When we refer to communication in public administrations, it is sometimes done in a general way without taking into account the specificities of each one, as if it were the same to talk about the Ministry of Justice as it was to talk about the Hervás City Council in Cáceres (and here I am advertising my town, which appears in the photo), which has just over 4,000 inhabitants.
According to data provided by the INE (National Institute of Statistics and Census), of the 8,131 municipalities in Spain, 7,737 have fewer than 20,000 inhabitants, representing 95% of the total.
It’s also true that even in those municipalities with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants, the differences between them are vast, but they will surely have more in common than when compared to larger administrations.
I’ve had the opportunity to experience and witness the differences between different public administrations throughout my professional career. I went from managing communications at the Valencian Employment Service (Labora), an organization with 55 offices spread throughout the Valencian Community, 1,500 employees, and serving 600,000 people, to working for the Calpe City Council, which has a registered population of 20,000, although in the summer this figure rises to 125,000 thanks to tourism.
Now that I’m at the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, another public body with completely different characteristics, it allows me to gain perspective and analyze the communication peculiarities of small and medium-sized municipalities, which I summarize below:
1 There is everything as in the Lord’s vineyard
By “we can find everything,” I mean that there are city councils that have a presence on every social network in existence, a well-developed array of channels and formats to reach their target audiences, and a clear and defined strategy, while other city councils have a simple website as their only communication channel.
The same applies to those responsible for managing communications and social media. We can find cases like Calp City Council, which has a communications department staffed by three career civil servant journalists, or city councils where the mayor himself personally manages social media.
However, it’s more common for communication in small municipalities to be linked to the mayor’s office, and social media management is done on two levels.
On the one hand, there would be institutional accounts managed by people close to the mayor’s office; and on the other, if in addition to these main accounts there are other accounts for council or departmental departments, they would be managed by people who work in those departments and have this task in addition to their regular work.
2 Few resources and a lot of willingness
These are two of the main characteristics of communication in small municipalities. They have limited resources, both human and material, which are met with a great deal of volunteerism, hard work, and imagination.
We must be grateful and acknowledge the efforts made by many people in our local governments who are responsible for managing social media, even though they often lack the specific training and resources to do so. Speaking of resources simply means having a high-quality mobile phone that allows them to take photos and videos and then post them on social media.
I still remember the call from a colleague who worked in the IT department of a city council asking for my “help” because she had been assigned to open Twitter and Facebook and manage them, arguing that “since that has to do with computers,” it was the IT department’s responsibility.
Managing social media and doing so with the quality and professionalism expected of a public agency is no easy task, and our administration may not have staff specialized in communications or social media management. However, we do have people we can provide with the training and minimum resources to do this job to the best of our ability.
And if we can’t offer training or even minimal resources because this isn’t possible, perhaps we should consider that, while we’re very sorry, our city council can’t be on social media. Just as we wouldn’t consider offering a telecare service if we didn’t have the staff or technical means to do so.
But let’s not despair because we can find solutions like the one outlined in point 3.
3. What if we shared resources? The role of provincial councils
Yes, it’s true, there are municipalities that can’t afford to hire someone to provide training, or have a service to create infographics or videos. Well, why not offer these services jointly?
This is where provincial councils come into play, since just as they offer services to small municipalities that they otherwise couldn’t offer to their citizens, the same could be done in the field of communications.
A provincial council can establish a communications team with professionals from different backgrounds, such as journalists, community managers, graphic designers, SEO specialists, or audiovisual content creators. This team could support small town councils by helping them choose which social media platforms they can use, creating infographics or posters, offering training on various tools, or helping resolve questions about a feature or tool, to name just a few examples.
And let’s face it, a town of 500 inhabitants isn’t going to be able to have a journalist or a community manager on staff, but if it has the support of a team of these characteristics, it will be easier for one or more people from that town to dedicate part of their time to managing different communication channels with citizens.
4 Communication is 360º
One of the first differences I found between the public employment service and Calp City Council was the shift from subject matter specialization—in my case, everything related to employment—to a general understanding of the topics addressed by the city council.
When you’re in the Ministry of Health, for example, the issues you deal with are logically those related to the health sector, just as if you’re in the Ministry of the Environment, they will be those specific to this area.
However, when you’re in a small or medium-sized municipality and you’re managing communications, you discover that you have to know everything. You might have to cover sports, culture, patron saint festivals, or beach cleanups. This means you have to know practically everything, at least minimally, to avoid making a mistake.
Just as city councils are the administrations that deal more comprehensively with all aspects affecting a person’s life, the same applies to communication, which is undoubtedly quite complicated and requires the collaboration of all areas to provide the best information to citizens.
5 You know your target audience almost by name
This is undoubtedly one of the great advantages of working in a small administration, as it’s easier to get to know the people you’re working for, something much more complicated, if not almost impossible, in larger administrations. This closeness makes it easier to understand the topics that spark the most interest or even the type of language to use.
Without a doubt, in small municipalities, communication is much closer since you know who’s behind even the anonymous profiles.
However, this close relationship also has its downside, as sometimes this trust or familiarity makes it more difficult, for example, to have to say no when someone suggests publishing certain content or information. This would be unthinkable even for someone to suggest in a larger public administration.
6 Men and women orchestra
If there’s one thing about the people who manage communications in small municipalities, it’s that they increasingly resemble one-man bands who have to know how to do practically everything related to communication.
If there’s one thing about the people who manage communications in small municipalities, it’s that they increasingly resemble one-man bands who have to know how to do practically everything related to communication.
And all this without forgetting that in many cases, all this communication activity is outside of their other main activity. Therefore, when someone thinks it’s just about posting well, those who manage social media know that it requires a lot of work, and that it’s increasingly complicated with so many stories, Twitch, filters, and GIFs.
7 There are no schedules
Communication in city halls has no timetable. The life of a town never stops, and most events take place outside of the normal business hours of a public administration.
Cultural, festive, and sporting activities take place in the afternoon, on weekends, and even on holidays such as the Three Kings’ Parade, Carnival, and Holy Week.
In larger public administrations, these celebrations are usually one-off, and larger municipalities have more staff to work shifts or even hire companies to cover these events.
But in small municipalities, all these events are covered by the same people, often without any kind of recognition or compensation for it, since, in short, and this is often said to them, “you just stop by and take some photos for Facebook.”
8 Innovation is easier in a small town
It’s true that large public administrations have more financial and human resources, but they also face many more obstacles, hurdles, and impediments to launching any initiative or idea.
In a small municipality, decision-making processes are often faster and more agile because they don’t have to go through multiple levels of hierarchy, validation processes, validation committees, subgroups of validation committees, etc., which slow down the implementation of any initiative, no matter how small.
Therefore, let’s take advantage of this circumstance to test, innovate, and develop new channels and ways of communicating with citizens. I am convinced that the communications revolution in public administrations will come from small and medium-sized municipalities.
9 When our main advantage disappears
One of the main advantages that small municipalities have over large public administrations is their proximity and ease of communication. It’s very easy to visit the town hall in any small town to carry out any procedure or business in person.
But the coronavirus crisis arrived, and everything changed. We found ourselves under lockdown and social distancing measures that meant that your town hall, which was just a few meters from your house, was, in practice, as far away as any ministry in Madrid.
But there was also an added disadvantage, and that is that unlike the ministry, your city council in many cases did not have channels for communicating with it, beyond the telephone (which was overloaded) or email (which was barely answered) because until that moment it had never needed them.
During those first few weeks, I received numerous inquiries from small municipalities asking me for advice on what channels they could open to communicate with their citizens, which they could also open very quickly and that were easy to manage (a miracle cure, in short), because they didn’t know how they could communicate with their citizens when it couldn’t be done remotely.
If this crisis has brought anything, it’s that it has highlighted the need for digital communication channels in public administrations, regardless of their size and characteristics. This is not only in the face of a possible new pandemic, but especially to make it easier for citizens to contact their administrations without having to physically travel, no matter how close they are.
Small municipalities are not exempt from implementing e-government, no matter how close they are to their citizens.
We face the challenge of knowing which channels we should be on and which ones we shouldn’t, and above all, how we can manage them without losing sight of the limitations inherent to small municipalities.
Without a doubt, this is a challenge for small and medium-sized businesses and municipalities, which will have to incorporate communication with their citizens among their priorities and objectives.
If you need help developing a communications plan for your city council or public administration, this guide may be helpful: “Guide to developing a communications plan for a public administration” here.
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To showcase the work we do in public administrations, I have a #30Minutes interview program that I broadcast live on my Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube channels. You can find all the information about #30Minutes here. If you haven’t seen the previous programs, you can watch them on my YouTube channel. They’re also available as podcasts on Ivoox, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.
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