Perth has become the first UK city to engage with tourists and residents via social media in a drive to boost local business.

The project, dubbed SOCIALiSTREET, is funded by Perth & Kinross Council and will provide local information and updates throughout the year for the cities 44,000 residents.

Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest and YouTube will be used to collate information from every retail outlet in the city and will push out relevant offers, events and news.

“We know that the public are spending increasing amounts of time online and we wanted to make sure we were able to take advantage of the opportunity to engage with them about the things that matter to them most,” said Cllr John Kellas, Enterprise and Infrastructure Convener for Perth & Kinross Council.

“The service runs seven days a week and therefore social conversations won‘t be restricted to just business hours from Monday to Friday.”

The service, run by DestinationCMS, was originally created for UK shopping centres to improve footfall and loyalty, but has now made it onto the high street.