Social media in public sector: a study about the use of Facebook by municipalities in the Reconcavo region in the Bahia State, Brazil

Abstract

This study analyses the use of social media, especially the Facebook, by local governments. A quantitative and descriptive research was conducted collecting data from the 20 municipalities located in “Território Recôncavo”, a Bahia State area, in Brazil. The observed aspects were: kind of presence in Facebook, date of the first post, number of friends/followers, page administrator identification data, post contents, level of interactivity with users, and visual and language use. The results point out that 70% of the researched municipalities use the Facebook as an official communication tool, some of them since 2010. However, although the use of social media allows to reach a high audience, the number of page friends/followers corresponds to only 2.5% of the population of the region