. Les données ont été collectées manuellement et à

l’aide d’un logiciel, ce qui nous a permis d’étudier l’usage et les modalités d’adoption de ces médias.

Les résultats indiquent une forte hétérogénéité des pratiques, en fonction de facteurs géographiques,

démographiques et propres à l’usage des médias sociaux, l’adoption d’une plateforme semblant

influencer l’adoption d’autres. Tandis que la quasi-totalité des communes belges sont inscrites sur

Facebook, Twitter attire moins, alors qu’Instagram est plus populaire dans les communes les plus

peuplées. Les données relatives à l’adoption des médias sociaux diffèrent également par province.

Nous notons encore que la plupart des communes sont peu actives sur Twitter et Instagram, alors

qu’elles publient régulièrement du contenu sur Facebook.

INTRODUCTION

Recently, there has been a growing interest in social media platforms in all sectors. Although more

frequently addressed in the private sector, social media communication is also regarded in the public

sector as driving technological innovation and providing new avenues for government interactions

with the population (Mergel, 2013). The enthusiasm for these channels can be explained by the

opportunities offered, including the immediate diffusion and redistribution by users among their

own networks, the establishment of a more open dialogue allowing citizens to communicate their

point of view on material shared by public organisations (Bonsón et al., 2012). Social media can also

reinforce transparency and accountability processes within public bodies through a more “dynamic”

kind of transparency (Permadi and Putri, 2022). Moreover, they can be a driving force and a central

tool for social movements and political participation, as observed in the cases of the Arab Spring in

the early 2010s and the Sunflower social movement in Taiwan for example (Chen et al., 2015).

The increased uptake of social media in the public sector has led researchers to investigate the aims,

effects and use of social networks as a communication tool. Many contributions emphasise the

interactive potential of the new communication technologies (DePaula et al., 2018), the creation of

collective action between citizens and the state and, more generally, the “re-emergence of citizen co-

production” in the implementation of public policies (Linders, 2012). More than simply making one’s

voice heard (Mossberger et al., 2013), or relaying information or disseminating content to users,

social media provide the possibility for governments to better interact with the population (Feeney

and Porumbescu, 2021). These platforms also enable quick and direct communication, for instance

in the event of a natural disaster or an epidemic, while also providing more sustained monitoring

through feedback (Kavanaugh et al., 2012). Therefore, governments have tried to encourage other

behavioural changes in the population through these platforms, especially in the cases of urban

cleanliness and public health (Picazo-Vela et al., 2016).

Local governments tend to use social media because of their potential to create a real “public space”

by gathering contents on the same channel, providing opportunities for citizens to raise their own

topics of interest, and by better interacting to posts published by users (Krzatala-Jaworska, 2013).

Moreover, social media are an essential tool to promote cities by reinforcing their attractiveness and

thus improving their image and reputation. In this regard, social media communication for touristic

places and destinations has been well documented in both cities and regions’ reports and the

academic literature (e.g., Sevin, 2016; Pasquinelli et al., 2021). In addition, Mabillard et al. (2021)

demonstrate that, in the Swiss case, the local governments are using these platforms for several

purposes mainly to put up awareness campaigns, to inform about government decisions or to diffuse

information about crises. The local governments also tend to use different platforms for these diverse

types of communication. Other authors have emphasized the potential of social media to foster

collaborative planning, through a more active and sustained engagement of citizens in urban

governance (Lin, 2022).

As a result, many local governments, partially driven by technological determinism and the increase

of exchanges on social media in citizens’ daily life (Kavanaugh et al., 2012), are now using social

media for their external communication. However, we argue that adoption differs from simple

registration, as it is sometimes implicitly assumed in the literature. In this paper, we will present

existing approaches and propose a more accurate way of measuring social media adoption and use,

applied to local governments in Belgium. The Belgium case is compelling as it is characterised by a

great diversity of profiles, including significant size, language, economic and socio-political

differences. Moreover, this case has gone largely unexplored in the current literature, which focuses

mostly on the U.S., Canadian, French, Swiss, Portuguese, and Spanish local governments.

Therefore, this paper enriches the current literature on public sector digital communication through

the assessment of adoption patterns of social media platforms in Belgian municipalities. To do so,

we prefer a descriptive analysis of all Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts of all municipalities

over 10,000 inhabitants. While Facebook allows people to connect with friends, family members,

and acquaintances and gives people the opportunity to post and share content such as photos and

status updates (Stec, 2015), Twitter has been categorized as a microblogging site, where users

interact in “real time” using 280 characters tweets to their followers. Users can converse using

mentions, replies, and hashtags (Alhabash and Ma, 2017). Instagram is a photo-sharing mobile

application that allows users to take pictures, apply filters to them, and share them on the platform

itself. From a theoretical point of view, we distinguish between registration and “active adoption”

since the creation of a social media account does not automatically lead to its adoption in certain

cases (Mabillard et al., 2022). Active adoption will be presented in more detail in the method section.

From an empirical perspective, we rely on a unique dataset of social media metrics to better analyse

the adoption of the three abovementioned platforms in the period 2020-2022.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 covers the most recent and relevant

contributions related to social media adoption in municipalities. Section 3 describes the most

essential features of the Belgian context regarding government communication on social media.

Section 4 focuses on the method used, and more specifically the development of a new framework

to assess social media active adoption. Section 5 builds on this framework to provide data about the

current situation in Belgium. Finally, section 6 discusses the results and the limitations of the study

and presents ideas for future research.

1. SELECTED CONTRIBUTIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNICATION IN THE

PUBLIC SECTOR

From a citizen standpoint, social media have enabled individuals to have a greater voice in public

affairs, and they have sometimes served as catalysts for social change (see Bennett & Manoharan,

2017). The possibility for citizens to get involved in decision-making more actively may also

encourage local governments to use social media, as it can lead to an increased level of proximity

with citizens. In this sense, public authorities could then provide users with timely information,

thereby contributing to the creation of a more responsive administration. In view of the increased

presence of citizens on social media, it is even regarded by certain consulting companies and

government experts as a necessity. Indeed, recent figures show that many people are now using

social media to get information, especially on Facebook (41% in Belgium) but much less on Twitter

(Newman et al., 2020).

Regarding the benefits presented above, one could easily think that social media would be embraced

by almost all municipalities around the world. However, empirical evidence shows a wide

heterogeneity of practices, depending on various factors. Governments have tried, incrementally, to

disseminate information on online platforms. The adoption process has not always been successful

and has not systematically led to the transformations needed to develop a structured and optimal

communication (Picazo-Vela et al., 2016; Zumofen and Mabillard, 2021). The acquisition of new

skills, and the risk of losing control over the information disseminated, particularly in the case of

inappropriate content (e.g., reactions, comments, reposting of messages) have refrained certain

municipalities from registering on social media. This relates to the difficulty of ensuring a continuous

and consistent flow of information, regular updates, and balancing this with information objectivity,

which is a rule of public sector communication (see Pasquier and Mabillard, 2017). Moreover, the

potential lack of control over information flows still represents one of the most significant factors

that inhibit the desire to uptake social media.

Organisational issues have also prevented local governments to subscribe on social media in certain

instances, based on concerns regarding privacy, security, and increased openness in the public sector

(Fyfe and Crookall, 2010). The often very hierarchical structure in public organisations is not

conducive to active communication on social media (Bughin et al., 2012), as these channels require

a certain degree of freedom to take initiatives (Picazo-Vela et al., 2012). Other concerns refer to the

lack of resources, especially to implement and evaluate a strategy regarding social media training

and communication. These organisational issues have deterred certain governments from adopting

social media, as highlighted by Criado et al. (2013): “the traditional culture of bureaucratic agencies

does not fit well with the flatness and collaborative nature of social media technologies” (p. 23).

Certain public authorities have thus postponed their decision to uptake these new channels or took

more time to design relevant policies (Sharif et al., 2015).

In municipalities that have adopted social media, such issues are typically addressed in practice

through training sessions, culture-building and charters/guidelines, etc. This includes the capacity

to make an appropriate usage of social media and to respond to requests in real time. As a result,

public sector organisations have generally introduced innovations reactively and have waited for

available evidence to justify their decisions (Sharif et al., 2015). Indeed, social media adoption tends

to be impacted by institutional and organisational mechanisms that influence the degree and extent

of adoption (Mergel, 2016). Thus, social media tools face problems of adaptation to the existing

organisational culture and institutional structure of public sector administrations (Criado et al.,

2013).

Faced with the various points presented above and the multitude of approaches, Medaglia and Zheng

(2017) propose a roadmap that highlights the various themes to be investigated. The categories that

emerge from their study include management, context, effects on citizens, user characteristics and

behaviour, effects on behaviour, and platform properties. In this contribution, we are particularly

interested in the issue of presence and adoption on social media. This first step is essential as most

approaches to city adoption of social media rely either on incomplete assessments of the situation or

on subjective criteria (Zumofen et al., 2022). In this regard, website reviews and interviews with

public officials involved in communication do not allow for a comprehensive evaluation of social

media adoption within public sector organisations. Moreover, surveys have led to the subjective

appreciation of such adoption, and variations that depend on the response rate (Reddick and Norris,

2013; Ellison and Hardey 2014). Similar limitations apply to the identification of social media

logos/icons and partial web searches (Jukić and Merlak, 2017; Torres et al., 2020).

From a methodological perspective, social media adoption in the public sector has never been

formally defined, and its measurement has never been accurately and quantitatively assessed. Social

media are often regarded as adopted when municipalities add logos to their website and/or when

they have created an account on a platform. Therefore, adoption, registration, presence, and activity

on these platforms are often used as interchangeable terms. However, conceptual clarity is needed

as some public bodies maintain a presence without being active on social media. Here, in addition to

the abovementioned issues, Mabillard et al. (2021) have shown that tasks achieved by interns during

their time spent in a public body, the completion of a “tick the box” exercise in certain cases, or the

lack of interest expressed by a municipality can explain the heterogeneous situation observed in

different jurisdictions. For this reason, and as we will detail in the method section, we provide in

this paper a quantitative assessment of active adoption of social media platforms. This assessment

is essential to better understand social media activity and usage.

In Belgium, research is scarce, and almost no contributions have tackled the issue of social media

communication at the local level. In the next part, we present the most recent articles addressing

social media use in Belgium. They focus mostly on individual use and political considerations, and

they are based on international publications, press articles and reports from consulting companies.

More detailed figures about the Belgian municipalities will be provided in section 5.

2. CONTEXT: THE BELGIAN CASE

As mentioned above, few contributions have addressed social media communication in the public

sector in Belgium. While the topic gets coverage in the media, it is limited in terms of content, and

revolves mostly around the registration of certain municipalities on the most popular social media,

highlighting the political motivations behind such registration (Anneet, 2019; Sinte, 2019). In the

case of Instagram, the promotion of tourism seems to drive the uptake of that platform (Chapelle,

2021). The Dutch-speaking media have also given some visibility to a study published by the

Socialemediaburo.be and the Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities (Vereniging van

Vlaamse Steden en Gemeenten – VVSG). The study includes 142 large and small municipalities in

Flanders (Dutch-speaking region of Belgium, located in the northern part of the country). It focuses

on the following aspects: are social media used as a communication, service provision and

participation channel? What barriers do local authorities face? And what are the next steps towards

a conversational government? (Desmet and De Clercq, 2019). It relies on a survey composed of 44

questions, including open questions. We can establish a direct link with the gaps identified in the

literature mentioned above. Indeed, the study does not cover the entire country, it is based on

perceptions, and the survey does not target all types of municipalities.

The main results show that social media are mostly managed by a team working in the

communication department of the municipality, with 0.92 full-time equivalent positions freed up for

social media (mean for the 142 municipalities). There is a structural budget for tool, training and

projects in 29% of all municipalities, and only 23% of them have enough budget and time for a pilot

project. 67% have internal guidelines for employees and/or councillors, and 44% have a proper

social media strategy. In this regard, Belgium belongs to the 64% of European Union member states

that invest in training for civil servants regarding social media and website design (OECD, 2019).

However, in only 26% of the municipalities is participation regarded as part of the designed strategy.

This result matches the survey findings presented by Simonofski et al. (2019), which show that while

30% of citizens would prefer to participate in the development of e-government services via social

media, only 7% of civil servants would prefer to use this channel (compared to 50% for group

discussion and 44% for workshops). Here, we can make the assumption that social media adoption

also depends on individual characteristics of the people in charge of the municipality’s

communication. Risks are assessed differently from one case to the other (Mabillard et al., 2021;

Picazo-Vela et al., 2012).

97% of the survey respondents said they were active on social media, with 44% of the respondents

indicating that their municipality had at least 5 accounts. Facebook is still the most used platform

(by 99% of the municipalities included in the survey). Instagram experiences an increasing success,

with 66% of all municipalities registered on this platform, as young people are targeted via this

channel. In terms of content, 93% of the respondents said that factual information was shared on

their accounts, a proportion that also applies to crisis communication and links with other

communication tools such as websites, newsletters, etc. Municipalities also like to share posts around

events and messages regarding the organisation and structure of the municipality, the departments,

and the projects. Advertising on social media is not often done by municipalities (18%). Finally,

respondents indicated that 18% of the population (mean) is a fan on Facebook, scoring much better

than Twitter and Instagram (both around 5%). Linked to this assessment, 48% of the respondents

said that they rarely / never use social media to connect with citizens, to raise discussions between

residents, or to attract stakeholders.

There is also interest for social media communication in local governments in Wallonia, as shown

by a question asked at the regional Parliament in January 2021. The response from the Minister for

Housing, Local Government and Urban Affairs (Ministre du Logement, des Pouvoirs locaux et de la

Ville) was quite vague, as he referred to the complementarity of the diverse communication tools,

and said that emerging regulations applied in certain municipalities, but did not provide a complete

answer on what was (and should be) done to avoid social media usage for the publicity purposes (for

members of the municipal executive).

More recently, a webinar was organised by the Union of Cities and Municipalities in Wallonia (Union

des Villes et Communes de Wallonie – UVCW) and the Region of Wallonia on June 23, 2021. It shed

light on the risks inherent to social media platforms, the bad buzz phenomenon, and other

managerial and communication issues. The invited speakers provided advice on how to anticipate

these risks, how to react to negative or offensive comments, and on the existing legislation. Finally,

good practices regarding charters and training were shared by the invited experts (UVCW and

Region of Wallonia, 2021).

To the extent of our knowledge, the most recent study on social media communication in local

governments in Wallonia dates back to 2017, when a survey was sent to all municipalities

(FuturoCité, 2017). The survey addresses multiple issues, ranging from communication types to the

existence of a strategy and the people managing the social media accounts. In total, 53% of all

municipalities responded (n=138), the largest municipalities being overrepresented in the final

sample. However, all types of municipalities responded to the survey, including very small ones (less

than 5,000 inhabitants). Respondents included a large variety of profiles, as communication

managers, municipal directors, IT managers and members of the executive were all targeted. The

first result presented in the report shows that 92 municipalities (67%) were active on social media

in 2017. In comparison with Flemish municipalities, there is less activity in Wallonia, but this can be

partly explained by the inclusion of small municipalities in the sample. Indeed, large municipalities

are more active on social media platforms, a finding that echoes several results presented in the

scientific literature (e.g., Guillamón et al., 2016; Reddick and Norris, 2013).

In terms of platforms, Facebook is the most widely used channel, as already observed in Flanders

and many other regions/countries (Larsson, 2013; Zumofen et al., 2022). Among the active

municipalities, 99% has registered on Facebook, compared to 26% on Twitter and 9% only on

Instagram, although we should add that the latter platform was launched after the two others. The

study also indicates that municipalities in Wallonia communicate in the same way as Flemish

municipalities do, giving much importance to factual information, projects, and crisis

communication, while social media posts to trigger citizen participation are limited. Indeed, only

18% of the respondents indicated that they used such posts to invite users to participate in

policymaking. And although social media belong to a more global communication strategy,

interactions between local authorities and the population remain limited according to most

respondents. Finally, the respondents highlight the lack of competence, budget constraints, and the

absence of clear guidelines as the main barriers to social media adoption and active use. As a result,

the main requests expressed by the respondents revolve around specific training sessions, awareness

of the members of the executive and their teams, and more sustained exchanges around best

practices and opportunities for improvement.

Although these two studies provide many compelling elements, they do not solve the issues

mentioned above: they are incomplete (all municipalities did not respond to the surveys, and these

surveys do not cover the whole country), outdated, subjective sometimes, and not precise enough on

adoption patterns. For these reasons, we will present a new approach to social media adoption in

the next section. In doing so, we both fill a gap in the literature and provide detailed figures for

Belgium, which has not received much attention in the existing contributions on social media

communication at the local level.

3. METHOD

In this section, we propose a new model to assess social media adoption by municipalities,

distinguishing between such adoption and registration. Then, we propose a set of metrics that enable

readers and interested researchers to use both the model and the metrics in different contexts. We

also explain how we built the dataset, how we collected the data, and what kind of analysis we

perform with the data at our disposal.

As underlined above, approaches to social media adoption in local governments rely mostly on

incomplete information or focus on the organisational dynamics of social media adoption. For

instance, Mergel and Bretschneider (2013) have presented a 3-stage model that ranges from high

levels of experimentation to the full institutionalisation of social media use in public organisations.

This model concentrates on organisational dynamics, while many contributions on technology

adoption focus specifically on the many factors that influence such adoption or explain the situations

that have led to failures. However, to the extent of our knowledge, no precise definition / assessment

of social media adoption exists in the public sector. We add to the literature through the provision

of a more accurate approach that includes the recurrence of social media use, the use of the

platforms’ potentialities, and communication outreach.

Therefore, we propose a model that includes the following indicators: 1) recurrence, 2) use of

potentiality, and 3) diffusion. Recurrence of use refers to the activity of an account on social media.

Given the interactive nature of these platforms, and their capacity to increase the speed of

information flows, organisations must be ready to communicate more proactively, more frequently,

and to react more quickly to comments posted on their accounts. However, while certain

municipalities have registered on a platform, they are not using these channels to communicate with

citizens (e.g., for the Swiss and Austrian cases, see Bhatia and Mabillard, 2022). Taking advantage

of the platforms’ potentialities relates to the use of the various technical features provided by a

technology, i.e., social media platforms in this case. Finally, our model includes diffusion, as

conveying information to the population is central to the efficiency of the communication efforts

deployed by municipalities. Consequently, we use the metrics presented in Table 1 to develop a

quantitative assessment of what we call “active adoption” (see also Mabillard et al., 2022). The

theoretical basis of “active adoption” lies in dimensions developed in the Technology-organization-

environment framework (TOE) (Tornatzky et al., 1990) and adapted in a research model developed

by Lin and Lin (2008).

Table 1 | Quantitative assessment of active adoption of social media platforms

Social media

Recurrence of use

Use of potentialities

Diffusion (ratio)

Facebook

Posts per month

Picture-posts

Video-posts

Number of fans to the

municipal population

Twitter

Tweets per month

Picture-tweets

Video-tweets

Number of followers to the

municipal population

Instagram

Posts per month

Video-posts

Number of followers to the

municipal population

In early 2020, we started collecting data on Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, to establish the list

of all municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants. The decision to focus on large municipalities

was made based on the literature. Previous research has indeed shown the prevalence of informal

communication channels in small entities (Keuffer and Mabillard, 2020), and the more intense

activity of large municipalities on social media (Haro-de-Rosario et al., 2018). Regarding social

media, we searched for logos on all municipalities’ websites. When such logos were absent, we

conducted further research on Google, and if we could still not find any social media, we looked for

potential accounts on the platforms directly. This 3-step process follows prior similar approaches

preferred by Ellison and Hardey (2014). In certain countries, studies have shown that a few cities do

not have a logo on their website, yet they have registered on social media platforms. In Belgium, a

logo was clearly visible on the website of 265 municipalities of over 10,000 inhabitants that had at

least one account on social media (out of 364; 72.8%) in early 2020.

Then, we transferred the information gathered to FanPage Karma, an online software already used

in prior research (e.g., Mori et al., 2021). This enabled us to retrieve all data related to the adoption

of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by all Belgian municipalities. Such data were used to address

the three dimensions of active adoption, in line with the metrics listed in Table 1. As FanPage Karma

allows for time selection, we selected a two-year period (31.01.2020-31.01.2022), in which all

municipalities were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Only municipalities that registered on

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram before January 31, 2020, were taken into account.

These data will be mostly presented in a descriptive way. As presented in Table 1 above, the

recurrence of use is addressed through the mean number of posts per month on each platform; the

use of potentialities refers to the publication of posts using the features proposed by each platform

(mainly videos and pictures); and the metrics used to assess outreach (diffusion) rely on the ratio of

fans / followers to the total population of the municipality. Since we want to capture the different

dimensions of active adoption, and not gather them into an aggregated index that would have led to

losses of information and lack of coherence, these dimensions are presented separately. Table 6

provides all details regarding measurement of these variables in the next section.

To refine these descriptive statistics, we add data related to other communication channels and

population characteristics to the analysis. These data include apps, newsletters, municipal journals,

and municipality size (see Table 7). Authors have shown a frequent usage of these channels (Rivas,

2017), and positive associations between some of them (more particularly newsletters) and social

media platforms (Bhatia and Mabillard, 2022). Certain contributions have shown that social media

use and population size are positively associated (e.g., Bonsón et al., 2012). Age is also associated

with social media use (Faber et al., 2020), as older people seem less likely in general to be involved

digitally. As municipalities still use other communication channels, and may integrate them in a

global communication strategy, it makes sense to investigate how these channels relate to each other.

We also add the period of existence variable in our study since we assume that municipalities that

have registered on a platform for a long time may have adopted this platform more actively. In this

regard, Faber et al. (2020) have shown an intensive use toward interaction when municipalities had

adopted Twitter for a long time.

4. FINDINGS

In this section, we start with a presentation of the activity of Belgian municipalities on each platform.

The findings provided here contribute to our better understanding of social media presence, activity

and usage in European cities, as we do not have precise figures in most countries. Notable exceptions

are Austria and Switzerland, for which we have detailed data (as of January 2020). For this reason,

we include in this section a comparison with Austria and Switzerland, two other small federal states

located in Europe (5.1). Then, we provide an overview of the situation in Belgium based on the

distribution of cities in the different provinces and the Brussels-Capital Region (5.2). We continue

with the descriptive statistics for the metrics included in our model (5.3). We also provide all details

related to the other variables used here in Table 7, and further commented in the sub-section 5.4.

Finally, we conduct an analysis of the relations between these variables and the social media

variables mobilised in our study (5.5).

Presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

We note that 92.3% of Belgian municipalities over 10,000 inhabitants had a registered account on

Facebook as of January 2020 (336 out of 364). This is fairly high compared to other countries,

especially among less populous municipalities (Table 2). As of January 2022, the number of

municipalities on Facebook had increased, reaching a total of 355 (out of 364: 97.5%). During the

data collection process, we have observed that except for one municipality, the 354 remaining ones

had at least posted one message in the month prior to the starting date of data collection (i.e., the

month of January 2020).

Table 2 | Registered accounts on Facebook (in %), by population size (as of 31 January 2020)

Population

Belgium

Austria

Switzerland

> 100.000 inh.

100%

83%

50.000-99.999 inh.

100%

50%

30.000-49.999 inh.

92%

75%

87%

20.000-39.999 inh.

91%

62%

58%

10.000-19.999 inh.

90%

67%

47%

Belgian municipalities seem to be less familiar with Twitter as only 80% of municipalities over

100,000 inhabitants had a registered account on this platform as of 31 January 2020, less than what

is observed in other countries such as Austria and Switzerland. However, the use of Twitter is higher

in Belgian municipalities under 50,000 inhabitants than elsewhere. As of January 31, 2022, the

number of Belgian cities with a registered account on Twitter had slightly increased (from 222 to

226 cities). The activity on Twitter is low as 42.8% of the city with a registered account (95 out of

222) had not published any post in January 2020. The proportion is even higher in January 2022

with 61.1% of inactivity (138 out of 226 cities). These data show a significant difference with the

situation described just above regarding Facebook. As a result, we see that many more accounts are

inactive on Twitter compared to Facebook.

Table 3 | Registered accounts on Twitter (in %), by population size (as of 31 January 2020)

Population

Belgium

Austria

Switzerland

> 100.000 inh.

80%

100%

50.000-99.999 inh.

85%

67%

100%

30.000-49.999 inh.

75%

25%

53%

20.000-39.999 inh.

67%

23%

42%

10.000-19.999 inh.

58%

18%

23%

On Instagram, we note that Belgium has the lowest percentage (60%) of cities above 100,000

inhabitants with a registered account in 2020. Under 100,000 inhabitants, the percentages are quite

similar to Switzerland and Austria. The total number of registered accounts has sharply increased

between 2020 and 2022 (172 to 223 municipalities). This increase from 47.2% to 61.3% is quite

impressive since a vast majority of these municipalities had posted at least one message in the last

month prior to data collection (80.2% in January 2020 and 82.1% in January 2022). In this regard,

Instagram stands between Facebook and Twitter, with still around 20% of inactive accounts. We can

therefore conclude that while activity is sustained on Facebook and quite high on Instagram, the

situation looks completely different on Twitter, where lots of municipalities do not use their account

or left out this channel from their communication toolbox. All figures related to “active accounts” (at

least one post in January 2020 and 2022) are presented in Table 5 below.

Nevertheless, a closer look at the numbers illustrates that municipalities under 30,000 inhabitants

struggle to integrate Instagram in their external communication compared to Facebook and Twitter.

Indeed, only 44% of all municipalities between 20,000 and 39,999 inhabitants and 25% between

10,000 and 19,999 inhabitants had a registered account in 2020, much less than Facebook (91% and

90%) and Twitter (67% and 58%). However, the figures presented in Table 4 show that the number

of registered accounts on Instagram is quite high in Belgium in international comparison.

Table 4 | Registered accounts on Instagram (in %), by population size (as of 31 January 2020)

Population

Belgium

Austria

Switzerland

> 100.000 inh.

60%

100%

50.000-99.999 inh.

50%

100%

50%

30.000-49.999 inh.

57%

50%

60%

20.000-39.999 inh.

44%

38%

46%

10.000-19.999 inh.

25%

17%

20%

Table 5 | Number of active accounts (at least one post in January 2020 and January 2022)

Platform

Accounts

January

2020

January

2022

Evolution (%),

2020-2022

Number of

municipalities

Facebook

Registered accounts

336 (92.3%)

355 (97.5%)

+5.7%

364

Active accounts

329 (90.4%)

354 (97.3%)

+7.6%

364

Active accounts (% of

registered accounts)

97.6%

99.7%

364

Twitter

Registered accounts

222 (61.0%)

226 (62.1%)

+1.8%

364

Active accounts

127 (34.9%)

88 (24.2%)

-30.7%

364

Active accounts (% of

registered accounts)

57.2%

38.9%

364

Instagram

Registered accounts

172 (47.3%)

223 (61.3%)

+29.7%

364

Active accounts

138 (37.9%)

183 (50.3%)

+32.6%

364

Active accounts (% of

registered accounts)

80.2%

82.1%

364

Overview of the situation (provinces and Brussels-Capital Region)

In terms of geographical distribution, the mean number of accounts per municipality is the highest

in the province of West Flanders, followed by the province of Antwerp in January 2020. This trend

remains stable over time as the same order can be observed in 2022 (Table 6). In contrast, figures

are lower in the French-speaking part of the country. We do not induce here that social media

adoption is related to cultural factors. Such an assumption would need to be tested empirically, and

a strong focus on these factors always runs the risk of simplifying complex traits of different cultures.

Rather, we will refine our analysis with other variables, especially municipality size. Another

representation of the situation in 2020-2022 is provided on Map 1 and Map 2.

Table 6 | Number of active* social media accounts (total of accounts and means; 2020-2022)

As of January 31, 2020

As of January 31, 2022

Evolution (%)

Provinces (total number of

cities per province)

All accounts

Mean number

of accounts

All accounts

Mean number

of accounts

All accounts

Antwerp (60)

121

2.02

120

2.00

-0.8%

Flemish Brabant (47)

1.45

1.57

+8.8%

Walloon Brabant (16)

1.25

1.31

+5%

Brussels-Capital Region (19)

1.74

1.79

+3%

West Flanders (44)

103

2.34

2.21

-5.8%

East Flanders (49)

1.70

1.84

+8.4%

Hainaut (42)

1.07

1.31

+22.2%

Liège (33)

1.03

1.39

+35.3%

Limburg (31)

1.94

1.90

-1.7%

Luxembourg (7)

1.29

1.14

-11%

Namur (16)

1.19

1.38

+15.8%

Note. N = 364 Belgian cities over 10,000 inhabitants as of January 31, 2019; * Accounts that have published at

least one message in the month prior to data collection.

Map 1. Number of active social media accounts (as of Jan. 31, 2020)

1 1,2 1,4 1,6 1,8 2 2,2 2,4

Min.

Max.

Mean

1.07

2.34

1.63

364

East Flanders

Limburg

Hainaut

Namur

Liège

Luxembourg

Antwerp

West Flanders

Fl. Brabant

Brussels-Capital

Map 2. Number of active social media accounts (as of Jan. 31, 2022)

1 1,2 1,4 1,6 1,8 2 2,2 2,4

Min.

Max.

Mean

1.14

2.21

1.72

364

East Flanders

Limburg

Hainaut

Namur

Liège

Luxembourg

Antwerp

West Flanders

Fl. Brabant

Brussels-Capital

Descriptive statistics regarding social media adoption

The quantitative assessment of social media adoption in Belgian municipalities shows the large

heterogeneity of practices. Among municipalities that have at least published one post in the given

period, the minimum and maximum values range from very low to high figures, and standard

deviation is often quite high. However, this remark applies less to Facebook, the most used platform

in Belgium (and in many other countries, Belgium is no exception to this phenomenon).

Municipalities are generally less actively tweeting and posting on Instagram, although one city in

particular is using Twitter very extensively. The low number of tweets per month (median value =

3.65) can be partly explained by the overall low use and interest for this platform in Belgium. It can

also be explained by the fact that Twitter is more used among younger and wealthier people, and is

less “universal” in terms of outreach (for the cases of the United Kingdom and the United States, see

Blank, 2017). The more recent character of Instagram may explain that municipalities are still

experimenting with this channel (median value = 4.71), in line with the arguments presented by

Mergel (2013). Therefore, Facebook still dominates in terms of information dissemination, with a

median value of 33.08 posts per month, or around one post per day.

Regarding the use of potentialities, almost all municipalities (99% of them) have posted both

pictures and videos on Facebook, taking full advantage of these two possibilities offered by the

platform. In a similar way, a large majority of municipalities have posted pictures and videos on

Twitter, and videos on Instagram as of January 2022. However, potentialities are more used on

Facebook; we assume here that the better knowledge of this network, resulting from both intensive

use and longevity of the platform, may explain this finding. The lower figures on Instagram,

especially compared to Twitter, may result from the restricted approach preferred here, since we

included videos only as a possibility offered by Instagram (in addition to the picture-posts). The

ephemeral character of other features, such as stories, makes it extremely difficult to retrieve them.

We will give more detailed explanations about this point in the limitations presented below. Overall,

municipalities use Facebook more extensively (in terms of potentialities) compared to the other

platforms, as it is already highlighted in case of the recurrence of use.

Regarding outreach, certain municipalities manage to gather many followers, exceeding their own

population, with a maximum of 136.40% on Facebook in one specific case (Table 7). The median

value is quite high for Facebook (22.97%) and much lower for Twitter and Instagram (3.68% and

6.53%, respectively). The minimum fan base is also higher on Facebook. A closer look at the data

shows that out of the 353 municipalities that have published at least one post in the defined period,

the ratio between the number of posts and the population exceeds 20% in almost two-thirds of the

municipalities. In contrast, only 17 municipalities (4.82%) gather less than 10% of followers

compared to their population. The situation differs strongly on Twitter, where the ratio exceeds 20%

in only 3 municipalities (1.68%), and 10% in 10 of them (5.59%). Figures are a bit higher for

Instagram but remain much lower than those observed for Facebook: the ratio exceeds 20% in 6

municipalities (2.83%), and 10% in 31 of them (14.62%). The total number of municipalities

included in Table 7 shows that figures differ from registration, since many accounts remain inactive,

or do not publish any posts, even in a two-year period. This includes accounts that became inactive

before January 2020, probably due to a lack of political willingness, the lack of continuity in

communication practices, or the fact that the person who launched the account(s) left the

municipality’s staff.

Table 7 | Social media active adoption on the three platforms (Jan. 2020 – Jan. 2022)

Variable

Platform

Measurement

Min.

Max.

Median

Mean

St. dev.

Posts per

month

Facebook

Number of Facebook

posts per month

3.29

146.33

33.08

37.83

19.31

353

Use of

potentialities

Facebook

Use of picture-posts

and video-posts (no=0;

yes=1)

- - -

0.99

0.09

353

Outreach

(efficacy)

Facebook

Number of fans on the

municipal population

(%)

3.90

136.40

22.97

26.96

13.91

353

Posts per

month

Twitter

Number of Twitter

posts per month

0.04

173.17

3.65

86.60

122.42

179

Use of

potentialities

Twitter

Use of picture-tweets

and video-tweets

(no=0; yes=1)

- - -

0.80

0.40

179

Outreach

(efficacy)

Twitter

Number of followers on

the municipal

population (%)

0.01

41.62

3.68

4.24

4.42

179

Posts per

month

Instagram

Number of Instagram

posts per month

0.04

69.50

4.71

34.77

49.11

212

Use of

potentialities

Instagram

Use of video-posts

(no=0; yes=1)

- - -

0.74

0.44

212

Outreach

(efficacy)

Instagram

Number of followers on

the municipal

population (%)

0.26

64.85

6.53

7.51

6.72

212

Notes: St. dev. = standard deviation. Main source: FanPage Karma ; *N excludes municipalities that did not

publish any posts during the whole period of analysis (January 2020 – January 2022).

Descriptive statistics regarding potential explanatory variables

The other variables that will be used in our study are presented in Table 8. Regarding social media

specifically, we see that while most municipalities registered early on Facebook, mainly due to the

fact that this platform was created first, longevity is higher on average on Twitter. Most

municipalities also still communicate via a journal (printed with PDF sometimes available online),

pointing to a possible complementarity between online and offline channels. Data stemming from

Austria and Switzerland (see Bhatia and Mabillard, 2022) allow for a refined analysis of the use of

different communication channels. Figure 1 shows that a large number of Belgian municipalities use

a variety of channels compared to the two other countries.

Table 8 | Variables description (min., max., mean, standard deviation)

Variables

Measurement

Min.

Max.

Mean

St. dev.

Source

Municipality size

(ln)

Number of inhabitants

(natural logarithm)

9.21

13.17

9.97

0.63

Statbel

Age

Median age of the

municipal population

42.88

3.32

Newsletter

Existence of a newsletter

on the municipality website

0.59

0.49

Own

elaboration

App

Existence of an app on the

municipality website

0.19

0.39

Municipal journal

Publication of an official

municipal journal

0.91

0.29

Longevity on

Facebook

Period between

registration and 31 January

2022 (includes only

158

92.40

36.68

Longevity on

Twitter

154

103.27

31.60

Longevity on

Instagram

registered accounts), in

months

120

47.43

27.40

Notes. St. dev. = standard deviation. Reference date for municipality size and median age: December 31, 2019.

Data about the newsletter, app and municipal journal were obtained on the cities’ websites, on the App Store

/ Google Play platform or through contacts with the municipalities. Data about the longevity of the municipal

accounts on social media were retrieved manually based on the registration date.

Figure 1 | Use of different communication channels in selected countries (as of Jan. 2020)

91%

64%

36%

59%

19%

91%

69%

15%

28%

48%

15%

95%

48%

26%

25%

53%

25%

47%

FACE B O O K TW I T T E R INST A G R A M N E W S L ET T E R APP JOU R N A L

Belgium Austria Switzerland

Correlation analysis between social media adoption and other variables

As mentioned above, many variables have been used in the literature as determinants of social media

adoption, use, or institutionalisation. Most of these variables relate to municipalities’ characteristics

(e.g., size and age), other communication channels, or social media-related factors (Bhatia and

Mabillard, 2022). Here, these variables will be used to enrich our analysis, i.e., to check whether

there are positive, negative, or no relations between them and the dimensions of social media

adoption. To do so, we prefer a correlation analysis, which results are presented just below. In line

with Table 7 above, such analysis includes only municipalities that have at least posted once on the

three platforms between January, 31 2020 and January 31, 2022 (N=140).

First, the correlation analyses focusing on the number of posts per month shows a significant (p <

0.01) and positive association between municipality size (in terms of population) and the recurrence

of use on all platforms. The coefficient is the highest in the case of Twitter (.467), indicating that

large municipalities tend to use this platform more regularly. In contrast, we do not find any

significant relation between the recurrence of use and median age, newsletters, apps and the

publication of municipal journals. Regarding the time period between registration and January 31,

2022, we find a significant and positive correlation between longevity and the number of posts per

month in the case of Instagram (.261). Finally, we note that recurrence of use on Facebook correlates

positively and significantly with Twitter (.316) and even more so with Instagram (.411). This

observation suggests that municipalities quite active on one platform tend to communicate on the

other platforms more frequently, as confirmed by the significant relation between recurrence of use

on Twitter and Instagram (.268). These results echo the findings presented by Bhatia and Mabillard

(2021).

Second, the analysis of the potentialities is tricky since we could not retrieve, for feasibility reasons,

data about the intensity of the usage of potentialities on each platform. However, a closer look at the

data indicates a strong influence of municipality size, since small cities tend to post less visual and

video content on Twitter, and even less video content on Instagram. This may be explained by the

recency of the latter platform, and the fact that most Belgian municipalities are still experimenting

with this channel. Another explanation may be related to the resources and skills needed to produce

video content, which are usually less available in small municipalities. It should be reminded here

that our observations apply to Twitter and Instagram exclusively, since almost all Belgian

municipalities are using the features of Facebook. This indicates a high level of digital maturity on

this network, which is less the case on the other two platforms.

Third, population size is also positively and significantly correlated with outreach for Twitter (.272).

However, we do not find any similar evidence for Facebook and Instagram, indicating that small

municipalities also manage to attract a large number of fans or followers. This may also be explained

by the relatively low number of citizens that actively follow official Facebook and Instagram

accounts, which may in turn have an impact on the followers/population ratio in large

municipalities. Moreover, since less municipalities actively communicate on Twitter, these few active

accounts may attract more followers. In addition, the ratio of followers on the population on the

three platforms are positively and significantly correlated with each other, and the coefficient is

especially high for Facebook and Instagram (.680). This result points to a strong relation between

the two, and the mutual reinforcement of each platforms’ attractiveness. While median age and the

other communication channels do not seem to have any influence, the longevity on Twitter and

Instagram are quite strongly associated with the ratio followers / population. The coefficient is quite

high in the case of Twitter (.353) and high in the case of Instagram (.560).

5. DISCUSSION

The fragmented or normative existing research on social media use by local governments in Belgium

led us to adopt a more comprehensive and systematic approach to this issue. As a result, this paper

presents an innovative way to address social media in local governments, and the creation of a new

assessment model. This conceptual effort is supplemented by an empirical analysis, since we provide

the most recent figures regarding social media adoption and activity in all Belgian municipalities

over 10,000 inhabitants (N=364). It includes the three most popular platforms – Facebook, Twitter

and Instagram – in a two-year period (January 2020 to January 2022). It prefers a quantitative,

descriptive approach, focusing on the main dimensions of social media adoption: the recurrence of

use (number of posts per month), the use of the potentialities (possibilities offered by the platforms),

and outreach (ratio of the number of fans or followers to the municipal population).

Our findings point to a large heterogeneity of practices between municipalities, depending on their

location and size. In accordance with previous research (see Bhatia and Mabillard, 2021), social

media-related variables also influence the dimensions of adoption. Almost all Belgian municipalities

have registered on Facebook, and 100% of the largest cities have an account; the most populous

municipalities are also more present on Twitter, but the platform attracts less cities; and Instagram

gathers municipalities of diverse sizes, except for the smallest ones (under 20,000 inhabitants),

which are much less present on this platform. The difference observed may be explained, for

Instagram, by the potential lack of resources in smaller cities to produce high-quality video content

on a regular basis. Regarding Twitter, the results may be interpreted in the light of the lack of

popularity of the platform, and its slightly different demographics (Blank, 2017).

Moreover, patterns of social media adoption differ according to the provinces: while the uptake of

social media is very high in certain provinces, the situation looks different in others. For instance, in

the provinces of Antwerp and Limburg, municipalities have registered around two accounts on

average. In contrast, in Wallonia, the mean number of accounts used by municipalities does not

exceed 1.5 as of January 2022. While these findings remain difficult to interpret without additional

research, they point to differences that may refer to wider regional trends. Such trends may be

further explored through a qualitative approach, e.g., focusing on how cities in the different regions

address the issue of local government’s social media communication.

Most municipalities post content quite regularly on Facebook, and less so on Twitter and Instagram,

where certain cities publish very few posts. The median values of the number of posts per month for

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are 33.08, 3.65, and 4.71, respectively. Regarding the use of the

platforms’ potentialities, the means are high for Twitter (80%) and Instagram (74%), and extremely

high for Facebook (99%). Finally, regarding the ratio of fans or followers to the municipal

population, municipal accounts gather many fans on Facebook (median value = 22.97%), while the

number of followers is much lower on Twitter (3.68%) and Instagram (6.53%). It is important to

note here that these data were collected in a time period strongly impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic.

It would be interesting to conduct a similar study in a non-crisis situation to check whether we obtain

the same results.

A brief look at the other variables mobilised here indicates that most Belgian municipalities still use

other communication channels to a large extent, with 91% of them publishing an official city journal

and 59% of them using a newsletter to share information with their population. These figures

confirm what has already been observed in other countries (e.g., Switzerland and Austria), where

newsletters are widely used, and municipal journals widely distributed to households. This may

reflect the cities’ attachment to communication tools and channels used before the emergence of

social media, as well as the awareness about the limited outreach of social media. This interpretation

also calls for further research.

Finally, the correlation analyses conducted between the dimensions of social media adoption and the

other variables (size, age, longevity on social media, and other communication channels) show

strong associations between population size and the recurrence of use as well as the use of

potentialities. It is also interesting to note that such use of the possibilities offered by the platforms

seems to have no relation with the longevity of the accounts on all platforms. Finally, recurrence of

use on Facebook correlates with the two other platforms, and a similar result is observed in the case

of outreach. These results indicate that a more frequent use of one platform tends to stimulate the

recurrence of use on the others, and the attractiveness of one platform tends, in turn, to attract more

followers on the two other platforms.

This paper has certain limitations. The first limitation relates to the approximate measurement of

the potentialities, for feasibility reasons. As the software did not provide data about the number of

picture- and video-posts on all channels, it would have been impossible to manually retrieve all

information related to the intensity of the use of these potentialities during a two-year period.

However, the analysis of the intensity would be useful for further research, using alternative

software or a shorter time span. Moreover, the analysis (if feasible) of other potentialities would

enrich this analysis.

Moreover, our approach does not account in detail for registration that occurred before the 31st of

January 2020. This represents a second limitations since potentialities, for example, may have been

used by high-skilled employees and then abandoned. Here, we did not check whether the use of

potentialities is part of a long-term effort of the municipalities to inform their population, or whether

they have been used in the past. The identification of personal pages, or the personal ownership of

certain accounts tends to show that certain cities have certainly relied on individuals with specific

interest and/or skills in the uptake and initial use of the platforms. In such cases, the choice of some

of these individuals to leave their job may explain the less frequent recurrence of use (in terms of

both posts and potentialities).

A third limitation regards the particular status of certain municipalities, which was not considered

in our analysis. Indeed, touristic cities may attract more followers, many of them being residents of

other municipalities and countries. This is especially the case for large cities such as Paris, which

gathers more followers on Facebook than its population, or holiday destinations such as Santorini in

Greece (the Facebook page has attracted more than 275 000 followers as of August 2022, compared

to a municipal population of around 15 000 as of 2011). The ratio used here does not account for this

problem, and calls for a cautious interpretation. However, it would be quasi-impossible to track the

origin of every single follower; and this ratio also allows for cross-municipality comparisons since

the potential effect of size is eliminated. Nevertheless, we can easily see in the Belgian case that

several coastal cities, such as Nieuwpoort, manage to attract many followers. This calls for a more

detailed analysis of each municipality, based on their respective characteristics, in future research.

CONCLUSION

The fragmented or normative existing research on social media use by local governments in Belgium

led us to adopt a more comprehensive and systematic approach to this issue. As a result, this paper

presents an innovative way to address social media in local governments, and the creation of a new

assessment model. This conceptual effort is supplemented by an empirical analysis of the Belgian

case, as we provide the most recent figures regarding social media adoption and activity in all

municipalities over 10,000 inhabitants (N=364). It includes the three most popular platforms –

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – in a two-year period (January 2020 to January 2022). It prefers

a quantitative, descriptive approach, focusing on the main dimensions of social media adoption: the

recurrence of use (number of posts per month), the use of the potentialities (possibilities offered by

the platforms), and outreach (ratio of the number of fans or followers to the municipal population).

The theoretical implication of our study relates to the necessity of addressing social media adoption

through a more accurate and comprehensive approach, since active adoption totally differs from

simple registration. Therefore, we encourage researchers to use and/or refine our model when they

collect descriptive data in other states and when they investigate the determinants and/or the effects

of social media adoption in public sector organisations. Another implication refers to the need to

better articulate the dimensions of social media adoption with the global institutionalisation of their

usage (Picazo-Vela et al., 2012). We have presented evidence that municipality size, and the resources

available to communicate with the public influence the recurrent use of the platforms (in line with

the findings from Mergel, 2013). However, the institutionalisation also includes the development of

normative standards, policies, and the formulation of strategies regarding social media

communication. These standards may develop independently from municipality size, and this would

possibly represent an inspiring path for future research.

In addition, practitioners could also take advantage of the new model proposed here to better

monitor and evaluate their capacity to use social media accounts. However, efforts should also

concentrate on the better measurement of the audience, since the penetration and success of certain

posts make it possible to guarantee that the targeted audience has been reached. This additional

effort would require a complementary qualitative approach, which could be based on direct contacts

between the municipalities and users, for instance through surveys and feedbacks.

Références/References

Alhabash, S. & Ma, M. (2017) A tale of four platforms: Motivations and uses of Facebook, Twitter,

Instagram, and Snapchat among college students?. Social Media + Society, 3(1), 1-13.

Anneet, I. (2019) Vos communes sont aussi sur Instagram. La Capitale, 15 November 2019.

Bennett, L. V. & Manoharan, A. P. (2017) The use of social media policies by US municipalities.

International Journal of Public Administration, 40(4), 317-328.

Bhatia, I. & Mabillard, V. (2022) How do cities use their communication channels? A study of social

media adoption in two European federal states. Electronic Government, an International Journal,

18(2), 119-136.

Bhatia, I. & Mabillard, V. (2021) How do cities use their communication channels? A study of social

media adoption in two European federal states. Paper presented at the European Group for Public

Administration Conference, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 7-10 September 2021.

Blank, G. (2017) The digital divide among Twitter users and its implications for social research.

Social Science Computer Review, 35(6), 679-697.

Bonsón, E., Torres, L., Royo, S. & Flores, F. (2012) Local e-government 2.0: social media and

corporate transparency in municipalities. Government Information Quarterly, 29(2), 123-132.

Chapelle, A.-C. (2021) La Commune de Montigny se lance sur Instagram pour mettre en valeur ses

paysages. La Nouvelle Gazette, 2nd June 2021.

Chen, H.-T., Ping, S. & Chen, G. (2015) Far from reach but near at hand: The role of social media for

cross-national mobilization. Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 443-451.

Criado, J. I., Sandoval-Almazán, R. & Gil-Garcia, J. R. (2013) Government innovation through social

media. Government Information Quarterly, 30(4), 319-326.

DePaula, N., Dincelli, E. & Harrison, T. M. (2018) Toward a typology of government social media

communication: democratic goals, symbolic acts and self-presentation. Government Information

Quarterly, 35(1), 98-108.

Desmet, N. & De Clercq, R. (2019) Sociale mediagebruik bij lokale besturen. Socialemediaburo.be

and VVSG.

Ellison, N. & Hardey, M. (2014) Social media and local government: citizenship, consumption and

democracy. Local Government Studies, 40(1), 21-40.

Faber, B., Budding, T. & Gradus, R. (2020) Assessing social media use in Dutch municipalities:

political, institutional, and socio-economic determinants. Government Information Quarterly, 37(3),

101484.

Feeney, M. K. & Porumbescu, G. (2021) The limits of social media for public administration research

and practice. Public Administration Review, 81(4), 787-792.

FuturoCité (2017) Utilisation des médias sociaux par les villes et communes wallonnes en 2017.

https://www.futurocite.be/app/uploads/2017/09/Rapport-Etude-des-m%C3%A9dias-sociaux-

VFINALE.pdf.

Fyfe, T. & Crookall, P. (2010) Social media and public sector dilemmas. Toronto: Institute of Public

Administration of Canada.

Guillamón, M.-D., Ríos, A-M., Gesuele, B. & Metallo, C. (2016) Factors influencing social media use

in local governments: The case of Italy and Spain. Government Information Quarterly, 33(3), 460-

471.

Haro-de-Rosario, A., Sáez-Martín, A. & Caba-Pérez, M. (2018) Using social media to enhance citizen

engagement with local government: Twitter or Facebook? New Media and Society, 20(1), 29-49.

Jukić, T. & Merlak, M. (2017) The use of social networking sites in public administration: The case of

Slovenia. Electronic Journal of e-Government, 15(1), 2-18.

Kavanaugh, A. L., Fox, E. A., Sheetz, S. D., Yang, S., Li, L. T., Shoemaker, D. J., Natsev, A. & Xie, L.

(2012) Social media use by government: From the routine to the critical. Government Information

Quarterly, 29(4), 480-491.

Keuffer, N. & Mabillard, V. (2020) Administrative openness and diversity in Swiss municipalities:

how does local autonomy influence transparency practices? International Review of Administrative

Sciences, 86(4), 782-798.

Krzatala-Jaworska, E. (2013) Les municipalités à la conquête des réseaux sociaux. Mais pour quoi

faire ? Communication & Organisation, 43(2), 86-104.

Larsson, A. O. (2013) Bringing it all back home? Social media practices by Swedish municipalities.

European Journal of Communication, 28(6), 681-695.

Lin, Y. (2022) Social media for collaborative planning: A typology of support functions and

challenges. Cities, 125, 103641.

Lin, H. F. & Lin, S. M. (2008) Determinants of e-business diffusion: A test of the technology diffusion

perspective. Technovation, 28(3), 135-145.

Linders, D. (2012) From e-government to we-government: defining a typology for citizen

coproduction in the age of social media. Government Information Quarterly, 29(4), 446-454.

Mabillard, V., Zumofen, R. & Pasquier, M. (2022) From registration to ‘active adoption’: Presenting

and testing a new measurement model to assess local governments’ adoption of social media. EURAM

Conference. Zurich University of Applied Sciences, 15-17 June 2022.

Mabillard, V., Zumofen, R. & Keuffer, N. (2021) Digital communication in Swiss cities: A closer look

at the low adoption and usage of social media platforms in a technologically advanced and innovative

country. Information Polity, 26(4), 341-354.

Mergel, I. (2016) Social media institutionalization in the US federal government. Government

Information Quarterly, 33(1), 142-148.

Mergel, I. (2013) Social media adoption and resulting tactics in the US federal government.

Government Information Quarterly, 30(2), 123-130.

Mergel, I. & Bretschneider, S. I. (2013) A three‐stage adoption process for social media use in

government. Public Administration Review, 73(3), 390-400.

Mori, E., Barabaschi, B., Cantoni, F. & Virtuani, B. (2021) Local governments’ communication

through Facebook. Evidences from COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Journal of Public Affairs, 21(4),

e2551.

Mossberger, K., Wu, Y. & Crawford, J. (2013) Connecting citizens and local governments? Social

media and interactivity in major U.S. cities. Government Information Quarterly, 30(4), 351-358.

Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Schulz, A., Andi, S. & Nielsen, R. K. (2020) Reuters Institute Digital News

Report 2020. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford, University of Oxford.

OECD (2019) Digital Government Index: 2019 results. OECD Public Governance Policy Papers, 3, 1-

68.

Pasquier, M. & Mabillard, V. (2017) La communication des organisations publiques. In: N. Michaud

(Ed.), Secrets d’Etats ? Les principes qui guident l’administration publique et ses enjeux

contemporains (pp. 841-867). Québec: PUQ.

Pasquinelli, C., Trunfio, M., Bellini, N. & Rossi, S. (2021) Sustainability in overtouristified cities? A

social media insight into Italian branding responses to Covid-19 crisis. Sustainability, 13, 1848.

Permadi, D. & Putri, T. E. (2022) Social media analytics for policy studies. In: S. Nair & N. Varma

(Eds), Emerging pedagogies for policy education (pp. 125-144). Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.

Picazo-Vela, S., Fernandez-Haddad, M. & Luna-Reyes, L. F. (2016) Opening the black box: developing

strategies to use social media in government. Government Information Quarterly, 33(4), 693-704.

Picazo-Vela, S., Gutiérrez-Martínez, I. & Luna-Reyes, L. F. (2012) Understanding risks, benefits, and

strategic alternatives of social media applications in the public sector. Government Information

Quarterly, 29(4), 504-511.

Reddick, C. G. & Norris, D. F. (2013) Social media adoption at the American grass roots: web 2.0 or

1.5? Government Information Quarterly, 30(4), 498-507.

Rivas, M. (2017) Communication channels for the city: old formulas revisited and new paths. Urbact,

Paris: https://urbact.eu/communication-channels-city-old-formulas-revisited-and-new-paths

(accessed 7 May 2021).

Sevin, E. (2016) Branding cities in the age of social media: a comparative assessment of local

government performance. In: M. Z. Sobaci (Ed.), Social Media and Local Governments. Theory and

Practice (pp. 301-320). Cham: Springer.

Sharif, H. M., Troshani, I. & Davidson, R. (2015) Public sector adoption of social media. Journal of

Computer Information Systems, 55(4), 53-61.

Simonofski, A., Snoeck, M. & Vanderose, B. (2019) Co-creating e-government services: an empirical

analysis of participation methods in Belgium. In: M. P. R. Bolivar (Ed.), Setting Foundations for the

Creation of Public Value in Smart Cities (pp. 225-245). Cham: Springer.

Sinte, S. (2019) La Commune de Jemeppe-sur-Sambre arrive sur Instagram. L’Avenir, 2nd October

2019.

Stec, C. (2015) Social media definitions: The ultimate glossary of terms you should know. Hubspot.

Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6126/The-Ultimate-Glossary-120-

Social-Media-Marketing-Terms-Explained.aspx.

Tornatzky, L. G., Fleischer, M. & Chakrabarti, A. K. (1990) Processes of Technological Innovation.

Lexington, MA: Lexington books.

Torres, L., Royo, S. & García-Rayado, J. (2020) Social media adoption by audit institutions. A

comparative analysis of Europe and the United States. Government Information Quarterly, 37(1),

101433.

UVCW & Region of Wallonia (2021) Bien communiquer sur les réseaux sociaux et éviter les bad buzz.

Webinar, June 23, 2021.

Zumofen, R., Mabillard, V., & Pasquier, M. (2022) Social media use in Central and Eastern European

cities: Defining government-citizen relationships through phases. NISPAcee Annual Conference.

University of Bucharest, 2-4 June 2022.

Zumofen, R. & Mabillard, V. (2021) L’utilisation des réseaux sociaux au niveau local : panorama de

l’activité et des pratiques en comparaison internationale. IDHEAP Working Paper 05/2021,

University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Appendix

Social networks as a tool for involving citizens in governance (using the example of the official pages of local administrations of cities in Central Russia)

Article

Jul 2023

Marina Valentinovna Roslyakova

Social networks are considered by the population as the leading way of communication, therefore public authorities use new technologies to inform and involve citizens in management. The purpose of the work is to evaluate the interaction of citizens and authorities using the official pages of local administrations on the VKontakte social network. The subject of the study is social networks as a tool of interaction between authorities and citizens. The article analyzes the official pages (state publications) of 7 large cities, which are the administrative centers of the subjects of the Central Federal District. Main research methods: analysis, comparison, generalization, methods of descriptive statistics. The author examines the work of Russian and foreign researchers on the problem of the use of social networks in the activities of public authorities. The indicators reflecting the effectiveness of official communities were studied: the activity of citizens on the pages, the level of involvement, the publication activity of the administration, content formats. The data was collected and processed manually and with the help of specialized services. There are few studies in which a comparative analysis of the interaction of local governments with citizens in social networks is carried out, so the article complements the current literature on digital communications in the public sector. An analysis of the indicators that characterize the activity and involvement on the official pages of local administrations shows that the practice of using social networks in the regions is different. All official pages are active, page owners (local administrations) and subscribers (citizens) are looking for ways to interact online. The results will help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the official pages and offer recommendations for improving the participation of citizens in the management process through social networks.

Social Media Use in Central and Eastern European Cities: Defining Local Government-Citizen Relationships through Phases

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2023

Research has shown the potential of social media to disseminate important information as well as transforming citizen engagement with government. However, implementation remains difficult, especially in public sector organizations. The success, impact, and performance of these new forms of networked interactions are yet to be fully explored, especially at the local level. Many municipalities are still experimenting with the use of social media, and few actively measure their performance on these platforms, as well as their digital interactions with the users. Different models or frameworks have been proposed to describe the types of government communication and activity on social media. They are addressed in this conference paper through three different phases, which refer to forms of government-citizen communication on social media. The original assessment method developed here contributes to the existing literature and provides guidance to practitioners. Empirically, our research relies on a database of cities that have between 100,000 and 500,000 inhabitants in European Union member states located in Central and Eastern Europe. It provides social media metrics for all cities included in our sample (N=82) and compares various indicators on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, thereby contributing to better assess how social media platforms are used by local governments in the region.

From registration to 'active adoption': Presenting and testing a new measurement model to assess local governments' adoption of social media

Conference Paper

Full-text available

Jun 2022

Social media are extending the information and communication technology landscape in the public sector. These platforms are used increasingly as a common organizational resource by public bodies. Measuring the activity of cities on social media is thus a recurrent topic of interest among scholars and practitioners. So far, few measurement models have assessed the adoption and use of social media by public bodies in a comprehensive way. Moreover, such methods often present a discrepancy between registration on social media and what will be labelled as “active adoption” in this conference paper. Our approach builds on the literature on technology adoption in the public sphere. Based on prior conceptual developments, it presents and details a new measurement model that focuses on quantitative indicators of Facebook and Twitter adoption by local governments. This effort is then complemented by an empirical investigation of the situation in Switzerland over a three-year period (2019-2021). The objective of this contribution is threefold: 1) develop a new measurement tool to assess public organizations’ adoption of social media; 2) use this innovative tool, based on specific metrics, to analyze the current situation in Swiss cities over 10.000 inhabitants; and 3) analyze the evolution of active adoption in Swiss cities from 2019 to 2021. Results indicate a constant increase of active adoption by the municipalities; however, this differs from one social media platform to the other. Finally, managerial implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed. They call for the creation of relevant thresholds based on organizational communication strategies.

Social media use in Central and Eastern European cities: Defining government-citizen relationships through phases

Conference Paper

Full-text available

Jun 2022

Social media for collaborative planning: A typology of support functions and challenges

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2022
CITIES

Yanliu Lin

In recent years, the widespread use of social media has increasingly impacted planning practice and policy making. Although a growing body of literature examines the impact of social media on urban governance and planning, there is a lack of theoretical understanding on the extent to which social media can support collaborative planning. This study identifies a typology of support functions of social media: information sharing refers to one-way information flows from government to citizens or from individuals and organizations to a wide audience in real time; social networking is about the networking of individuals and organizations, perhaps crossing geographical boundaries for collective actions; citizen participation is related to different levels of citizen power that may be enhanced by social media; and communication is diverse, characterized by multimodal, interactive and mass self-communication in various online public spheres. These support functions can be employed to assist different phases and scales of collaborative planning. Nevertheless, there are several potential challenges of using social media in urban planning, including population bias, privacy concerns, information credibility, (self-)censorship, and opinion polarization. The integration of social media, digital tools and traditional participation methods can help to support more inclusive planning processes.

L’utilisation des réseaux sociaux au niveau local : panorama de l’activité et des pratiques en comparaison internationale

Technical Report

Full-text available

Dec 2021

Lien fondamental entre gouvernants et gouvernés, la communication publique assure la diffusion de l’information auprès de la population. Elle vise à accroître à la fois la légitimité des organisations publiques et la cohésion sociale. Cette contribution se penche spécifiquement sur la composante numérique de la communication publique, les supports électroniques étant de plus en plus privilégiés dans les rapports entre l’État et les citoyens. Ainsi, l’adoption croissante des réseaux sociaux, à la fois du point de vue des utilisateurs que des gouvernements et de leurs administrations, s’inscrit au cœur de cette problématique. Cette contribution explore une thématique encore sous-étudiée : l’utilisation des réseaux sociaux par les villes et les contenus qui y sont diffusés. La première partie présente une analyse comparative inédite de l’usage des réseaux sociaux dans cinq pays occidentaux. Privilégiant une perspective de management public, et l’ajout de données recueillies auprès de responsables municipaux de la communication, la deuxième partie se concentre sur le cas suisse. Les résultats soulignent l’importance des ressources propres aux plus grandes municipalités, l’interaction encore limitée avec le public et l’absence de réelle stratégie de diffusion. Ils mettent également en avant l’importance des facteurs interpersonnels dans l’adoption des réseaux utilisés ainsi que les types de communication mobilisés sur chacun d’entre eux.

Digital communication in Swiss cities: A closer look at the low adoption and usage of social media platforms in a technologically advanced and innovative country

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2021

While a vast majority of local governments in Europe are communicating on social media, the situation differs in few states. Although Switzerland is often depicted as a technological advanced and innovative country, cities are still largely resisting the temptation to share information on social media platforms. In this study, we rely on a survey distributed to the communication managers of all cities over 10,000 inhabitants in Switzerland to uncover the reasons explaining this behavior. This approach is preferred to understand what motivates or prevents cities from communicating on social media, focusing mainly on perceptions of risks related to these platforms. Results indicate that some factors identified in the literature on public sector organizations slow down the social media adoption and usage at the local level; but interestingly, the conservative approach to social media preferred by numerous cities also plays a major role in explaining cities’ absence on these platforms.

Sustainability in Overtouristified Cities? A Social Media Insight into Italian Branding Responses to Covid-19 Crisis

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2021

The paper aims to reach insights into city branding in the Covid-19 context to discuss the projected brand propositions and their reliance oan sustainable brand attributes and values. This study explores the immediate response of overtouristified cities to the post-pandemic crisis by focusing on four iconic cultural cities in Italy, which are Florence, Milan, Rome, and Venice, and the related Facebook communication in summer 2020, right after the end of the lockdown following the first wave of contagion in the country. A content analysis of the official Facebook accounts of these cities provided an explorative insight into different destination brand approaches to dealing with the pandemic threat, revealed fading urban characters of the tourism experience and an expansion of the destinations from a spatial perspective, towards city-region destinations. The findings suggest potential configurations of the sustainable destination brand whose formation, in the case of the overtouristified cities, deserves further attention throughout the evolution of the Covid-19 crisis.

The Limits of Social Media for Public Administration Research and Practice

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2020

Governments around the world increasingly rely on social media to expand civic engagement. While these efforts are motivated by optimism that social media platforms have the potential to mobilize more diverse segments of the public, there is growing concern that the use of these tools by governments can reinforce existing power differentials and create new challenges for inclusion, accountability, and democracy. To understand the potential of social media to expand civic engagement we call for greater integration of science and technology studies literature into public administration social media research. By drawing from the science and technology studies literature, public administration researchers can better assess the political and social inequalities embedded in social media tools and better inform practitioners use social media to effectively engage the public. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

How do cities use their communication channels A study of social media adoption in two European federal states

Article

Jan 2022

Although they often remain active on other traditional and digital channels, such as newsletters, public sector organisations are increasingly active on social media to communicate with the public. While the usage of these social media platforms has gained attention from many scholars and practitioners, the articulation of diverse channels in cities’ communication has remained under-commented. In this article, we investigate this issue through an analysis of the channels preferred by Swiss and Austrian cities to communicate with the population. The following questions are of particular interest: What are the main communication channels used by cities? And are cities that communicate through multiple channels more likely to adopt social media? Results show that cities are less active on social media than on traditional and other digital channels; however, cities present on a social media platform are more likely to extend their presence on these new channels. Copyright © The Authors(s) 2021. Published by Inderscience Publishers Ltd.

Social Media Analytics for Policy Studies

Chapter

Feb 2022

It has been widely acknowledged that Information and Communication Technologies play a significant role in enhancing transparency and accountability by facilitating an easier, faster, and more flexible flow of information. Social media is being used by governments to improve the accountability and transparency through both bottom-up and top-down mechanisms. This chapter presents a study on social media analytics to draw insights on how it can be used as an unconventional but promising approach for policy studies. This study examines and compares the result of a public perception survey of internet users in Seoul, Jakarta, and Singapore to map the communication patterns and engagement between citizens and government through social media platforms. From a bottom-up perspective, it is found that social media are crucial and preferable in facilitating political communication from the citizens to their government. However, when viewed through a top-down lens, skeptical opinions regarding the government’s intention to implement citizens’ online aspirations to policymaking remain. The cases suggest that use of social media for city-level governance indeed enhances accountability in the “answerability” aspect and promotes transparency in the “dynamic” aspect of the government.KeywordsSocial mediaInformation and communication technologyDigital literacyCitizen engagementAccountabilityTransparencyCity governance

Local Governments’ communication through Facebook. Evidences from COVID-19 pandemic in Italy

Article

Nov 2020

The study aims at demonstrating how social communication has changed in terms of flows and content in the different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic to get to the fact that Public Administrations has embarked on a path of rapprochement with the citizen that starts from the methods of communication and interaction. Design/methodology/approach-This article presents an exploratory and multidisciplinary study conducted through the analysis of the Facebook page of the Italian municipalities with the highest Covid19-induced mortality rates (Piacenza, Bergamo, Lodi, Cremona, Brescia, Pavia, Parma, Mantova, Alessandria, Lecco and Sondrio). Fanpage Karma has been used to conduct the investigation and get the analytics. Findings-Local governments are implementing a process of gradual approach to the needs of the citizen and learning new ways of communication. In conclusion of our study-conducted at the time of pandemic-we can affirm that local governments are in an early stage of the process both for the acquisition of skills for social communication and for the definition of a communication strategy to strengthen their social identity aware of the fact that the agile and lean communication makes the citizen much more informed and involved in city life than traditional communication. Originality-This paper analyses a social network like Facebook as a not common tool for local government communication in a period of severe emergency. A multidisciplinary approach is adopted as a distinctive factor. The focus is on the contribute of social communication on citizens' engagement.

Local governments' communication in Belgium: a focus on social media adoption

Abstract

Recommended publications

Drivers and Challenges of Social Media Usage in Ghana’s Local Government Administration

Local governments’ communication in Belgium: A focus on social media adoption

Social Media and Crisis Communications: A Survey of Local Governments in Florida

Local governments' communication on social media platforms: Refining and assessing patterns of adopt...