Social Media

We use social media to keep people informed about our services, share news and updates, and engage with our communities. Having active, reliable social media channels is especially important during severe weather or a major emergency, when people need accurate and up-to-date information quickly.

Our channels

Our main Facebook page, OIC Updates, carries general news about Council services and events. It is also used during bad weather to share the latest information along with the OIC School Transport page for school closures and transport disruptions. 

For roads information - including Churchill Barriers closures and Kirkwall sea defence deployments - we have a dedicated Facebook page and two further channels on X (Twitter) and Telegram, all posting the same updates so you can follow whichever platform suits you best. 

Video content about the work of the Council is available on our YouTube channel. You can find links to all of the channels mentioned here below but a number of our other services also have their own social media channels which you can search for.

How we manage our channels

Our Communications Team administers our social media channels during normal office hours, Monday to Friday. They are not monitored around the clock, so please do not use social media to report a fault or make a complaint - we may not see it in time to help you.

To report a fault, get help with a service or make a complaint, please:

• Call Customer Services on 01856 873535 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm)
• Email customerservice@orkney.gov.uk
• Use MyOrkney, our online self-service portal [link]

To make a Freedom of Information request, email foi@orkney.gov.uk.

House rules

We want our social media channels to be useful, welcoming and trustworthy for everyone. We ask everyone who uses them to keep to the following guidelines.

Please:

• Be polite, respectful and relevant
• Make sure anything you share is accurate and not misleading

Please do not:

• Post anything unlawful, defamatory, abusive, threatening, obscene, sexually offensive or discriminatory
• Use offensive or inappropriate language
• Make offensive personal remarks about others
• Share content you do not own or have permission to use
• Post the same message repeatedly
• Share personal contact details - yours or anyone else's
• Advertise products or services
• Impersonate another person
• Use an offensive username or profile picture

We reserve the right to remove posts or comments that break these guidelines, and to block users who repeatedly ignore them or whose account or profile image is offensive.

These guidelines sit alongside Facebook's and X's own terms and conditions, which all users are also expected to follow. We will update these guidelines when needed.