Should My Department Have a Facebook Page?

This article is part of our Cyburbia series, featuring interesting conversations and perspectives from planners in the trenches on public engagement challenges they face in their daily work. The
Cyburbia Forums is the oldest and most active urban planning message board on the Internet.

An entry level planner approaches his manager and asks if the department should be considering creating a Facebook page to get the word out about current projects. Says he knows a planner in the Bay Area that has recently done this for his community. The manager is skeptical. His only experience with Facebook in this context is work-related questions that would come in directly to him from residents, which foiled his attempts to have a personal life in the small town he managed.

So, is this a good idea? Or a bad one - to have a Facebook page dedicated to your community and managed by your city department? What about controversial projects you are working on? He is concerned about citizens posting rants, and formal objections that go on record forever.

Below are the highlights from respondents to this challenge on Cyburbia:

Everything we do is public record.
Because of this fact, Facebook poses a problem. It makes more sense to start a twitter account for the community. This would be much more beneficial for something like posting updates. “On occasion I'll post something I'm working on via LinkedIn (sort of twitter-ish), but it’s my personal account. If a citizen has something to say they should call, write or email or contact their elected representative.” By Cyburbian beach_bum

Not The Ideal Venue For Interaction
“Have you ever read the 'comments' section at the bottom of any local or even national news source? I rest my case.”

“I agree that nothing good can come from it, at least not if you are allowing comments. If you are using it exclusively as an effort to notify rather than truly interact, then it might be OK. I could also see creating them [Facebook pages] for specific planning projects, like a Comprehensive Plan or Downtown Plan. Definitely dangerous though--know your population before you throw this tool out there. ~ By Cyburbian, Suburb Repairman

Different Types of Facebook Pages / Staying on Top of Social Media Communication
“People need to remember, Facebook has different types of "pages". There is your "personal" page, and then there is what is called a "fan" page or other similar page. A department wishing to be on Facebook should set up a "fan" page. This gives ultimate control. It gives you the ability to allow to post items such as links to staff reports, updates to projects,calendar of events page to sync people to pc meeting/cc/bos, workshops, and other public events. In addition, this page allows you to just provide this info, and no users posts.  We tried the Facebook approach for one of our transportation enhancement projects and we found 2 problems:

1. the fan page allowed access to my personal page (oh so bad). Facebook has since corrected this problem through security settings
2. Know your audience. The town to which we did this in. Not so tech savy (we had only 1 person join our page).”

~ By Cyburbian CPSURaf

Alternative Online Public Engagement Tools
At EngagingCities, we like the idea of using Social Media to post updates about projects, and engage citizens with simple questions. However, Facebook may not be the right online venue for in-depth public participation. The tools for facilitating conversations and collecting feedback here are limited; therefore we think of it more as an outreach tool. Social Media is the new word of mouth, not using it as an outreach channel is a missed opportunity.     
       
See results of “Fan of town of X Planning Department” Facebook Poll and find out how other expert respondents weighed in on this subject >>