Social Media Start Up

Written: 16.8.12
Today during my internship there was a meeting held to discuss what steps the Western Australian Electoral Commission (WAEC) should take with social media. At the moment the WAEC do not use any social media sites to engage the public. As one of the key challenges the organisation faces is appealing to the younger generation of 18 – 25 year olds it was agreed that social media needs to become a priority.

The WAEC will be setting up Facebook and twitter accounts in preparation for the 2013 State General election held in March. They aim to base their twitter feed on that of the Australian Bureau of Statistics last year. The ABS updated their twitter fellows with quirky trivia about the facts and figures the census had collected.

It was a good example of how something fact based and often regarded as boring can be effective in reaching a wider (and younger) demographic by using humour and trivia.

At the meeting it was decided that social media will be used as it is free and simple to use. A team consisting of two people will be responsible for coming up with the posts, both on Facebook and Twitter and they will be approved by senior management before being published online. There are some days that updates and posts can be planned in advance, ie. Reminding the public that the electoral roll closes the following day, while others will be more spontaneous based on any events or issues occurring that the public may be interested in on a more unplanned, day by day basis.