Musina Municipality wins national award for social media presence

Musina Municipality has been recognised as the country's best municipality in terms of social-media followers, winning the award for the most followed municipality at the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) national awards ceremony. The event took place at the Nkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (ICC) in Durban on Monday night (11 December).

Musina was the only municipality from Limpopo to receive a trophy during the award ceremony. Mr Wilson Dzebu, the communications manager of Musina Municipality, said he was humbled by the accolade and the acknowledgement for what they had been doing. Despite having one of the smallest staff components among municipalities in the country, with only two staff members in the communications unit, Dzebu emphasised the municipality's commitment to effective communication.

Dzebu noted that the award was not unexpected, citing Musina Municipality's recognition by the Limpopo provincial government for its communication practices. He mentioned that the municipality had recently been requested to present its best communication practices to Limpopo communicators during a provincial communicator’s forum session.

Musina Municipality's Facebook page boasts 149,000 followers, with daily updates. The municipality's communication team, consisting of Dzebu and an intern, sends out more than 5,000 bulk SMS messages to subscribers. Musina is also the only municipality in Limpopo with a WhatsApp channel, created last month, which already has more than 2,000 followers. The municipality utilises various WhatsApp and Telegram groups to connect with the public. Internally updating its website, Musina Municipality maintains one of the most up-to-date websites in the local-government sphere across the country. Additionally, the municipality designs professional posters in-house for dissemination on various social media platforms.

Dzebu's advice to other communicators is to be innovative, keep pace with the times, and use available resources efficiently.

Date:15 December 2023

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