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Walsall Council is the latest to take advantage of Twitter to document its routine during a typical 24 hour period, in an aim to demonstrate the work that goes on behind the scenes. The initiative follows the success of Twitter campaigns such as Greater Manchester Police's Twitter day.

The council started using the microblogging site from its @WalsallCouncil account in 2009, and realised it could be used to show residents how their council tax money is spent.

Twelve staff members took turns to tweet from 6am on 3 March until 6am on 4 March using the #Walsall24 hashtag. Amongst the tweets were potholes being fixed, roads being resurfaced as well as environmental health officers launching a dawn visit to a house to check-up on a noisy cockerel complaint. In total, more than 1,300 tweets have been posted by the council and its followers using the hashtag. Images of work being carried out were also posted to Flickr.

According to figures from TweetReach, a website which can calculate the exposure of a hashtag or campaign, tweets containing #Walsall24 were seen by more than 160,000 users. With a local population of 250,000, Walsall council staff were pleased with the outcome and extent of exposure.

Local government press officer Dan Slee commented that many residents do not appreciate the work done by the council and are unaware of many of the 700 services it provides, which include out-of-hours care and school crossing patrols. He said on his blog that the campaign 'does aim to nail the urban myth that all we do is bins'.

The #Walsall24 campaign required no additional cost and the initiative was fully supported by chief executive Paul Sheehan and council leader Mike Bird. 'Things have gone really well and there has been some amazing feedback not just from Walsall but across the world,' said Bird. The success of this campaign could pave the way for another, perhaps incorporating video next time, said Slee.

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