Greensboro City Council meetings coming soon to a Facebook page near you.

The City Council meetings have been broadcast live on the Greensboro Television Network (GTN) for years, but starting probably in February or March the City Council meetings will also be broadcast live on the city’s Facebook page.

City Councilmember Justin Outling said he became interested in making better use of Facebook when former City Councilmember Tony Wilkins posted some clips from City Council meetings on his Facebook page and he saw how many people viewed and commented on those clips.

Outling said he also followed a debate in Charlotte on whether or not the Charlotte City Council meetings should be broadcast on Facebook and said he didn’t see any downside to getting information out to more people.

Outling said, “Many people interested in local affairs are not going to read the News & Record. But they’ll watch a few minutes of a video if it pops up on their phone.”

Outling said he talked to the GTN about what would be involved in getting the meetings on Facebook and found out it the cost was relatively small compared to some of the city’s other outreach efforts.

David Brown Division Manager of GTN said they figured the total cost including installation would be about $1,000 and he thought the City Council meetings would be up on Facebook in February or March.  Brown said there was some IT work that had to be done and that he had talked to people at other cities that are broadcasting on Facebook about their experiences, the best way to go forward and the cost.  He said now it was just a matter of getting everything in place.

So sometime in the next couple of months City Council meetings may have a whole new audience.