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<p>Digital is the default engagement and communications channel for the Department
for Education. In addition to our presence on the GOV.UK website, we use a range of
widely available social media platforms to communicate. The Department regularly seeks
to develop the use of these channels in new ways, and to reach more people.</p><p>
</p><p>The Department has a particularly strong presence on Twitter, Facebook and
YouTube, with 129,000 Twitter followers – up by 60,000 since April 2013. Recent tweets
on policy activity during ‘Back to School Week’ have reached as many as 1.2 million
Twitter accounts. We have 25,560 Facebook followers – up by 12,000 since April 2013.
In the last full financial year (2013-14), our YouTube videos were watched around
279,000 times.</p><p> </p><p>The Department also regularly publishes content on relevant
third-party spaces, such as the TES Connect website, which is widely used by teaching
professionals as a place for discussion and information.</p><p> </p><p>In the last
financial year (2013-14), there were 5.4 million unique visitors to the Department’s
newly launched web pages on GOV.UK. All the Department’s publications are now published
on this website, in line with our digital strategy. National curriculum publications
have been the most popular collection of documents anywhere on the GOV.UK website,
receiving around 2 million views. Additionally, the Department’s e-consultations application
allows users to respond to public consultations online. This tool is widely used to
elicit views on a broad range of policy areas, informing their development and implementation.</p><p>
</p><p>The Department has used its social media channels effectively to make people
aware of public consultations – for example leading to around 5000 responses to the
consultation on changes to the national curriculum. On a similar basis, we use our
social media channels to make people aware of conferences and meetings at which Ministers
or departmental officials are speaking and answering questions. We also provide policy
colleagues with relevant public comments from our social media channels to help inform
their activity.</p>
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