Cull defends social media spend

Dave Cull.
Dave Cull.
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull has hit back at claims councils are wasting money on social media advertising.

Mr Cull's comments come after the Taxpayer's Union released figures showing the Dunedin City Council was the second-biggest spender on social media advertising out of all New Zealand councils.

According to the figures, it spent a total of $65,292 on social media in the 2015-16 financial year, behind only Auckland Council, which spent $187,870.

Taxpayers' Union executive director Jordan Williams slammed the spend, which totalled more than $440,000 for councils across the country, as wasteful.

''While no-one would object to councils using Facebook to get public information to residents ... these figures make it clear that councils are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on propaganda branding exercises.

''Ratepayers get absolutely no value for that.''

Mr Cull defended the council's spend on social media, saying it had always had a budget for marketing and disseminating information to residents and social media was just another way of doing that.

It was his understanding much of the city's social media spend was from Enterprise Dunedin marketing campaigns, aimed at attracting people to either holiday or move to Dunedin.

vaughan.elder@odt.co.nz

Comments

Any questions that were asked of Cull on his Facebook page (page now closed) during the lead up to voting, had a very professional Graphic design page linked to his replies. Rather than just type a reply to answers on the Face book Page it was linked to another website. Cull also admitted that his Facebook page was run not only by him but third parties. I hope the rate payers of Dunedin didn't pay for these costs including the 3rd party and they came from Cull's own wages.

 

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