Tapping into the use of social media applications for harnessing the citizens' collective intelligence in the strategic digital city

The fast-paced technological advances, the availability of social media applications for participation, and the great amount of data to be interpreted are defying policy-makers to interact and communicate and to take measures to respond accordingly to the citizens' expectations. This research analyzes social media strategies in the strategic digital city for harnessing the citizen's collective intelligence. The research methodology used was a case study of a Brazilian city. Data were collected from a structured interview and from the 2013-2016 social media report released by the city hall. Results reveal that the local government uses social media applications for broadcasting institutional information and service information, for service delivery, and crowdsourcing practices. The research analysis concluded that the city of Curitiba uses social media as a strategic digital city resource for strengthening citizen engagement by envisaging different crowdsourcing practices and some novel content and action-driven strategies as storytelling, piquing curiosity, the use of memes, pop culture, the creation of characters, nicknames, among others.