I imagine that most of you have never heard of the Public Engagement Working Group, and that’s ok – that’s one of the reasons we started this blog, as there’s a lot of work that Participation Cymru are involved in that you might not get to hear about as it didn’t previously fit into the information processes that we had.
Essentially the group, which involves Welsh Government, Participation Cymru, NLIAH, Welsh NHS Confederation, WLGA, Wales Audit Office and Cardiff Business School, was put together to make sure that we’re approaching public engagement in the same way and that we weren’t duplicating each other’s work and that we collaborate where possible.
It was with all that in mind that the All Wales public services internet and social media survey 2012 was launched last September, so that we could get a good picture of what Welsh public service organisations are doing, to find out what we can do better, and to look at how we could spread the word about exciting work that is being done.
The results are in! And you can download them here.
We’re now putting the report together, which will hopefully be available by the end of the year. I have been tasked with putting together the sections on how organisations use Welsh language social media and how social media use is evaluated.
Whilst the report isn’t available as yet, there’s lots of good practice out there waiting to be tapped into! Rhodri ap Dyfrig sent me some very helpful resources around Welsh language social media. He also did a great presentation on this at a Welsh Government event that I attended in June. You can read the English presentation here, or watch the video above. There’s lots more information from the event available here. The Hacio’r Iaith project is also well worth a look at.
Esther Barrett of RSC has been a great help in helping me to look at confidence of Welsh Speaker’s. Her fantastic thesis ‘Somewhere along the line’ is well worth a read to better understand how important it is that services are provided in Welsh.
We’ve been quite timely in terms of evaluation – the UK Government Digital Service team has just written a really interesting blog on this. I’ve also found Helen Reynolds’ blogs on how we evaluate social media an inspiration – you can read more here and here.
We look forward to sharing the final report with you!
– Dyfrig
www.participationcymru.org.uk 
Reblogged this on Ace Digital Comms and commented:
ParticipationCymru do great work to achieve better public engagement in Wales and I was fascinated to read the latest results on how public sector organisations here are using social media.
There were an impressive 576 respondents of which 50% were from local
government, 19% Third sector, 17% Welsh Government
and 7% NHS and 6% other services.
There’s a long way to go in getting us to be a completely socially engaged country but these results show most of us are on our way now.
One finding I thought was encouraging is that lack of knowledge and/or skills (86%) and the fear of negative feedback and how to manage it (53%) were seen as the main challenges to effectively implementing a social media approach in
organisations.
Well that can be fixed with a bit of training, experience and confidence! If this is the main barrier to getting nearer to engagement on social media then we can get started right now on starting to jump over that hurdle.
I’m really looking forward to reading the full analysis of the results but for now the headline findings are interesting food for thought.
Cheers for reblogging this and for the kind words Helen!
There is a huge disparity in public services’ up take of social platforms. Local councils are ahead of the game with health trusts lagging far behind. It’s all about the culture within an organisation, and this is propagated by the leaders at the top. Firstly, they must have the right attitude. Aptitude can follow with the guidance and training in place.
Very true, that’s a great point! Really looking to delving deep into this report and looking at how social media is used at the moment and what organisations can learn from each other. As you say, leadership is vital in this!
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