Local Offer annual report 2021/2022

Social media

The SEND Local Offer team manage two social media accounts; a Facebook account and an Instagram account.

9.1 Introduction

During 2021 and the beginning of 2022 the Southend Local Offer Facebook and Instagram account had low activity in terms of content creation and engagement due to lack of capacity within the team to provide content. People did not know what the Local Offer accounts were, or that they were run by the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Team in the council. We were not using the features available on social media; the design of the channels did not align with the corporate branding or the SEND Local Offer branding colours; and the logo needed a freshen up.

9.2 Improvement actions

During the first month of the Local Offer and Co-Production Assistant and Officer being in post (May 2022) the following actions were taken:

  • Included the word "Southend Council SEND" in our social media names and handles to make it clearer who the account belonged to.
    • Current Facebook name: Southend SEND Local Offer.

Current Facebook handle: /SouthendCouncilSEND

  • Current Instagram name: Southend SEND Local Offer.

Current Instagram handle: @SouthendCouncilSEND

  • Updated the description section on both platforms.
  • Cleared irrelevant saved posts from Instagram.
  • Saved relevant, important and useful posts to share in the future.
  • Cleared the list of accounts we were following to list relevant organisations and community groups.
  • Created an account on Linktr.ee to enable the use of a list of "useful links" in the description area as by default, Instagram and Facebook only allow one link.
  • Started to use the highlight feature on Instagram where we currently group: events, resources, consultations, news, and local classes and groups, to enable followers to find information more easily.
  • Opened an account on Canva to create professional looking images and graphics for feed posts, stories, flyers and other promotional material. This was subsequently upgraded to Canva PRO in July 2022.
  • Planned and created a monthly social media content calendar.
  • Created original content (static images and videos).
  • Achieved a more corporate look using our branding colours.
  • Networked, cross-promoted, and engaged with around 30 local organisations.
  • Joined various local Facebook groups where our content is shared.
  • Purchased an Awareness Days Events Calendar for 2022. This enables the team to easily find details of national interest days that are relevant to the SEND Community from which we can create relevant social media content.
  • Worked with the central Southend City Council comms team so that relevant SEND Local Offer content is shared on the corporate channels thus increasing the reach.

Further and ongoing actions:

  • Networking, cross-promoting, and engaging with local organisations and community groups.
  • Creating original content, especially video content.
  • Working with the Southend City Council central comms team so that relevant SEND Local Offer team social media content can be shared on Southend City Council channels.
  • Attracting more families and young people to follow us on social media.
  • Creating more short polls to encourage engagement and feedback from service users

9.3 Audience

Our social media audience is mainly based in Southend and are predominantly women aged between 25 and 55.

The number of followers on Facebook and Instagram has continued to steadily increase. At the end of December 2022, we had 588 followers on Facebook, an increase of 201 since the end of April 2022 and 538 followers on Instagram, an increase of 250 since end of April 2022, so nearly doubled.

9.4 Reach

Social media reach is a measure of the number of unique people who see content posted on social media. A high reach means you are posting relevant content at a time your audience is active. Having our content shared on stories, feeds and groups as well as posting regularly and engaging with other accounts helps us reach more people.

Reach of our posts is substantially higher on Facebook than Instagram even though we have relatively the same number of followers. This is due to the different groups we have joined where we share our content. We also have people and organisations sharing our content on Facebook more than on Instagram.

Data has been collected on the reach on Facebook and Instagram, month by month, from 1 August 2021 to 31 December 2022. The highest reach month was July 2022, closely followed by August 2022 and June 2022. We believe this is due to our communications about the SEND Strategy consultation at that time.

  • Total reach on Facebook across the period: 51,626.
  • Total reach on Instagram across the period: 4,084.

The post with the highest reach for the year was one about a terminology poll. The next highest reach post was for the SEND Strategy consultation.

Graphs showing reach figures for each month and most popular posts for each month have been produced but are not published on this page for accessibility reasons. Copies are available from the Local Offer Team at localoffer@southend.gov.uk

9.5 Facebook page and Instagram profile visits

A page or profile visit is any time a visitor reaches our social media accounts. That means the person was on a different site and clicked on a link or a post that took them to our Facebook page or our Instagram profile.

  • Total Facebook page visits from 1 August 2021 to 31 December 2022: 4,066
  • Total Instagram profile visits from 1 August 2021 to 31 December 2022: 1,355

A graph showing month-on-month Facebook page and Instagram profile visits has been produced but is not published on this page for accessibility reasons. If you would like a copy please email the Local Offer Team at localoffer@southend.gov.uk

9.6 General comments

  • the number of folllowers on Facebook and Instagram keeps growing steadily, and we are slowly reaching more families.
  • we became more active at the beginnning of May and are regularly engaging with various organisations. We shared original content every weekday, and this approach stretched throughout July and August, which explains the highest engagment in these months.
  • September saw the start of the school year, and the Queen's death when our social media activity stopped for 2 weeks. We assume the lower reach in September was due to this
  • from October onwards, we have reduced the number of days a week we post new content from 5 days a week to 3 days a week. This is due to capacity in the team, and to enable us to do other work including attending community events. This means that engagement with other accounts and organisations has also been reduced, but we continue to share content in our stories every weekday.
  • whilst more people are following our social media, we do not get much engagement on our posts in terms of people starting a dialogue and providing us with information, for example, if we ask, `tell us about your favourite activities` we do not get many replies. This may be due to a particular desire of the follower not to engage with our account, and we should also consider posting at the right time, posting quality content, humanising a brand (pictures of the people behind the team) and adding calls to action (for example, `Like if you agree`, `share if you like`. These are some general reasons why we might not be achieving a high reach currently that give us some ideas for how we can potentially improve on this in the future.
  • we gained momentum during the first months of new activity and we now need to work on "what's next" in terms of content, trends and similar to attract our audience. Some ideas could be the creation of short videos which has become more popular, and spotlight posts introducing the different members of the SEND team.
  • we have received positive feedback as people start to notice new activity on our social media and are enjoying the content we have shared in our channels. Colleagues and parent carers have expressed they see our posts more regularly; and they like the look and colours used on our platforms and the fact that our photos include a range of ethnicities and are representative of minority groups, as well as people with special educational needs and disabilities.