The City of Brno has been recognised at the national level for the quality of its communication with residents. The non-profit organisation Kvalikom evaluates the quality of communication in cities and municipalities on various platforms, in three categories. The organisation announced the results for 2024 over the turn of the year, with Brno taking home two first places and one second place in the category of cities with over 10,000 inhabitants, from four categories entered.
The city’s website won the municipal website of 2024 category, and the City of Brno Instagram profile won the Golden Like of 2024 award, while the monthly magazine Brněnský metropolitan finished second in the municipal newspaper of 2024 category. Even the final platform entered, the City of Brno Facebook profile, was recognised, winning 2nd place in the regional round of the Golden Like award.
The City of Brno’s communication channels reflect attempts to cater for foreign residents of the city. The Instagram account is fully bilingual, and the website is available in an English version.
“This represents a big commitment for us to maintain the current quality of our communication outputs and to develop them further,” said the Mayor of Brno, Markéta Vaňková. “I would like to thank all colleagues who participated in obtaining these awards.”
The current version of the City of Brno website was launched on 1 July 2022, replacing the previous one after 13 years. The site runs on a platform that also runs 9 mini-sites belonging to the city. It is also used by two city districts, and another 14 have the production environment at their disposal and are gradually deploying the content of their websites.
The City of Brno’s platform also withstood several series of cyber DDoS attacks, proving its security. “Even with the passage of time, the Kvalikom assessment confirms that it was possible to concentrate the very complex and extensive agendas of a large city in a clear and structured manner on one web portal,” said Brno city councillor for IT, Tomáš Aberl. “While Brno and its organizations and companies now use a large number of different communication platforms and channels, handling requests and initiatives or offering various services and payments, in the future we plan to merge everything into one city mobile application, to create a unified platform integrating all important city services. I see the benefit in a single, simple and clear solution that should make life easier for the people of Brno and for everyone who comes here for various reasons to visit our city.”
Each entrant in the Kvalikom competitions will receive a detailed written evaluation from the organisers, which the city plans to use to help further improve its communication channels. According to the city’s representative for marketing and PR, Kateřina Jarošová, the city is also updating its uniform visual style, which will be partly reflected in the graphic form of Brněnský metropolitan.
“In the dynamically changing environment of social networks, we are always looking for ways to get content to as many users as possible,” said Jarošová. “Thanks to the many years of intense attention we have paid to their input in comments and messages, Facebook and Instagram in particular have become an effective communication channel that is used by both parties, where users ask questions and know that they will get answers to them. We also used the feedback from the public collected in the municipal poll ‘How to better inform about Brno’ in the communication strategy, the preparation of which is currently being finalized.”
“It has been confirmed that we are successful compared to other cities, not only thanks to our innovative projects and large investments, but also in the area of communication,” said the secretary of the City of Brno, Oliver Pospíšil. “The Press Center, the Department of Municipal Informatics and the Office of Marketing and Tourism have a large share in this, however, it must be emphasized that the cooperation of practically all municipal departments involved in the preparation and processing of published information is important, and quality technical support is also essential. The maximum number of activities are carried out in-house, so it can be seen that we are able to provide employment for talented and capable employees in the public sector.”
