Using Social Media to Promote Local Culture and Development - Patzun Case Study

JORGE LOPEZ-BACHILER; GILBER CORRALES; ELSA ESTEVEZ

Brighton

Conferencia; European Conference on Social Media; 2014

University of Brighton

This paper presents a case study in implementing a social media e-Government strategy by a rural government - the government of Patzun municipality in the Chimaltenango department of Guatemala. An agricultural municipality of 54,000 inhabitants located in the interior of Guatemala, Patzun is populated in 94% by indigenous Maya Kaqchikel population. The aim of the strategy is to use social networks to inform the public, encourage citizen participation, promote transparency and raise visibility for the community locally, nationally and internationally. The strategy includes YouTube video channel, photo collection on Google Plus and Pinterest, and a Facebook page, all promoting local culture and socio-economic development. The strategy received the first prize of the Iberoamerican Digital Heritage Award at 14th Latin American Meeting of Digital Cities in Quito, Ecuador in September 2013. In addition, the implementation of the strategy was recognized as a best practice by the Organization of American States´ MuNet Programme which promotes efficiency and transparency in local administration. This paper summarizes the experience of the implementation of the Patzun e-Government strategy for leveraging the use of social media. The experience includes: implementation challenges - changes in government due to electoral cycles, buy-in from government staff and support from the central government; success factors - political commitment granted by the Mayor and City Council, regulatory framework underpinning the strategy, teamwork, content licensing and full utilization of existing tools; and the lessons learnt - there is a strong need for rural governments to leverage the use of social media to communicate with citizens, a dissemination plan embracing available software tools should be defined, and multi-disciplinary team should be assembled for efficient strategy implementation.