Cull defends social media spend

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