Social Media in Smart Cities: An Exploratory Research in Mexican Municipalities

Social media tools have been the main tool in many municipal portals. Municipalities have used Twitter and Facebook platforms to improve communication and speed services provisions as an initial step to become a smart city. The purpose of this research is to explore such goals in eight Mexican municipalities of the Central State of Mexico. Through a mixed research - qualitative and quantitative - data collection of the KLOUT score and interviews of community managers, we explored this social media approach and the link with the smart city impact. We found that most municipalities are using these tools without a strategy or plan to become a smart city. Some of them - Tlalnepanta and Metepec - have an important strategy and the main goal of using technology is to improve their citizen relationship and inside process.