Department of Communities WA Social Media Audit and First-Day Brief
Context
Anthony Martin commenced as Social Media Officer managing communications for the Western Australian Department of Communities in August 2026. This page records the durable strategic findings from the public-source audit supplied on 2026-08-28. It is a public baseline, not a substitute for native platform analytics.
Strategic baseline
The Department's current remit spans child protection, community services, homelessness, prevention of family and domestic violence, disability services, early childhood education and care regulation, women's interests, youth, seniors and ageing, carers, and volunteering.
Housing moved to the Department of Housing and Works in July 2025. Corporate social profiles must be checked for legacy housing descriptions and other obsolete metadata.
Official corporate channels identified: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X. WA Seniors Card has a separate identified Facebook presence. The audit did not establish a need for ten additional portfolio accounts.
LinkedIn is the largest visible audience asset at approximately 46,143 followers; Instagram was approximately 2,515 followers at the time of audit. Public data cannot support reliable twelve-month follower-growth, reach, impressions, paid-spend or sentiment claims.
Public examples indicate that human, tangible-outcome and social-native video content materially outperforms routine administrative or consultation posts. Youth Week creative is the clearest benchmark.
Recommended channel roles
Channel
Primary role
Starting cadence
LinkedIn
Institutional reputation, workforce, sector and policy
4–5 posts/week
Facebook
Broad community utility, human stories and conversation
4–6 posts/week
Instagram
Visual participation, Reels, explainers and younger audiences
3–4 feed/Reel posts/week
X
Fast news, regulatory updates, media and issue response
Need-driven
WA Seniors Card
Service-specific older-audience communication
Analytics-led
Priority operating recommendations
Obtain thirteen months of native platform, advertising and website analytics before increasing posting volume.
Tag every post by portfolio, audience, objective, format, campaign and organic/paid/partner distribution.
Measure service outcomes—applications, enquiries, bookings, submissions and completions—not only likes or follower growth.
Build channel-native versions of major announcements rather than copying one post across every platform.
Scale recurring human-first and co-designed formats, with informed consent and trauma-informed safeguards.
Separate organic owned, boosted owned, paid dark/standalone and partner/earned distribution in reporting.
Establish an escalation matrix for safeguarding disclosures, sensitive personal information, emergencies, misinformation and media issues.
Make captions, alt text, readable graphics, plain English, translations, Easy Read and other accessibility requirements publishing gates.
Key campaign benchmarks
16 Days in WA: strong integrated owned, partner, event, sponsor and earned campaign architecture.
Coercive Control / “A Story That's Not Ours”: strongest example of culturally specific co-design and multilingual adaptation.
Youth Week WA: strongest public evidence for social-native, youth-participatory creative.
Working with Children Check: treat as an ongoing behaviour-change program with action KPIs, not disconnected regulatory notices.
Carers, volunteering, disability and seniors programs: extend personal stories and measure the relevant service or participation funnel.
Immediate first-week checklist
Confirm administrator access and ownership for all corporate and paid accounts.
Export or request Meta, LinkedIn, X, advertising and website data for 1 July 2025–28 August 2026.
Correct legacy Housing references across profiles, banners, pinned posts, links and automated responses.
Obtain the current moderation, safeguarding and after-hours escalation procedure.
Map the forward campaign calendar against the eleven content pillars.
Create a 90-day plan in which every item has an owner, approval status, accessibility status, CTA and KPI.