Government ought to be careful in social media use

Media and broadcast specialists are urging the government to avoid using social media for policy bulletins and promotions, as the rate at which records spread on the Internet — for both correct and horrific — has become so speedy.

Danny Lin (林柏蒼), former chief govt officer of the micro-blogging service Plurk, who previously worked on Yahoo Messenger, said government agencies should have guidelines concerning using social networking websites for policy promotion.

Lin said that communicating with and handling an internet community is an ongoing process of noticing trivia within the organization, and it’s miles more than virtually budgeting a sum for the undertaking.

He stated that government groups’ media or communications departments must be accountable for recruiting social community managers who can be the branch’s voice on the Internet.

Lin stated that these managers ought to provide reports reading media responses to government policy so that enhancements or corrections can be made.

He said crisis management ought to be treated with transparency and neatness.

However, he stated that social networking websites aren’t the main platforms for the authorities to announce their rules.

Instead, groups must offer hyperlinks to their Web websites after making announcements on social media, permitting transparency and simplicity of getting the right of data entry, Lin introduced.

Facebook is the fundamental social networking site in Taiwan. Its number one customers are between 30 and 50 years old, the high demographic to target with photos or brief motion pictures with smooth-to-study textual content to promote governmental policy.

“Government companies need to avoid topics that would incite flame-wars to avoid losing recognition on the authorities’ message,” he added.

Flame wars are when users interact in a lengthy and abusive way over a particular difficulty or trouble.

They should additionally refrain from overemphasizing the potential engagement on a put-up and have to, as an alternative, make certain that the general public is aware of and familiar with the content material of the policies, he said.

New policies might high-quality be announced on specially created campaign websites — which need to be clean on the eyes and handy to the general public — to provide the general public a closer view of the coverage, he said, including that suitability of popular stay-streamers need to be assessed earlier than they’re approached to work with the government, as a number of them might undercut the authorities’ message.

Governmental commissions to agencies for policy promotions may want to focus on the wrong forms of key overall performance indicators, possibly bringing about “likes” and shares of submission; however, they should lose sight of the important balance they should preserve for governmental policies, Lin stated.

F especially favored by the younger generation, Instagram is extra useful for promoting easily understood principles but must no longer be the go-to medium for extended discussions, Lin said.

Du Sheng-Tsung (杜聖聰), chair of Ming Chuan University’s radio and TV department, said that while new platforms have to be considered in the Internet age, one must not unthinkingly choose Internet celebrities or famous live-streamers to promote government policies simply because it is the trend inside the corporate world or somewhere else.