City’s $100k web bill

Council’s spend on dozens of social media accounts

THE Geelong council shells out more than $100,000 annually promoting its social media accounts.

The latest figures, released by the council, show that $54,120 was spent on maintaining the City of Greater Geelong’s dozens of accounts during the last six months of 2017.

Almost half of the overall figure was spent on the City of Greater Geelong ($13,431) and Love Central Geelong ($13,084) brands across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

It also manages accounts for Events Geelong, Enterprise Geelong, Digital Geelong, National Wool Museum, Geelong Youth and sport and leisure centres.

On average council staff dedicated a total of 227 hours per month tending to social media. The council spent just over $51,000 during the same six-month period in 2016.

It is a far cry from the bill taxpayers have footed to update Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ Facebook page.

News Corp last month revealed that his department spent more than $162,000 in a year on the platform.

The City of Greater Geelong publishes its social media costs twice per year, after councillors raised the alarm about excessive spending during the Darryn Lyons era.

An internal review revealed the council oversaw 54 social media accounts in May 2015.

It subsequently cut more than 20 of those and started logging the time it spent updat- ing and monitoring its digital presence. The City of Greater Geelong now lists 37 social media accounts across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

It has also tightened its internal regulations around the use of social media, following the damning findings of the Commission of Inquiry.

“Monitoring of its appropriate usage ... is not undertaken systematically and there is evidence of inappropriate use of social media by councillors,” the 2016 inquiry found.

A new social media policy was introduced last October, in the same month that voters elected a new council.