Page 97 - Proceeding 2015

URS Nicolae FAMP

SOCIAL NETWORK USE IN ROMANIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: BIG CITIES, SMALL STEPS
CCASP

we found out that only 9 of the 17 positions are occupied. The same situation can be encountered in other
city halls (Cluj-Napoca has 8 people, on paper, but only 4 people are actually hired). This part of the
dataset is thus flawed, but it helps in painting an even bleaker picture of the importance given to ICT in
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
the Romanian city halls.

It seems to be no correlation between the percent of people in city halls employed by the ICT departments
and the success of their Facebook presence, and the probable answer is that the Facebook account (or

fan page) is usually maintained by the people in the communication department of the institution.

engagement rate ICT positions

2,50 4,0%
3,5%
2,00
3,0%
1,50 2,5%
30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest 0,50 1,5%
2,0%
1,00

1,0%
0,5%
0,0%
0,00

FIGURE 6 – COMPARISON BETWEEN ICT EMPLOYEES AND ENGAGEMENT RATE
Source: The Author

CONCLUSIONS

The main conclusion of this research is that the vast majority of the county seats city halls still have a lot
to learn on how to take advantage of social networks to engage the citizens. The potential for real
communication between public institutions and the citizens exists, but the interest for this varies a lot,

depending on the city, but it is usually quite low.

If we look at the fact that the top 2 pages in the engagement ranking and the top 4 pages in interaction
rate ranking are fan pages, we can come to a preliminary conclusion that Romanians like to be able to

put a face on the public institution (in this case, the mayor being the face of the city hall).

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