Butts County uses a variety of social media sites to help disseminate news and information about the County Government, local news, events, emergency information and other items that citizens may find of interest about our community. Our social media is designed to convey information about the County but the official online information site for Butts County is the website of Butts County at buttscountyga.com

In any circumstance where information on the County website diverges from information posted on a social media account under the governance of the County, the County website should be considered as the official and authoritative source of information from the government of Butts County.

Social Media is managed by the Public Affairs Division of the Board of Commissioners Office and its employees. Your use of our social media sites indicates your acceptance of our policies governing the use of these sites. On social media that allows for responses to postings, such responses are reviewed and we reserve the right to remove any responses that are offensive or abusive, as well as any statements made that are untruthful, misleading or have no basis in fact. We additionally reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic or which use a post in an attempt to appropriate such post for the purposes of making statements not relevant to the topic or which are considered spam. Depending on the severity of the offense, a user may have privileges revoked or be banned from further use of the social media site or sites.

Under the State of Georgia Retention Schedules for State Government Paper and Electronic Records, social media posts are classified as “Transitory” which is defined as “Messages of short-term interest with no documentary or evidential value; examples of such may include but are not limited to agency event notices, holidays, events which have a fixed date and which are no longer relevant beyond that date, road closings, meeting notices, weather notices, death notices and other posts that are intended only to be informative in nature to the public. Unless otherwise determined, the useful retention period of these records is 90 days. Social media posts that provide information that is only relevant at the time of its posting, such as weather notices, daily statistics and reports, the intent of which is to inform the public of information that will quickly be rendered obsolete by the passage of hours or days, shall only be required to be retained for the duration of time that such information is deemed relevant and accurate and may be removed once expired.

For the benefit of the public, we utilize the following social media:

Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ButtsCounty)

The official Butts County Georgia Facebook page is used to post notices regarding County events, office closings for holidays, news releases, County activities and emergency weather information. Because Facebook utilizes internal systems that selectively display posts to a portion of a page’s subscribers, there is always the possibility that some subscribers will not see all posts to the County Facebook page in a timely manner; therefore, it should be understood that users should not rely solely on Facebook to receive critical information. Interested users should manually go to the page when they want to see if updates have been posted or make sure their settings will allow for them to see as much page content as possible displayed on their timeline. The County does not allow followers to initiate or create new posts to the County Facebook page. The County Facebook page is not established as, nor intended to be, a forum and as such, is for display of information and outreach by the County only. Commenting on the official Facebook page is disabled at the uniformly collective level and not at the individual level, although other official agencies may be tagged in a post and thus allowed to contribute information relevant to a post. This is to protect the integrity of the page as well as to protect subscribers from potential exposure to objectionable material, potentially infected links or furthering the spread of misinformation.

The County may choose to share a post on Facebook created by other government or community entities, but it not responsible for any comments or information that might be shared by followers or readers of those pages.

County posts are informational to the public only. The County reserves the right to remove or delete any post whose information may be out of date, no longer relevant, such as weather alerts for example, or no longer within the prescribed period required by record retention, which in the case of Social Media for Butts County is 90 days.

Additionally, some County departments have their own individual Facebook pages. These pages may provide more specific information related to events and activities within their departments. These Facebook pages are governed by these policies as well and include:

• Butts County Clerk’s Office
• Department of Leisure Services
• Butts County Fire Department
• Butts County Office of Homeland Security

Twitter (@ButtsCountyGa)

The official Butts County Georgia Twitter page is used to post short, timely messages regarding County events, community news, holiday closings, weather closings, weather warnings and other emergency news and information. Because Twitter does not arbitrarily select which posts a user receives (depending on user settings) but generally displays all posts, the County typically utilizes this service on a more frequent basis to post more timely news and weather items, as well as emergency alerts that citizens need to be aware of.

Those who “follow” the County Twitter account may also choose to subscribe to updates so that they are alerted whenever a new Tweet is posted by the County. This is helpful if a user follows many accounts because County posts may be overlooked if a follower is getting multiple tweets all day. Users who follow Twitter on a mobile smart phone device can receive these alerts on the phone, usually within a minute of the Tweet being posted. This is especially helpful when severe weather is approaching or occurring as weather alerts are put out frequently in an ongoing severe weather incident.

Followers may post responses to Tweets if commenting is enabled for a particular post but any responses that violate the County’s terms of use are subject to blocking and may include blocking of the account that posted them. Additionally, some County departments have their own individual Twitter accounts. These accounts may provide more specific information related to events and activities within their departments. These accounts are governed by these policies as well. The County reserves the right to “like” or “retweet” posts from others; however, unless specifically stated, such activity should not be construed in any way as an endorsement of said tweet. Additional County accounts include:

• Butts County Clerk’s Office (@ButtsCoClerk)
• Butts County Fire Department (@ButtsCoFireDept)
• Butts County Office of Homeland Security (@ButtsOHSEMA)
• Butts County Parks/Leisure Services (@ButtsCoParks)

All tweets by the County are considered transitory messages of short-term interest with no documentary or evidential value and may be deleted if the tweet is no longer accurate, relevant or timely; otherwise, messages will be retained for at least 90 days before being considered for removal.

Instagram (@ButtsCountyGa)

The official Butts County Georgia Instagram page is used to post photographs relating to the County Government, its agencies and offices, events and pictures that are believed to be of general interest to the public. The County does not typically use this social media platform to make announcements or to issue urgent bulletins or updates. It is strictly intended to be an informative medium to the public through photography and to provide a pictorial timeline of the County. Followers may post responses to Instagram posts but any responses that violate the County’s terms of use are subject to blocking and may include blocking of the account that posted them.

For more information, contact the Communications Director of Butts County, who also serves as the Public Information Officer for the County. This office can be reached at 770-775-8200