Social Media in Government: Harnessing the Power of Online Platforms

1. Social Media in Government National Administrative Staff College BimalPratap Shah

3. What is Social Media Websites and applications used for social networking

4. Adoption • 1.4 Billion monthly active Facebook users • 1.124 billion people mobile users • 284 Million monthly active Twitter users • 1 Billion plus YouTube users • Instagram 300 million active users • Pinterest and Tumblr fastest growing social networks • American Facebook users spend on average 40 minutes per day on the platform. • On an average day Facebook users together click the Like button 6 billion times, while uploading 350 million photos and sharing 10 billion Facebook updates. • There are currently more than 30 million Facebook pages and 1.5 million advertisers.

6. When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place.

7. In the 21st century, the revolution may not be televised – but it likely will be tweeted, blogged, texted and organized on Facebook, recent experience suggests. • A new study finds that social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring.  

8. Government

9. Most Popular

11. Youths

12. General vs political or civic

14. Three quarters of all governments are on Twitter •  90 heads of state, 61 heads of government and 53 foreign ministers have personal accounts on Twitter and a third of these do tweet themselves. • Presidents, prime ministers or their institutions in 125 countries have a presence on Twitter.  • US President Barack Obama was the first world leader to sign up to Twitter on 5 March 2007 followed the same month by

15. Twitter Celebrities (Nepal) • PrabalGurung has 200,000 plus followers • Dr. BaburamBhattariai has 100,000 plus followers • GaganThapa has more than 70,000 followers • RabindraMishra has 66,000 followers, • Narayan Shrestha has 59,000, • Narayan Wagle 55,000 • SudheerSharma has 33,000 followers.

16. Key Considerations • Aligning Objectives • How does your organization’s social media strategy • support the overall mission? • Transparency and Collaboration • How does your organization’s social media use support the Open Government Directive for transparency? • ‹ Are key employees fully trained on how best to use location-independent social collaboration tools?

17. Key Considerations • Engaging Public • Does your communication policy framework encompass social media platforms? • ‹ What is your response strategy (for both negative and positive input) for citizen engagement? • ‹ How can private sector innovators work with organizations to engage citizens in providing services? • Privacy and Security • Are your organization’s privacy policies clear regarding collecting personal data and how that data could be used? • ‹ Do the security protocols for your organization encompass social media dos and don’ts? Is your staff educated on these protocols?

18. Key Considerations • Analytics and Metrics • Has your organization established a baseline goal of social media metrics? • ‹ Have you clearly identified what you are measuring and why? • ‹ Do you have a plan to combine social media metrics with other data analysis?

19. Risks to consider • Misrepresentation and misinterpretation  ‐ information and views can be spread very quickly and widely through online media and can easily be subject to misinterpretation and misrepresentation. • Lack of control – once online material is made public there is little control or influence over how it might be used or modified or integrated (‘mashed’). • Resourcing – establishing, contributing to and moderating social media sites takes expertise, time and resources. • Privacy – there is no guarantee that privacy can be protected. • Security – high traffic sites/accounts may pose a greater risk for ‘malware’ or ‘spyware’. • Time wasting – employees may use social media in a way that interferes with their duties. • Bandwidth – some social media requires higher levels of bandwidth. • Accessibility– some sites may be blocked or may not provide content in accessible formats

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