Social Media

User-generated information on social media can provide new kind of information about people’s activities and experiences in an urban environment. Moreover, social media provide a channel for people to self-organise and influence each other. Therefore, planners can see social media as an information source to integrate in planning process. Citizens can indirectly participate in planning process through it.

Basic Information on the Method
Mode of communication
Online
Group size
31 and more
Geographical scale
Public space, Neighbourhood, City, Region
Skills required
Basic, Average
Resources needed
Low, Medium
Level of Involvement
Level of involvement
Inform, Consult, Involve, Collaborate, Empower
Type of knowledge enabled
Divergence (Broad public), Convergence (Broad public)
Additional Criteria
Planning phase
Initiatiion, Planning & Design, Implementation, Evaluation & Research, Maintenance
Methodological approach
Diagnostic, Expressive, Organisational, Political

How to use the method

Social media can be used as a participatory planning method in three forms[1]:

As an interaction tool for participatory planning

When using social media as a tool for participatory planning, it is recommended to compose a social media strategy or plan. In this plan, goals for using social media, targeted participants, their needs for information and communication, as well as the tools or channels are identified. It is also needed to consider resources (e.g. time, money, tools), capabilities and peer-support for using social media.[2]

As a channel for bottom-up self-organization

When social media is used for self-organized participation the citizen can initiate a bottom-up participation process targeting for example to raise awareness of a topical local issue or to organize themselves to jointly influence planning through e.g. alternative plans.

As a source of information that reflects everyday practices

Social media can also be used as a source of information for urban planning. However, while this data can provide relevant information and reflect people’s everyday practices, these methods cannot be considered as participatory planning as the users are not actively participating.[3]

What are the outcomes

  • The goals of using social media are often related to reaching wider or new groups of stakeholders, and sharing easy-to-access information, but there are also expectations for better quality of communication, interactivity, and openness of the planning process.[4]
  • When used in an interactive way, social media may enhance inclusiveness, openness and transparency. However, as mentioned before, a social media plan or strategy is needed for these expectations to come true.

Skills required

Skills: basic, average

The skill requirements vary based on how the participant want to use social media as a participatory planning method.

  • Requires basic skill of sharing opinions and commenting on a issue when it is used as a interaction tool and information source.

Resources needed

Resources: low, medium

  • Requires skills of organizing and marketing when social media is used as a channel for bottom-up self-organization.
  • Requires big data mining skills when social media is used as a source of information.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths
  • Quick respond on public opinion
  • Openness and transparency
  • Supports citizens self-organization
Weaknesses
  • Bias of representiveness
  • Social media data are vast, noisy, distributed, unstructured, and dynamic[5]
  • Require advanced data mining skills and technique

Use cases

Social media is used in many different ways for planning, both in administration-led and citizen-led ways. In Helsinki, there are examples of self-organizing FB-groups (e.g. Lisää kaupunkia Helsinkiin, Helsinkiläisten Helsinki, Pelastakaa Helsinki) and FB pages own by the city (e.g. Helsingin kaupunki, project pages). In other cities also FB groups are used for planning projects. Cities and municipalities are using the most popular social media channels. In Finnish municipalities, the most often used channels are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[7]

Nikkilä, Sipoo

In Nikkilä, a small town of Sipoo, Finland, collective memories related to old buildings were built in local Facebook groups and other social media such as Instagram, Pinterest, etc. This activity shares old images (or images of old building) to provoke discussion. On that Facebook group, people share their memories, and provide information about the intangible aspects of the cultural heritage.

Try one of these tools & resources

There are hundreds, or thousands of different social media tools. These tools can be classified in different ways, for example: “collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia and Wikispaces), blogs (e.g., WordPress) and microblogs (e.g., Twitter), content communities (e.g., You-Tube), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), folksonomies or tagging (e.g., delicious), virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft), virtual social worlds (e.g., Second Life), and all other internet-based platforms that facilitate the creation & exchange of user generated content.[6]

Apart from this, there are various tools that help creating and curating content (e.g. TweetDeck, Hootsuite), and monitoring (e.g. Liana Cloud, Meltwater) social media. Some of these tools are free to use for some extent, but many are commercial.

References
  1. [1] Nummi, P. (2020). Hallitsematon tekijä? - Sosiaalisen median rooli kaupunkisuunnittelussa. An Uncontrollable Factor? The Role of Social Media in Urban Planning. Doctoral dissertation. Aalto University.
  2. [2] Nummi, P. (2020). Hallitsematon tekijä? - Sosiaalisen median rooli kaupunkisuunnittelussa. An Uncontrollable Factor? The Role of Social Media in Urban Planning. Doctoral dissertation. Aalto University.
  3. [3] Nummi, P. (2020). Hallitsematon tekijä? - Sosiaalisen median rooli kaupunkisuunnittelussa. An Uncontrollable Factor? The Role of Social Media in Urban Planning. Doctoral dissertation. Aalto University.
  4. [4] Nummi, P. (2020). Hallitsematon tekijä? - Sosiaalisen median rooli kaupunkisuunnittelussa. An Uncontrollable Factor? The Role of Social Media in Urban Planning. Doctoral dissertation. Aalto University.
  5. [5] Gundecha, P., & Liu, H. (2012). Mining social media: a brief introduction. New directions in informatics, optimization, logistics, and production, 1-17.
  6. [6] Khan, G. F. (2013). The government 2.0 utilization model and implementation scenarios. Information Development (SSCI). Online first. doi:10.1177/0266666913502061
  7. [7] Kuntaliitto, (2020). Kuntien verkkoviestinnän ja sosiaalisen median käytön kysely 2020. Available at: https://www.kuntaliitto.fi/tiedotteet/2020/kaksi-kunnanjohtajaa-kolmesta-sosiaalisessa-mediassa
  8. https://www.metropolis.dk/en/nikkila-memories-digital/