The Town of Cochrane has released the results of a survey conducted last month, which sought in part to determine if the community agreed with administration’s decision to delete the comments section from the municipality’s Facebook page.
Lisa Almond, executive director of organizational strategy and culture, presented the findings at the committee-of-the-whole meeting June 19.
The Town enlisted the help of private polling company Advanis to gather representative information on two main areas: how residents were receiving communications from the Town; and whether residents agree with the decision to close the comments section of municipality’s Facebook page.
The administration’s page is separate from individual pages any council members may have and is designed to be apolitical.
The results presented included a combination of the Advanis survey (a statistically valid, representative sample of the entire population) supplemented by the Town’s own feedback mechanism, Let’s Talk Cochrane, which allows for anyone interested to take part. As such, the Town’s survey is not statistically valid.
The Advanis survey revealed that when it came to how residents currently receive their Cochrane-related communications, newspaper articles and the Town’s website each came in at the same rate – 60 per cent of respondents, with results varying according to age group.
In the 44-plus age group, 70 per cent of respondents said they used newspapers, which fell to 47 per cent for the 18 to 44 year old category.
Those numbers were reversed for social media: 71 per cent of the 18 to 44 group said they used social media to receive municipal communication, whereas 43 per cent of the 44-and-older group said they used social media for that purpose.
When asked how they would prefer to receive communications (distinct from how they currently do it) the Advanis survey showed that 31 per cent of respondents would prefer email newsletters and notifications, 16 per cent would prefer the Cochrane Eagle, and Facebook and Instagram were ranked at 10 per cent each.
Full results of both surveys are available on the Town of Cochrane website, Cochrane.ca. The website is currently being reviewed as well, with a new and improved version expected to be ready by the end of the year.
Administration cited concerns over false information being shared on the Town’s Facebook page, additional staffing costs to monitor social media, and the escalation of abusive and slanderous behaviour as the rationale behind deleting the comments option on Sept. 22, 2022.
Taking the two survey methods in concert, the verdict on the results was mixed. The Advanis survey had 54 per cent of respondents favouring turning the comments section back on, with 27 per cent opposed, while the Town’s own survey came in at 41.9 and 45.7 per cent, respectively.
Coun. Marni Fedeyko said the decision should be reversed.
“When, administratively, it was shut off, I don’t think council even knew . . . and I think it was wrong,” she said.
“I don’t see why we’re waiting to turn social media comments back on,” she said. “When we’re not hearing people, I think we’re doing a real disservice.”
Coun. Patrick Wilson echoed Fedeyko in advocating for turning the comments option back on.
However, Coun. Alex Reed said he wasn’t ready to “jump on the bandwagon” of turning the comments back on. He pointed out that the feedback in the survey was all over the map, and other members of council had selected comments to focus on “depending on their own particular bias, but it is very diverse.”
Almond noted the presentation was for information only, and no long-term policy directions were being suggested. Any recommendations on policy, and permanent decision regarding the comments section would be made in the fall, she added, when administration would be coming back with a full review of the Town’s social media policy.
Until then, she said the Facebook page remains an active communications tool for both sending out and receiving information.
“There’s lots of ways to interact with us on Facebook – it doesn’t have to be with comments,” she said.
Other municipal jurisdictions, including Canmore in Alberta, and Tofino, Kamloops, and Fernie in B.C., have also turned off the comments sections.
In the broader context, Coun. Susan Flowers cautioned that leaning towards social media would be unfair.
“Seniors still read newspapers. They don’t use Facebook stuff or any of that, so I think we’d be discriminating against seniors if we took (newspapers) away,” she said.
She read all of the comments in the survey and selected and read out a couple she found particularly powerful.
“’Please don’t allow the reoccurring people to diminish our community. Don’t allow the bullies to win – stay strong. And many comments about how much better our mental health is, to have comments turned off,’” she said.
Flowers also cited some comments she thought warranted repeating, including suggestions like a ‘submit your comments’ option that would allow people to comment back to the Town, but not have it posted publicly. This, she said, could help to avoid those people using the site for “grandstanding or trying to influence elections and negative comments.”
“There’s so many ways you can engage people other than getting feedback on Facebook,” she said.
Chief Administrative Officer Mike Derricott said as private social media platforms cater to specific demographics, the challenge will be figuring out how and when to customize communications strategies nimble enough to keep pace.
He pointed out there is an increasing number of social media platforms being used, with different age categories accessing different platforms, which become more or less popular as time goes by.
“This is going to be an increasing challenge, where we’re going to reach 15 per cent of our population on Facebook, 10 per cent on Instagram, 13 per cent on ‘GhostSnap’ or whatever the kids are using these days – I don’t even know,” Derricott said.
He said that challenge will have a cost, and because people don’t know yet what the next “big thing” will be, developing a Town app as a platform independent of a third party makes the most sense.
He added the survey didn’t distinguish between hard copy newspapers and digital formats, which would also be an important piece of information guiding the Town’s future communication policies and strategies.
As at all committee-of-the-whole meetings, there was no vote on any policy directions.
