Aberdeenshire Council is joining forces with local authorities across Scotland for the second time to encourage local residents to engage with them via social media.

Twitter 24 is a national social media event which last year saw 28 Scottish councils tweeting around the clock in a bid to give residents an insight into a day in the life of a local authority.

The initiative aims to raise awareness about the breadth and complexity of services offered by councils, while allowing residents to engage directly with council officers.

Employees from across Aberdeenshire Council will take a few seconds out to tweet about their services from the frontline or tweet useful information for residents, allowing the council’s Twitter followers a unique view of the daily scope of activities.

This year’s event will take place from noon on Tuesday, September 18, until noon the following day and residents are being encouraged to join in the debate by using the hashtags #mycouncil #aberdeenshire.

A hashtag is a special character that Twitter uses to collect, spread and organise discussions on various topics.

The council has over 5,000 followers on its main Twitter feed, @aberdeenshire, almost double the number it had at this point last year.

Twitter is a micro-blogging social network where users can post tweets of up to 140 characters. These often contain links to other content such as website pages and photographs.

People who do not already have a Twitter account can find out more about it and sign up for free at www.twitter.com/about