Social media

Frequently asked questions

Before you ask a question on social media we recommend that you check first to see if the information you need is already available on this website. This will avoid you needing to wait longer than necessary to find the answer to your question.

Posting out of hours

• We check our social networks on a regular basis throughout normal council office hours (Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm). This means if you ask a question on a weekend, an evening or on a bank holiday we will not see it straight away.
• We may occasionally schedule in reminders about closures and events which may be posted on weekends and out of hours.
• If you have an issue that requires urgent attention outside of these times, please check thecontact us page for emergency phone numbers

Please do not use our social networks to report information in an emergency.

Why have you not responded to my post or comment?

• We try to respond to as many questions and comments as possible. Even if we do not reply to you, we take all comments into consideration
• Some enquiries require us to ask another service area for a response - this means that it might sometimes take a while before we reply
• If you require an immediate response to a question, we would advise contacting the relevant department directly. Details are on our contact us page
• It may be the case that a similar question to yours has already been responded to on the profile, or that the information is available on this website

Why did you delete my post or comment?

In certain circumstances we may need to delete posts or comments. They may be removed for a variety of reasons including:

• Swearing and abuse - our pages are intended to be used by everyone. Any offensive language or threats  will be removed without warning. This includes swear words where letters are asterisked out, substituted with acronyms or replaced with other letters. If your comment has been deleted, please feel free to resubmit your comment with any offensive language removed.
• Personal details - anybody in the world can see the comments you leave on our wall. To protect you, we may remove any posts that contain personal details about you or other people, including phone numbers, car registration numbers and home addresses/postcodes. If you have a query that you need to provide personal details for, please email or call us.
• Business promotion - any messages promoting a business or company will be removed. This includes members of the public posting 'for sale or wanted' requests. Please be aware that any organisations that we are working in conjunction with (for example, that are sponsoring an event) may be featured in our posts. If you are a business - why not register with NEPO [external link] where you will receive notifications to tender from the twelve North-East councils.
• Repetitive, off-topic and irrelevant posts - irrelevant, off-topic and repeated/duplicated posts can reduce enjoyment of the pages for other users and discourage them from joining discussions. We may remove these posts.

We will also remove comments that are:

• libellous or defamatory
• discuss ongoing legal proceedings
• promote a political party and/or extremist views. 

If you frequently break the rules, we will ban you from posting on our social media profiles. In serious cases we may report a post to the police or the social network.

Privacy of messages

If you comment on our Facebook page (or join a discussion started by someone on our page), everyone in the world will be able to see what you said - not just friends and family.

If you want to contact us privately, email addresses for all service areas are available on our contact us page.

Why have you asked me to contact a department directly?

In some circumstances we may ask you to contact the service directly with your enquiry (either by phone, email or online). Some examples of when we will ask you to do this are when:

• The enquiry is too complex to discuss or respond to online
• There is a risk that personal or confidential information could get shared in the public domain as a consequence of dealing with your enquiry
• You have photos, images or videos you wish to share with us 
• We cannot guarantee we can get you a response over social media in time and it would be quicker and more convenient to contact the department directly
• The issue can be reported using Report It
• Sometimes we may point you in the direction of our website, if it contains the information you need

This means you will get a quicker response by contacting the department directly, and allow us to focus on answering other peoples' questions.

In busy periods where there are issues that may affect a lot of people (for example: school closures or bad weather) we may not be able to respond to individual enquiries.

I've tried calling you and I can't get through!

Please keep trying, or use an alternative means of contacting such as email. Phone lines are busy on Monday and Thursday mornings, Friday afternoons, lunchtimes and at certain times of year (for example, in April when the Council Tax bills go out to residents). 

Please do not use social networking to report urgent issues.

You may be able to carry out your request online - visit Report It to see what we provide. The issues you can report to us online include: dog fouling, graffiti, littering , broken glass, fly tipping, full bins, dead animals, weeds, potholes, broken pavements and streetlights.

Similarly, if you are awaiting a response to an enquiry you sent to a service area (either by phone, email or online) our social media accounts are not the best place to ask where your response is as we will not have background knowledge. 

Liking, following, retweeting, favouriting and sharing

We may choose to 'like' or 'follow' organisations or individuals and 'share', 'favourite' or 'retweet' items that we think may be of interest. This does not necessarily mean we endorse them and we do not hold responsibility for the content of other profiles.