Ways of municipalities use social media platforms: A study on Uşak Municipality and district municipalities

Social media channels play an important role in both interpersonal and mass communication today. Social media channels, which are actively used in mass communication both in the private sector and in the context of public institutions and organizations, are also very important for municipalities. Municipalities that use social media channels to share their services and interact with the public prefer these channels over traditional mass media. The concept of Municipality 2.0, defined based on the concept of Web 2.0, describes the integration of social media channels of municipalities into institutions. Communicating the activities carried out by municipalities to the masses through social media platforms and interacting with these masses is considered as Municipality 2.0 activity. Based on this, within the scope of the research, the social media channels of Uşak Municipality and District Municipalities were examined by content analysis method. The aim of the research is to reveal in which channels the municipalities have accounts, whether the information in the accounts is sufficient, how actively the channels are used and in what direction the shares are made. In the research, the municipalities' posts within a six-month period were divided into certain categories and it was tried to determine in which areas they used social media platforms the most. Within the scope of the research, the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts of Uşak Municipality, Banaz Municipality, Eşme Municipality, Sivaslı Municipality, Ulubey Municipality and Karahallı Municipality were examined. As a result of the research, it was seen that the municipality that used social media most actively among the municipalities subject to the research was Uşak Municipality, while the shares of the district municipalities were evaluated as insufficient. Within the scope of the analysis, it was observed that Uşak Municipality was mostly shared in the Events, News/Announcements/Invitation and Service categories.