Ten years ago I wrote a post listing the London boroughs who'd started using Twitter. Not many of them had, this being the dawn of democratic social media, the general feeling still being "I don't see what the point of that is".
But I managed to find nine of London's 33 boroughs who'd started tweeting, and with your help at the time I found one more. We missed three others (who'd only just started up), so they appear in this table too, making twelve in total.
The insignificant state of London borough Twitter at the end of March 2009
Borough
Twitter
First tweeted
Tweets
Followers
Barnet
@BarnetCouncil
May 2008
296
358
Hillingdon
@Hillingdon
Jun 2008
207
215
Lewisham
@LewishamCouncil
Oct 2008
95
314
Wandsworth
@wandbc
Dec 2008
84
209
Southwark
@lb_southwark
Dec 2008
52
180
Camden
@camdentalking
Feb 2009
193
178
Redbridge
@LB_Redbridge
Feb 2009
9
72
Lambeth
@lambeth_council
Mar 2009
31
99
Brent
@Brent_Council
Mar 2009
16
51
Haringey
@LBHaringey
Mar 2009
15
70
Croydon
@yourcroydon
Mar 2009
50
?
Bexley
@LBofBexley
Mar 2009
2
?
Sutton
@LBsuttonnews
Mar 2009
?
?
Twitter launched in 2006, but didn't really take off until February 2009 when Stephen Fry got stuck in a lift. Five London boroughs had already started tweeting before that happened, with Barnet the most groundbreaking by kicking off in May 2008. Numerous social networks have risen and fallen since, so they were probably just taking a punt, but it is amazing to recall the insignificance of what was going on with the benefit of hindsight.
By the end of March 2009 no London borough had tweeted more than 300 times, and only three boroughs were past double figures. Redbridge hadn't yet reached ten, while Bexley had tweeted twice early in the month and then gone a bit silent. Notice how all-over-the-place these dozen boroughs are, geographically, the chief requisite for action not being size or location but whether or not someone in the media team had decided to have a go.
The numbers of followers looks ludicrously small too, given that these boroughs had over two hundred thousand residents. Two of the longest-tweeting boroughs had managed to accrue over 300 followers, but none of the most recent starters had managed to pass 100. Given the difficulty I remember having trying to discover which boroughs were actually on Twitter and what their handle was, perhaps that's no surprise.
Ten years later, I thought I'd try the same analysis again. All 33 London boroughs are now on Twitter, obviously, and employ staff to announce, promote, educate and respond.
Again my table of boroughs is in chronological order. Large numbers have been rounded to the nearest hundred. To help make sense of the data, the highest numbers in each column are higlighted in green and the lowest numbers in each column are highlighted in red. I've omitted the City of London because it's mostly followed by people who work in it rather than live in it.
The state of London borough Twitter at the end of March 2019
Most London boroughs joined Twitter in 2009, but ten held out until the 2010s, and a couple waited beyond 2011. Kingston didn't take the plunge until 2012, while the true refusenik is Waltham Forest who took until May 2013. You can tell they weren't keen even then because the account was originally called @LBWFDemocracy, eventually flipping to the less strident @wfcouncil in 2015. A few other boroughs have changed their Twitter handle since they begun, including Greenwich who weren't initially Royal. Most of these also left their old tweets in place, whereas Sutton deleted their entire 2014 timeline when they switched from @lbsuttonnews to @SuttonCouncil.
The boroughs who've tweeted the least, intriguingly, include the borough which tweeted first. Barnet only tweets three times a day, on average, so has only managed to reach 13200 after eleven years. Kensingston & Chelsea still haven't reached quite 10000 tweets, while Bromley are definitely bringing up the rear with only 7066. At the other end of the scale, Richmond are by far the most prolific, with ten tweets a day mounting up to 36265 altogether. The average borough has tweeted 20000 times, indeed the list's quite bunched around this total, and half the boroughs choose to tweet 5, 6 or 7 times a day. Never annoy your audience by overdoing it.
The number of followers ranges more widely. Hillingdon is the unexpected winner of London's Most Followed Borough, with 45000 punters tagging along. What's more that's equivalent to 15% of Hillingdon's population, making this a particularly cost-effective way of communicating with residents. Greenwich are in second place, followed by the central big-hitters of Lambeth, Camden and Southwark. Greenwich are the only council to be coloured green across the board, suggesting that they've been utilising Twitter to the full.
Meanwhile Twitter hasn't really taken off in Bexley. They have yet to reach 7500 followers - even I've got more than that - and are only on the radar of 3% of residents. Maybe the people of Bexley are happier on Facebook. Northernmost London also has a particularly low take-up rate, with Barnet, Enfield and Waltham Forest all on 4%. Barnet are low despite starting first, while Waltham Forest are low perhaps because they started last. A good example of how similar boroughs have different outcomes is provided by Hillingdon and Hounslow - both have tweeted twenty-something thousand times, but one is followed by 15% of residents and the other by only 4%.
In conclusion, over the last decade social media has moved from experimental borough sideline to prime means of municipal communication. It's cheap, so has survived austerity, and in the best case could be reaching one in six of the population. Some boroughs don't quite get it, or aren't especially keen, but others are reaping impressive rewards. Come back in March 2029 to see if the top tweeters have kept it up.
