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Newcastle first council to "Tweet" an election

Newcastle City Council last week became the first council in the UK to announce election results in real time through the social networking website Twitter.

The results for the Fenham ward by-election were sent to ‘followers’ of the council through the website or on their mobile phones as soon as they were announced.

Peter Holt, the council’s Director of Communications and Marketing, said: “We’re always looking for fresh ways of keeping the people of Newcastle up to date with the things which affect them, and especially in engaging them in two way conversations when we do, and we think Twitter is a fantastic way of doing both of these things.

“As far as we’re aware no council has ever ‘tweeted’ an election before, so Newcastle really is leading the way both nationally and potentially internationally.”

The council joined Twitter in December 2008. So far it has posted more than 200 updates or ‘tweets’ mainly covering news, council events and job vacancies.

Tweets are made in response to the question “What are you doing now?” with updates are given in 140 characters or less to people who subscribe as ‘followers’ of a person or organisation. Followers can view these updates on their own Twitter pages or have them sent to their mobile phones.

Twitter saw a 974% increase in UK traffic in 2008 and news stories such as the Hudson River plane crash broke early on Twitter, with some of the most famous images of the wreckage posted to the site by onlookers.

Celebrities and politicians including Stephen Fry, Peter Mandelson, Jonathon Ross, and Barrack Obama have Twitter accounts and regularly update their fans.

Newcastle City Council’s Twitter feed can be found at twitter.com/NewcastleCC.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .