Skip to main content

Public Diplomacy with Digital Diplomacy

Credit: OSCE/Mikhail Evstafiev
I strongly believe that Foreign Affairs Organizations have the opportunity to become pioneers in developing a comprehensive Digital Diplomacy and Social Media Strategy.

The Internet as a whole and the different Social Media applications provide an opportunity to connect with various stakeholders, online communities, interest groups and individuals.

The advantages of developing a Digital Diplomacy Strategy:
  • To communicate the message directly to the public across the world. Without having to rely on International Media, Journalists or the Foreign Press.
  • To harness public knowledge, share it with the world, so as to pursue national interests abroad.
  • To maintain contact with audiences online and to utilize Social Media to listen and target important groups of individuals with key messages.
  • To influence major online news leaders and International news agencies.
  • To listen and gather information in order to anticipate emerging political movements.
  • To connect and engage with other Foreign Affairs Ministries/ International Organizations/ NGOs and individual diplomats.
  • To communicate with the wider diplomatic community an active and dynamic Foreign Affairs Strategy

The priorities of using Digital Diplomacy and Social Media:
  1. Set up the initial presence in selected Social Media Platforms. This should be done in a proper, formal and professional way.
  2. Communicate the message correctly to different audiences around the Globe, through different Social Media.
  3. Connect with people searching for information.
  4. Create and utilize Multimedia (Photos, videos, audio).
  5. Maintain a comprehensive digital diplomacy strategy.

Social Media has dramatically shifted the ground rules of Public Diplomacy. As Public Diplomacy always seeks to expand the ways in which it informs and engages with people; Social Media offers a way to conduct that in real-time with much broader reach; and support current Public Diplomacy campaigns.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iranian elections, so what?

There has been so much press coverage on the fallout after the Iranian elections, and most of it coming from social media sources, YouTube, twitter, facebook, Blogs etc. What I don't understand is that: Did people in Iran just woke up to their reality? They are living in a totalitarian state, under the dictatorship of a religious figure (Ali Khamenei), citizens are afraid to talk openly, and always need to be anonymous in case someone from the state comes knocking at their door. So, did some people in Iran just woke up? Why did they have to wait for an election to protest and express their concerns? If the system is corrupt and biased towards the population now, then it must have been like this before the elections! I did also manage to watch some of the press conferences by the Iranian State representative, but I have not seen anything from the Mousavi campaign. Why doesn't the Mousavi campaign have a daily press briefing? Why doesn't Mousavi go on an Interview with a ...
1 comment
Read more

John Kerry and Digital Diplomacy

John Kerry delivered his first remarks as the new U.S. Secretary of State. In his first speech at the State Department, he noted :  "...We get to talk about empowering people through our ideals, and through those ideals hopefully they can change their lives..." This is really important to underline;  given that public diplomacy now has a much more crucial role to play. In utilising new and social media, people now have the opportunity to engage through digital diplomacy.  As Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine has said :  "...we have to introduce more and more virtual exchanges and the use of social media particularly to reach young people where they are..." Secretary Kerry Tours the Ops Center Also, I came across a tweet from the State Department which informed that #SecKerry will be tweeting from the  +U.S. Department of State  twitter account . #SecKerry will start tweeting fr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Twitter mistakes in Political Communications

A recent tweet from President Obama... stated : President Obama urges Congress to pass the infrastructure section of the American Jobs Act now. Listen live: http://wh.gov/live I have seen this in many tweets from politicians that have communications staffers operate their Social Media presence. This tweet is absolutely wrong! Barack Obama says: "President Obama urges Congress..." instead of writing "I urge Congress..." the copywriter wrote a tweet as if he/she is writing on their personal account. Clearly a big Social Media mistake.. P.S. IAB!
2 comments
Read more